How to Fix Salt Sensitivity - Siim Land Q&A

Hey, welcome back to the channel, my name is Cim Lund and we're gonna do another Instagram Q&A. If you want to ask me a question and get featured in this Q&A, then yeah, make sure you follow me on Instagram at Cim Lund and I'm doing those Q&A's regularly there. This episode is brought to you by Bond Charge, formerly known as Blueblocks. My favorite light and sleep compensation company, Blueblocks, has rebranded themselves as Bond Charge. They're now involved with a huge range of evidence-based products to improve your wellness and life in every way. Their extensive range of premium wellness products helps you to sleep better, perform better, have more energy, recover faster, balance your hormones and reduce inflammation. My favorites are their red light lightbulbs because they can be used to create a melatonin friendly environment in your bedroom by shining only red and not blue or green light waves that will reduce your sleep quality. After starting to use these red light lightbulbs, I find it much easier to fall asleep and feel less awake before bed. If you want to try out these amazing products that are the cornerstones to my most optimal sleep, then head over to bondcharge.com.org and use the code CIM15 to save 15%. the best fat burner through that mechanism, but there are, let's say, very few actual compounds that can also help with, you know, increasing the metabolic rate and thermoregulation by being like a fat burner. The only one that I know is like alpha johimbine is the only thing that I've tried myself and I do feel that it has like this, let's say, fat burning effect and when I do take it then it's much easier to lose fat when you are, let's say, doing cardio and that kind of thing. But the caveat to that is that it also like, you know, can make you a bit jittery or makes you feel like a bit like a tunnel vision if you take it too much. So yeah, be kind of careful with that. Generally, I much rather stick to just, you know, caffeine, just regular coffee, maybe green tea is also like a very safe and a thing like that. But I wouldn't go for any like these, let's say, more actual fat burners. Most of them just work through caffeine. Even if it's like green tea extract or something, most of the results are just going to come from caffeine that makes you just move more and burn more calories. Does cardio cause more hunger? Well, the research does suggest that, you know, if you're doing exercise then you tend to have better hunger and leptin sensitivity. So you're not actually getting hungrier the more exercise you do. It kind of fixes your leptin sensitivity in a positive way that makes you, let's say, or helps you to regulate your appetite and satiety much better. So no, generally exercise won't make you hungrier unless you are, you know, doing a ton of exercise. That of course makes you hungrier by virtue of you needing more energy. That's like a natural response. But getting like this uncontrollable hunger and cravings then that can happen if you get like too stressed out from the exercise. So yeah, like doing too much cardio can like make you crave stuff, but it shouldn't make you hungrier if you do it the right way and in like a moderation. Compared to resistance training, then resistance training, in my opinion, doesn't have any like hunger increasing effects. Cardio might, but the both of them overall in the long term will improve your leptin sensitivity that actually helps you to regulate your appetite a bit better. Can you do ice bath every day? Is it good or bad for your body? So I wouldn't recommend doing like an ice bath or cold exposure every day because, you know, it can have like a negative effect on your thyroid and of course it can also like suppress muscle hypertrophy if you do it at least after the workout. So yeah, you don't want to be doing that chronically every day. I would much rather do it only in like rest days or before lifting weights. So as a pre-workout, almost like in the morning on the days. Does a hot bathtub have the same effect as a sauna? It might to a certain extent, it can raise your body temperature, it can have like some heat shock protein activation if it gets super warm. The only problem with the hot tub and hot bath is that it also like reduce your sperm count if you're a man and can reduce your fertility. So I wouldn't do that at least if you're trying to conceive or at least not chronically for sure. It, yeah, other effects can have like something similar although I would imagine that it, you know, for it to have the same effects as the sauna, the water would need to be too hot for you to bear. So it's much easier to get it done with a sauna. Broad multivitamin a bad idea? Yeah, so taking like a regular multivitamin, I don't think that it's worth it or, you know, you do get all these different vitamins and stuff but generally they're not really absorbed because you, first of all, you get in too large amounts, unreasonable amounts and second of all, like some of them may compete with each other in terms of absorption. So yeah, like actually like smaller quantities and taking them separately is probably better. There are like a few studies that I've noticed that have, that a multivitamin has like a cognitive effects in the elderly, taking a multivitamin improves cognition and prevents cognitive decline. So in that sense it's also, you know, can be beneficial but it shouldn't be a necessary option if you are eating a good diet. Like you can take one ounce of liver every day and that's your multivitamin. Much much better, much more bioavailable, better solution than that. Are all collagen supplements good or should I look for something specific? I mean generally collagen is collagen. There isn't any significant difference between marine collagen or bovine collagen, so beef or fish and yeah, I mean some collagen can come from, let's say, hooves of cows, others come from, you know, nails and skin and whatever but yeah, generally collagen is still collagen in terms of the amino acid profile. You just need to maybe like look which source is okay for you, like do you want marine or bovine but generally the amino acid profile is generally the same. Vegetables always cause bloating for me, leave them out entirely? So you know, that depends on the severity of your bloating and are you getting other symptoms. If you're only getting bloating then chances are it's much more to do with your gut health and your digestion than the vegetables because I mean, I eat vegetables every day in large quantities and I don't get any bloating, yeah, very lean and have no issues with that. So it has to do with your subjective digestion and there are ways to, you know, improve that. First of all, I would start with basically preparing them better, so cook them more thoroughly, steam them, boil them, oven cook them, whatever it is but don't eat them like raw. So don't eat like these vegetables completely raw, that can for sure cause issues because of the high fiber content and making them more like softer, breaking down some of the fiber makes them for sure easier to digest. Then you know, if there is certain, let's say, certain plants like beans or something then you need to soak them, chances are like you don't need to soak broccoli but you definitely need to cook it thoroughly. You can add apple cider vinegar, you can add some salt to it and oil, olive oil, actually you need some fats to absorb some of the nutrients from vegetables as well and greens, salads, so adding vinegar, olive oil and salt is the perfect like, you know, health combo but it's also a good culinary combo for making it tasting better. Connection between Blue Zones diet and longevity. So Blue Zones, these are longevity hotspots, they have quite diverse diets or they don't have like identical diets. Some identical things that you do have is that they eat some plants and vegetables, they tend to have olive oil in their diet, some of them drink some red wine, maybe except the Okinawans but they do eat fish, they eat protein, they eat meat for sure but yeah, they're not like a super meat heavy diet, they eat like basically a good balanced diet that has plenty of vegetables as well as olive oil is kind of the main commonalities amongst most of them and I think more importantly is what they do in addition to the diet. So they also maintain physically active lifestyle, they have a very close community, they have social connections, they have a purpose in life. So I think they have a clean environment, they don't live in like very urbanized environments so I think that's more important in terms of the longevity and the diet isn't that important when it comes to health and longevity, I think what matters more is the calorie intake, making sure that you get enough nutrients, you're not deficient and you're pretty much covering those aspects of longevity than doing some low-intensity exercise and making sure that you're happy. So I think a lot of the reason why these people live long is that they're happy, they're happy with the family and social environments. What do you think of nofap and semen retention? That's an interesting question, I haven't had that one in a long time. So I think for males it's not healthy to like ejaculate every day or something or multiple times a day. They do have studies, at least one study that I've seen that the abstaining from ejaculation makes your testosterone rise up to the point of day 7 and it doesn't increase from there. So maybe like once a week if you're interested in boosting your testosterone levels can have some rationale behind it but in a realistic scenario something like, let's say it's healthy probably to ejaculate maybe twice a week or something. You don't need to do them more than that and let's say ejaculating every day is probably not that good. If you do ejaculate a lot then you need to consume more zinc basically, like seafood, oysters and protein. What's better to eat if I lay down all the time? Knee injury. Is it okay to keep high carb? So I guess that means that you're like injured right now and you can't move and you're sitting on a couch pretty much all the time. So in that case I would stick to low carb keto, there's no reason to eat like high carbs and it's probably better for your blood work if you do that. So high protein, high carb vegetable, sorry, high protein and plenty of vegetables, some healthy fats as well and you know, take collagen, BPC-137 can help. So yeah, blood flow restriction training with Kato bands, you can even do that without raising up, without standing up. How to lower or prevent high blood sugar from fasted exercise? Well yeah, I mean it's inevitable that your blood sugar will rise during exercise and I think there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing unhealthy about it, it's a natural response. Things that can raise it too high can be that you're doing the exercise after consuming a lot of caffeine or after being like super sympathetic, like taking a cold shower then going for exercise, sleeping only two hours and then going for exercise. So yeah, make sure that you're not overly stressed out before the exercise. So you know, drink tea actually, not coffee maybe, green tea before. It's going to help with some of the exercise adaptations and helps with the longevity side without raising your blood sugar the same way caffeine does and fat burning as well. All right, best collagen powder you recommend for women? The one I like right now is by DoNotAge. So they have a perfect collagen peptides powder and it's actually pretty cheap as well, DoNotAge. The code is SEAM, S-I-A-M for 10%. How much protein per day to build muscle? So you know, the recent study that I saw by, cited by Menno Henselman said that you need only 0.7 grams per pound of body weight. So that's like the minimal that you can see, but I personally think that yeah, optimally one gram per pound of body weight is a good thing to aim for. You can stick to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight as well. So if you weigh, let's say 75 kilos, then that's going to be around 70, sorry, 150 grams protein or 140 grams protein, somewhere between there. You can get more, but it's not going to help you build muscle more. So I personally, I weigh 82 kilograms, so I'd stick to around 160 grams protein or 140 to 150 grams, somewhere between there. And what I've noticed is that if I'm eating more carbs on a high carb diet, then I can get away with less protein. And likewise with keto, you can get away with less protein if you are keto. So you need to have like this basically energy substrate, whether that be glucose from carbs or ketones from fat to make you protein sparing. If you're not in ketosis and you're not getting carbs and you're eating a ---- ton of protein, then that can make you like catabolic. You can start to lose muscle. But if you're getting energy from carbs or fats, then yeah, you can get some less protein. To do, next question. Can someone do OMAD with morning workouts and still get the benefits of a long fast? Yes. You know, there's one option that you eat in early part of the day and you fast until the evening and sleep in a fasted state. So that's option. The other option is that, yeah, you still eat, let's say dinner, you work out in the morning and you fast after the workout for many hours. So that's not the ideal for recovery side. But I mean, yeah, in certain situations, every once in a while, you can still pull it off. What I would recommend to do is, you know, you can work out still in the morning in a fasted state and have like two meals. So you need to do OMAD. So you have a fasted morning workout, you have lunch and then you have dinner. You're going to get pretty much as many results as you would do it with OMAD. And the only difference is that you're going to make more gains and you're going to progress faster. Is there a way to correct salt sensitivity from other than abstaining from salt? So salt sensitivity tends to, in my opinion, happen if you're, you know, pre-diabetic or you have insulin resistance. So high levels of insulin and high carbohydrate intake makes you retain more of the salt and the sodium and the water. So that's going to cause the hypertension from that. If you're restricting carbs, you're eating low carb or keto, then the high salt intake, first of all, you're not going to retain that much sodium because you're going to excrete it and you're going to lose the water weight as well in so doing. So, yeah, I think the best way to correct salt sensitivity is to first make sure that you're not insulin resistant and pre-diabetic. And to do that, you or the healthy way to go about it in that scenario is to go on a like restricting some of the salt initially after like a few days, even you can start to already see improvements by doing that. And fasting, you know, fasting can also help with the blood pressure and losing basically water weight. Does oat milk on coffee break my fast? So we did with my wife, we did the CGM experiment, Continuous Glucose Monitoring, and the oat milk was the biggest spike on your blood sugar in the morning because it has some carbs and sugar in it. So yeah, even like regular milk isn't going to spike your blood sugar, but the oat milk will definitely do it. So I would definitely reconsider adding oat milk to the coffee because it will probably break the fast more so than other types of milk, including the plant-based milks. How to microdose gluten? The amount and frequency. So microdosing gluten is my concept or what I call just eating gluten every once in a while without worrying so that you wouldn't become intolerant to it. You know, the problem with this very restrictive diet is that you neglect certain food groups and over time you just become sensitive to it because you're not used to consuming them. And this kind of feeds the cycle. Let's say you're on no gluten diet, you're avoiding gluten for, let's say, three months, then you accidentally eat some gluten. Okay, I'm gonna have this piece of bread or pizza, whatever. And then you get this, oh, I'm bloated, I'm stuffed and feeling uncomfortable. You know, chances are it's not because of the gluten itself. Chances are it's because you're, you know, have lost your ability to tolerate gluten because you've been avoiding it for months. And for me, you know, I microdose the gluten quite often and many times per week. And, you know, I'm not overeating it. I'm not getting so lethargic and stuff from that. I'm just eating a small amount so that my body could still manage it. I mean, humans have been eating still gluten for, you know, tens of thousands of years or at least 10,000 years. And only in like the modern world where people are consuming it like super large amounts and they're doing it like this super refined, processed way, that's where the problems tend to come from. And even like when I was having my honeymoon in Sicily, people eat pasta and gluten all the time, but they're leanest, one of the leanest people I've seen in terms of normies. Like they're much leaner than Americans. And this is also very common among tourists who travel to Europe. They go to Europe, they eat bread and croissants, but they don't gain weight. Obviously, they walk around a lot, but, you know, it probably has to do with the way the grain has been refined. And yeah, the entire point about the microdosing gluten is that you should still, you know, consume some of the allergenic foods that can keep your body able to tolerate them. Of course, if you have an actual celiac disease or let's say dairy, lactose intolerance, then don't do it. It's kind of not a good idea. But if you're an average person and you think you're healthy by being on a gluten-free diet, then I think it's healthier to actually, yeah, microdose the gluten every once in a while, at least once a week, like a small serving of that. And when I say a small serving, then that's, yeah, like, you know, whatever, a slice of bread or a bit of pasta, or it depends on your tolerance. Like I can eat, I can eat like, yeah, three kilos of pizza without getting any symptoms and I can still lose weight. But if someone else who may have more sensitivity, then yeah, just a slice of bread or something like that. How much milliliters coffee per day can I use maximum to not get problems? So I think, you know, one cup of coffee has like 100 milligrams or milligrams of caffeine. And, you know, how much caffeine I'm getting from coffee depends on, yeah, the, let's say, the amount of caffeine in the beans or in the coffee. And the strength of the coffee. So I think somewhere like 200, 300 is very safe. Nothing's kind of bad happened from that. If you get like 500 or 600, then that tends to be too much. So you may get like overly anxious and you can interrupt your sleep. But somewhere between, yeah, 300 is like a good upper limit with no issues. So like, you know, two to three cups of coffee per day is very safe. Ice balls pre or post workout. So icing your testicles should do it before or after a workout. Well, you know, cooling down your extremities has been shown to actually boost performance. So in studies where they use these mittens to cool down the palms, improves their strength. And the reason has to do with that cooling down the body itself postpones the perception of fatigue and prevents your basically your body tapping out before that. So a lot of the reasons why you tap out during exercise is because you're reaching overheating from the muscles and cooling down your body before the exercise postpones that a little bit. So cooling down your hands and feet or your forehead before the exercise will help you to exercise longer because most of your heat evaporates from these glabrous skin parts. So the forehead, the palms of the hands, soles of the feet, I mean, testicles are also that part. This is a glabrous skin. So this, you know, different kinds of skin than the actual skin. And that's where you evaporate the most heat. So you could, yeah, cool down your testicles before exercise which helps with, yeah, like sperm count. But it also will boost your performance probably by cooling down your entire body. So that's the fastest way to cool down your entire body. You don't need to go into an ice bath to cool down your entire body. You can just cool down your hands, your forehead, your balls or your feet. And that's the fastest way to cool down it. I wouldn't do it after the workout probably. Maybe like just cold water if you're taking a shower. Cold water on the testicles can also, you know, cool down the testicles. You don't want to overheat the testicles and exercise may raise the temperature. But yeah, generally the best time to do it is before sleep because that's where your natural hormonal cycle peaks before, like, you know, in the early parts of the night. So cool down the testicles before sleep and that can have, like, a positive effect on your hormone levels during sleep. How can I increase my white blood cell count? So my favorite ways or the reason that I have good white blood cell count is that I do fasting, saunas and exercise. I think those are the best natural ways to raise that. And those white blood cell counts can also raise if you've had, like, an infection. So if you suffer some sort of viral or bacterial infection, you've been sick recently, then that can also just raise the white blood cell counts because your body's, you know, recently dealt with the infection. What's a good exercise routine while pregnant? Well, I don't think that you should do powerlifting. I don't think that you should do CrossFit either. Maybe bodybuilding is also too much. But I mean, you should still lift some weights or do some form of resistance training. And that can be, yeah, just, you know, moving the bar, even, like, an empty bar or something. Depends on your level of strength. But obviously, don't go for, like, 80% of your max, which you would normally do with powerlifting. But you would want to maybe stick to, yeah, like, just 60%. Something like that. Do focus more on, like, higher reps and don't go to, like, complete failure. But some form of exercise, resistance training is still beneficial for, you know, rebounding back from the pregnancy, especially for women, yes. Thoughts on CrossFit style exercise? I think that CrossFit can be good if you do it the right way. So you need to, first of all, make sure that you practice good form. You don't do, like, this crazy... I think the worst is the heavyweight, high-intensity Olympic lifts, like the snatch and clean and jerk with very short rest periods. So in a competition frame, you're trying to, okay, I'm trying to win. And you're doing, like, these very complex movements with heavyweights, like these cleans and snatches. And that's a, like, recipe for injury because, yeah, your adrenaline and you're, you know, I'm trying to win. So you're being more, let's say, loose with the form. And that can be a dangerous thing for, yeah, getting injured. So I wouldn't do that. But as a training methodologist, it's still, you know, good for conditioning. You learn different movements and you're getting a good cardio workout as well. The biggest problem, I think, from a programming side is that many people try to do all things at once. So they do these workouts, like Fran or whatever, Murph. And yeah, they're good for testing. But they're not good for actually getting stronger or actually improving your conditioning. So you need to deal with those things separately. So have a separate powerlifting program and a separate cardio program. And, you know, make them match. Don't overlap them. And then try to get stronger in the powerlifting side. And then try to get stronger and better enduring in the cardio side. And then test it with the CrossFit style workouts to get better at the movements and stuff. And do more Tabata style workouts. So yeah, I think don't try to get all of the, like, strength, endurance, mobility and conditioning in one workout. You need to do the goals in separate workouts. So have a strength workout. Have a hypertrophy workout if you're interested. Have an endurance workout separately. And that's how the pros actually do it as well. So they're not, you know, doing a lot of these crazy movements all the time. Best ways to build muscle and lose fat simultaneously as a woman. Is this a unicorn? No, I mean, yeah, women can very easily build muscle and lose fat at the same time. And I would argue that it's actually easier for them. At least initially. Because they tend to come from, you know, lower training status. So they're not used to training that much probably. Or they've done, like, let's say, step class or aerobic workouts. Generally, if they start to do, like, a good resistance training program with weights. Like a power building focus. Doing, like, these compound lifts. And, like, focusing on progressive overload and getting stronger. You can do just this one thing and you will see muscle growth and fat loss just by doing that. From a diet side, just kind of similar focus. Maybe women don't need or shouldn't eat that much protein. They should still have high protein but not as much as men. And definitely more carbs and not low fat. They need to get at least, like, 30% or 35% of their calories as fat. And last question. Thoughts on Fisetin in small dosage daily versus mega dosage for five days per month. So I personally think that it's probably smarter to do, like, two or three times a day. No, sorry. Two or three times a week with a slightly larger dose, you know, per week. So that you would still get the benefits of Fisetin. Which helps to clear senescent cells and raise energy levels. So you would get that on a weekly basis. On a daily basis, it's not good. Because it can also interfere with, you know, again, like, muscle adaptations. And you don't want to, you know, do it every day to clear out senescent cells. Doing it, like, only, like, a large mega dose once a month. I don't think it's also that ideal. Because, you know, you'll be doing it only once a month. Which is not enough frequency, in my opinion. So two times a week, maybe, you know, like, a double dose, which you normally would. So normal dose would be, like, maybe 400 milligrams. So you can do, like, 800 or 600, something like that. All right, so that's it for this Q&A. If you want to ask me a question again, then make sure you follow me on Instagram at Seamlund. And I'll be doing it shortly. Other than that, thanks for watching this video. Make sure you click the like, subscribe, notification bell as well. My name is Seam. Stay optimized, stay empowered.