Guest Quote

[00:00:00] Dana Cohen:
And once again, I said a little bit earlier, but we have to learn to, to live in our bodies and not be cut off from the neck down and ignore sort of everything.

And in order for you to learn what it feels like to be properly hydrated, you need to be in your body and notice those subtle changes and reach for them and search for them and find what that set point is for you.

Episode Intro

[00:00:21] Kevin Chang:
Hello and welcome to the RaceMob podcast. This is episode number 73.

I'm Kevin entrepreneur technology and fitness nerd. And I'm joined by the head coach of RaceMob and master motivator, the incomparable Bertrand Newson.

Guest Introduction

[00:00:35] Kevin Chang:
Dr. Danna Cohen has literally written the book on hydration and there's so much that most people get wrong. Is it as simple as drink more water? Well, no.

Today, we're going to get a little bit nerdy and talk about the importance of electrolytes, how vegetables, smoothies, and even chia seeds might be critical to your race day hydration strategy.

And why fascia movement and hydration are so closely linked together. And you're going to come away with some incredibly easy takeaways that can lead to immediate improvements in your everyday life and in your activities.

Plus if you want to reduce your risk of chronic disease get rid of brain fog feel better move better and look better than you won't want to miss this incredible episode with the one and only dr Dana cohen all the show notes can be found online at RaceMob dot com slash podcast, including links to dr Dana's incredible book and without further ado here's our conversation. All right, RaceMob crew. We're so excited to welcome Dr. Dana Cohen. She has literally written the book on hydration. The book is called Quench. Beat fatigue, drop weight, and heal your body through the science of optimum hydration. Welcome to the.

[00:01:46] Dana Cohen:
Thank you for having me.

[00:01:48] Kevin Chang:
Fantastic. And, and we know that coming all the way from the east coast, probably thing up super late to join us on blackout. So we appreciate that. Thank you so much.

[00:01:57] Dana Cohen:
Thank. Yeah, I'm an early bird. That's great. I love it. Thank you.

[00:02:02] Kevin Chang:
Absolutely. Well, I mean, why don't we dive right into it? I think you know, your book really brings up a couple of different points that I think are a really extremely interesting for our athletes.

What We Get Wrong About Hydration

[00:02:12] Kevin Chang:
What do you think is the thing that people actually get wrong about hydration.

[00:02:20] Dana Cohen:
You know, the first thing that just pops into my head, I talk about this in the book too, is I think a lot of people over hydrate. And I think it's more of a problem than we realize.

And it's probably worse amongst athletes too, because they drink water and they think, in other words, the more of the barrier now there's this whole gallon challenge out there, which may be okay for some people, but I have a feeling it's not okay for a lot of people.

And I think the idea of over hydration, I see often I see actual lab values showing that people are over hydrating at least once a week in my practice, in my office, which was surprising to me because I never, you know, we never really think that unless something has like a psychological. Probably they're drinking so much water that's typically...

Or worst, like a cancer that can make it, you don't have these, these polydypsia. They don't often happens in athletes and yogis lead or not. So people are practicing yoga. It's interesting. Cause they, I always ask the question. When patients come into my office, do you think you drink enough water?

And even my yogis will say yeah, I think I really, really took a ton of water, but I can't quench my thirst. And that's because they're probably not doing it right, because they probably just drinking too much, plain bulk water, tap water, you know, whatever filtered, tap water.

And you're basically, you're just, you're peeing out your electrolytes and and especially in athletes when they're sweating so much and they're not replacing their electrolytes So that's, that's the first thing that comes to my mind about over hydration.

What else do want it, right? I think we don't take into account what we eat as, as being a hydrating, backed food. As you know, food is counts, food is important. And I think plants and vegetables, we really can't say enough. And, you know, I know your audience are informed and wanting to be healthy. So I always have a hard time. You're like, who am I talking to?

But the truth is we all need to be reminded about some of these things all the time. So a plant centered diet, just like eat a ton of vegetables. I was gonna curse. and we're not going to.

Get a ton of vegetables it's to play with the vegetables, every meal, like really make a plant centric, diet greens, especially we can't get enough of that. And those are really, really hydrating. And then there's, there's science to back that up so we can talk about that.

[00:04:47] Kevin Chang:
Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely want to dive into, you know, we'll talk about gel water and the science behind that and what that means in a little bit, I guess, talk to us a little bit beforehand.

Hydration Before a Race

[00:04:59] Kevin Chang:
We see this often with athletes that they, they over hydrate on race day, where they think, Hey, race is coming up. You know, race comes tomorrow. Let me just make a lot of water today. I'll have enough you know, hydration and for the entire course for my entire marathon what are some of the danger of that.

And then talk to us a little about, okay, how much should we be supplementing electrolytes or is there some way to calculate that or, or, you know, be able to count that in. And then what are maybe some of the symptoms that you have seen from some patients around ?

[00:05:27] Dana Cohen:
So symptoms of over hydration, I mean the biggest one are muscle cramps, Charley horses, those kinds of things. And if you don't realize that, like someone I'll take some magnesium or Cal-Mag before bed. So that's a big one often. It's not, you know, it could be weakness, it could be brain fog. You know, if you always sit those of dehydration when you're overhearing, because you're losing electrolytes. So it's really hard to tell.

Unfortunately there's not, there's no great. You don't have to go see a doctor, get a blood test and look at your electrolytes. And even that like your electrolytes to be off, like if you're really over hydrated. So there's no great tests.

What the book really tries to teach you is how to live in your body. What it feels like to be perfectly hydrated. I wish we had a simple test. We don't.

So, you know, one of the things I tell people to look for is, is we're meant to urinate every two or three hours during our waking hours. Number one, I think that's, that's one of my most favorite things, because I think you don't think about that instead.

We've, we've learned to ignore our thirst. We can work harder and be at our desks longer and working out, but you'll actually be more efficient if you're having a problem in getting up to pee every two or three hours. We're gonna look at the color of your door. People who are older than us, but they were always told, oh, by the day, your urine should be crystal clear.

That's actually not good. You want your urine to be on a light straw colored. Now just a caveat. If you take a B-vitamin, anybody knows your pee turns, bright yellow. So all bets are off on that one. That was the first time.

Types of Electrolytes

[00:07:02] Kevin Chang:
I guess, yeah, supplementing electrolytes. Are there any good fast rules? What types of electrolytes are any, you know, better than others?

You've mentioned magnesium tablets versus, you know some of these other sports drinks, have you run across any research on types of electrolytes?

[00:07:17] Dana Cohen:
I'm on the board of a company called cure hydration. And it's an electrolyte replacement, nothing artificial in there. It's really good. They follow there's the world health organization who guidelines of what should be in electrolyte replacements.

They follow that. And so it actually tastes great. It's a good one. And then, but I will say there's a bunch of them out there. The things that I look out for are, you know, additives, sugar, what kind of fake sugar is in there too. Like if there's, if there's a sweetener, you wanna make sure it's, it's a, it's a good one, like Stevia or monk, fruit Lohan, those kind of things.

There's a new suite out there that I'm really excited about called amylose which there's some interesting studies that show it actually may help improve blood sugar issues, which is the first and expand it's a one-to-one ratio is sugar. So, so play around with that.

When, if somebody is going to make something at home, calculus is what it's called. It's it's readily available. It's fantastic.

And then as far as what people should be doing, that's kind of hard to say once again, there's no measurements. My, you know, especially for athletes, I'm not, I'm not an expert and I'm selling to me as an exercise expert.

There are some guidelines that you can follow on hydration or how much water you should be drinking if you're exercising, but the electric there's no, there's just no perfect fast rule.

What I tell, you know, regular people who are not sweating all day long is actually have them front load their water. So drink a big bottle of. Eight to 16 ounces, first thing in the morning, and you can do your electrolyte replacement in that once a day. If you're exercising and you're sweating, you're going to need more.

And unfortunately
don't have a perfect answer of what exactly that means we have. I would not do every single glass of water that you drink. You don't need to put a little salt or electrolyte replacement in that.

But by the way, speaking of salt, some people don't need even to buy the electrolyte replacements, a natural salt, like the pink salt, or there's a brand called real salt. I'm not on the board. You could put a little pinch, tiny little, get you back in your water in the morning with a squeeze of lemon, and you're getting a really nice electrolyte mixture just from that alone is, and it's a great way to start your day and you know that alone and people don't hydrate well can be life changing, you know.

My coauthor was an anthropologist, an anthropologist, and she she studied how desert people hydrate and that's one of the ways they do it. They front load their water. So a good, a good rule to follow first thing in the morning, eight to 16 ounces, drink it down. So called your organs. It's a good habit to get into.

[00:10:06] Kevin Chang:
You mentioned, you know, even a pinch of salt or something in your daily water, especially. I know a lot of ours, a lot of us have our own systems, reverse osmosis systems.

It takes a lot of the minerals and other things out of the water. And so. That can lead to some of the electrolytes from your body if you're drinking that all day long. So I think you've mentioned it a little bit in the book. There is, it's important to put a little bit in that water early in the morning..

[00:10:32] Dana Cohen:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we talk about the book once again, we don't, we don't talk enough about eating your water.

You know, getting, there are some people not, you know, probably not athletes that may only need one glass of water a day. If you're eating well, if you're doing all the right, other things, you know, so.

It's it's once again, it's hard to say who needs one? I don't, and I don't want you to say like, oh, I only need one glass of water to get. You may not. So if we don't know what people need, but it all depends on what you're eating and food is a great hydrating... you know, the right food.

So we need, we need greens. We need that a little bit of healthy fat in there for hydration to, to ourselves to be properly hydrated.

[00:11:18] Kevin Chang:
Hey, Coach, have you got a question? Otherwise I've got plenty of questios.

Running in Warmer Temperatures and Higher Humidity

[00:11:23] Bertrand Newson:
Yes, I do. It'sit's very relevant to this upcoming weekend. We have an east coast time zone. We have several athletes traveling to Boston and Chicago for those two marathon majors.

And we understand the temperature's going to be a bit warmer, temperature warm, and then humidity as well. Getting a lot of questions from the coaching perspective, how best to address running in warmer temperatures, but specifically, especially for west coast. And humidity and how hydration can help them.

[00:11:51] Dana Cohen:
You know? So once again I, you know, I wish I wish I had a better answer for you. I'm not an exercise physiologist, so I don't have those very specific answers. I can tell you something now that I think there's obviously humidity is, is better for people when you're running.

And one of the other things like, oh, I thought, I wish I wish I got a different, they would have been an anthropologist in undergrad, cause I think that information is so useful for us, but she studied how you know, once again, Bedouins and desert people and you know, those black robes that those desert people wear that you always see, like, what's that about?

And when she told me this, it blew my mind that those black robes create humidity tents. So that's why they wear them in the desert. So it holds humidity in when they're in desert environments. It's so fascinating to me.

All I can say to answer that question is, you know, I don't have a specific answer. They're gonna need to be replenishing with electrolyte mix. I wish, you know, some of those drinks that they get along the way by, you know, we make sugars and they coloring, but whatever it takes during the race, you need to, you need to do it right.

Recovering from Dehydration

[00:12:59] Kevin Chang:
I have a couple of questions. One are around, you know, we had a guest on earlier that said, oh, the investment order of Americans are chronically dehydrated. And that it takes a while to actually hydrate yourself. It may take weeks. It may. Take months. Have you found that at all? What has been you experience?

[00:13:17] Dana Cohen:
Okay. So first of all, I also agree. I think most of us are chronically low grade dehydrated, meaning day in, day out. It is the one thing in my practice, by the way that I am a stickler for like, you need to be on top of your hydration hour by hour, all day long, you really need until you, until you really get it and understand it.

Cause I think it is. And I say this in every podcast, the single most important thing you can do to treat and prevent chronic disease is learn how to hydrate properly. First, before you go on any diet, anything, this is what needs to do.

As far as it can take weeks. I think it can take, you know, weeks or months to maybe reverse some of the damage that you've done, you know, or this chronic stuff. But I think you can take one day to feel difference when you learn how to hydrate. You know, it's quick.

In the book, we have five to five day plan. So you do it Monday through Friday. And within that time, especially people who are, you know, a little, not, you know, not so in shape and not feeling great.

They're the ones who are gonna really got to fix. You'll notice a difference within a really short bit of time. You know, and you give somebody like that, a green smoothie a day to drink it's life-changing for them, you know, and even my health, you know, once again, my healthy people need to hear this and be reminded of it all the time.

Yeah. So I w the, the long-term effects. Yeah. It takes a long time. Just like anything else. If you start to change your hydrating habits, your body's gonna start to change. But I think you will note, I know you will notice it in a very short bit of time.

The Benefits of Getting Hydrated

[00:14:58] Kevin Chang:
Fantastic. So I know you're talking a little bit to us about the smoothie challenge and how you've had a lot of clients see a lot of success throughout those five days or longer of the smoothie challenge.

Can you talk to us a little bit about the benefits of hydrating? What are some of the things that people may realize, or, or, you know, some of the some of the things that people may realize when they are finally hydrated or fully.

[00:15:22] Dana Cohen:
So let alone the fact that it can treat and prevent chronic disease.

That's a pretty big benefit. So just, just, just for that matter, though, literally there, there was a new study back in January of this year, the first one of its kind that showed hydration, hydrating with water, drinking, water alone may be used as a treatment for metabolic syndrome. It's really interesting. Yeah, really interesting.

And then you just have the chronic diseases that it's been shown. So diabetes, certain cancers like kidney cancer and colon cancer. Hydration is, plays a role where it can act as a preventer. So those are some, some big ideas. But how about fatigue and brain fog? Those are two pretty big ones. I'd say brain fog, especially.

I like to say that that afternoon sort of slump in the day where we all sort of maybe think it's our blood sugars dropping and reaching for, you know, candy bars or sugar or something like that. I would bet that. 75% of those people that it's not blood sugar, that it's it's dehydration.

And you, you hydrate first and you'll find that you're not hungry or reaching for that afternoon pick me up, you know, candy bar. So brain fog, the big one, even this is, this is a known thing. The 2% drop in hydration in your body, which we go through multiple times throughout the day.

It's very easy to drop 2% of our hydration status. And that's been shown to give you some cognitive decline, so have trouble thinking clearly. So that is a big thing to look for. What else, some other things.

How about just moving fluidly? You know, moving with more, you know, a little more fluidly movement. It's easy for me to say the things that you're not going to feel. So you know, constipation that's like, that's a big one headaches. If you suffer from headaches, try theirs first.

What else? Yeah, muscle aches, joint aches, stiffness, you know, so just feeling, feeling, improving upon all of those things. Dry skin. The dry eyes. Those are the real sort of interface ones that are really, that you'll notice a difference in.

And once again, I said a little bit earlier, but we have to learn to, to live in our bodies and not be cut off from the neck down and ignore sort of everything. And in order for you to learn what it feels like to be properly hydrated, you need to be in your body and, and, and and notice those subtle changes and reach for them and search for them and find what that set point is for you

[00:18:10] Kevin Chang:
Yeah. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, even at the molecular level, we're talking about how your body functions here, you know, the water of the assault pumps via all these things, you know, being able to move all of these nutrients throughout your body.

And so if you're chronically dehydrated, you know, it's no wonder that you would have brain fog or you would have other things that, that you know, really affects you physiologically.

But alone, I mean, I think you, you brought a little bit it up like dry skin, but this medics, the wrinkles, the other stuff. I mean, I think, you know, a lot
of our audience would really benefit and, you know, if the smoothies are gonna feel a lot better after those five days, you know, not only physically, you're gonna look better too, and you're going live a lot better too.

[00:18:51] Dana Cohen:
My biggest followers are aestheticians cause they know better than anybody that joining from within is the best thing you can do for your skin. So, you know, and then, you know, I've got to think of it because I'm just having, you know, detoxification, you can't detoxify. If you're not, if you're not hydrated, you know, the only way we detoxify or we get rid of our toxins is by peeing and pooping and sweating, and you have to be hydrated for all of those things.

So detoxification, which is especially important in today, because we have just loaded with, you know, there's so many insults from toxins that we need to be. I worked to get out. It was like a convention because I go, what am I think he talks to kitchen. I think about sleep because we do most of our detoxifying when we're sleeping.

And you know, I can't say that, you know, hydrating better improves your sleep, you know, and if not, you know, truly scientific the, the fact, if you are hydrated better, you'll be detoxifying better in your sleep. So at least that, but I really do believe that it does improve your sleep.

There's a little caveat there. Nobody talks about like, I worried about waking up to pee in the middle of the night, that kind of thing. You know, it could be a problem if you're, if you're older, you have to sort of figure it out also again, what that set point is for you, where, where, and how much you can drink before bed, because it's different for everybody.

But we make a hormone called ADH antidiuretic hormone that does get lower as we, as we age. So that's why as we age, people tend to get up more in the middle, the night to pee. So which can be problems. So you don't have to find that set point for yourself. And maybe why one of the better reasons is sort of pre or front loading your water. I love that term in the morning, that kind of thing. And sort of do it a little.

Well, actually, one of thing, though, the idea of eating your water when we eat vegetables and, you know, we can talk about GSEs, which are sort of the star of the show. And especially for runners, we can talk about all that stuff, which is fun, but the idea of fiber .

It's not only about drinking so much water it's about how your body holds on to that water. So almost like a sponge, how you absorb it. And fiber is a great way to, you know, it holds onto that water longer.

So maybe, maybe a little bit of a green smoothie. I don't know if you've six before bed save some from the lunch could be a better way of hydrating and holding it throughout the night.

It's playing around with it. We give you all these sort of information about to try and figure out for yourself what that is, but, but eating a peach before bed could be a really nice way to hold on to some hydration as

[00:21:41] Kevin Chang:
If you like our podcast and sign up for our newsletter, where we give you weekly tips on how to run your best race and have fun in the process, just go to RaceMob dot com and sign up today.

How to Eat Water

[00:21:52] Kevin Chang:
Yeah. And that's exactly a great segue. I mean, I did want to get into, okay, how do we actually go without eating our water? What are some of the foods that we should be thinking about and considering you know, what, yeah. What is your water? Why, why is this important to us?

[00:22:07] Dana Cohen:
This is the whole premise for the book. I learned about the work of Dr. Gerald Pollack. He is a world renowned water researcher based out of university of Washington, Seattle.

And his discovery was that there's a fourth phase of water, which blew my mind. So I was like, why are you talking about, well, you know, we learned in elementary school, H2O is water and it exists is like liquid ice and paper. Right. So that was us. There's another phase of water. And that phase is on. He happens to call it easy water, which stands for exclusion zone. We call it gel water, structured water. There's lots of other, other terms that people are using for this other phase.

And not everybody agrees on exactly what that phase is. But I have to say, Dr. Paul's work is brilliant and really interesting. And I suggest anybody read his book called. Fourth phase of water.

So, so it is leave that it is in that forum. There's other things of water. And, and it has to do with how those H2O molecules layer upon each other, how they structure and it's in that forum where they start to share electrons, oxygen, you know, the, the O the oxygen of H2O, how those electrons get shared.

And it's within that structuring that they will have different properties. And some of the properties are they're able to hold a charge like a battery. So they, they actually are energy, electrical energy, which is interesting because. We only ever thought energy is food. You know, we eat food or glucose and we make ATP.

I'm telling you that there is another form of electrical energy, which is energy. That water is not just moistening. It actually is, is energy. So so it's, it's believe that it is in that form, this other form H302 is what Dr. Polly calls it. It has to be that sharing of the molecules is how water is found in nature. And it's also how it's found within ourselves.

So the idea is you want, wanna, you want to, so think about like a cucumber seeds, you know, cucumbers, you can see the gel around the seeds or desert plants for that matter. Think about aloe and cactus. And you know, you open up an Alameda and little gel water that, that gel that falls out is loaded with gel or structured water.

And if you eat your water by eating more vegetables, Then you're, you're gonna, you're gonna hold onto that water and that hydration better because that's how it's happening ourselves. That's the idea.

Chia seeds we can talk about now. Cause they aren't, they are really exciting and fun to think about. And I'm sure every one of your listeners have read born to run. And I think every runner has read that book.

And you know, those, those elite runners that in the, at the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico, I believe it is the Mexican desert. They run from. 50 mile marathons and they fill themselves on using, You know, a little, they don't drink, they don't drink like that.

So that chia seeds hold onto the hydration longer because there's fiber, there's fatty acids. Chia has loaded without loaded with alpha-linolenic acid ALA, which is our parents I'll make threes. That's what lines are our cell walls. We need that to have to be healthy. So it really is a super food chia seeds are.

So, so throwing a little chia seeds in your smoothie is a great thing. There's a caveat there because chia seeds also do have lectins, which many people are sensitive to not everybody. So you may want to soak your chia seeds overnight to really form that. Most people can, you know, I'm being a little nit picky, most people can tolerate.

But you wanna let them sort of soak in the water for a little bit, give them some of that gel chia pudding, the overnight chia pudding, cause incredible snacks and so easy and cheap. And you know, you could buy like ready-made ones in store. $7 or you can make it for like 7 cents it's serving, you know, literally, and there's recipes all over the internet.

The book has a ton of different kinds of recipes for smoothies and some desserts and that kinda thing, but popsicles are a great way to hydrate as well. Frozen, you know, blended fruits and vegetables, throw some in there as a great way. Great thing to eat. Yeah, so food is, it's just, you know, it's so it's very simple.

It's not, there's nothing, there's nothing difficult about it. You want to load up your plate with green vegetables, with more vegetables and, you know, try making, instead of having one vegetable and one meat for dinner, make a bunch of vegetables, you know, play around with it. So there's nothing fill up on veggies. That's hydrating. It's that easy.

How to Incorporate this Approach in Your Life

[00:27:02] Bertrand Newson:
Dr Dana, take us through a day in your life in regards to hydrating, you know, drinking your hydration, eating hydration.

[00:27:11] Dana Cohen:
I have two things that I'll do and I'll either. So just let me drink. This is I'm drinking, this, this kind of water I love. And I do try to get plastic bottles out of our hands.

I will tell you once again, full disclosure. I'm the health and wellness advisor to essential water. So, but I'd love it because, and this one I love because the big bottle, so it's 33 ounces. I'll put hydration and electrolytes thing in there. I'll leave it at my bedside. And first thing in the morning, I try to chug almost all of this.

If I kept doing all morning, as I'm getting ready for my shower, getting ready for my day, I'll drink the rest of that.

[00:27:48] Kevin Chang:
What is Essential Water?

[00:27:50] Dana Cohen:
Oh, Essential Water is a, an alkalinizing water. And so it does have added electrolytes put into it. It just, it just tastes really, it's a great water. It really tastes, tastes excellent.

[00:28:02] Kevin Chang:
What's difference between alkalized water and your normal tap water.

[00:28:08] Dana Cohen:
That is the million dollar question. So there's not a lot of research on alkalinize water, unfortunately. So I don't, I don't know. I don't know if there's any real science behind alkalinize water and it's controversial because people say, well, as soon as it hits your stomach, it's not the alkalinize anymore.

I will tell you people I've had patients who swear that drinking alkalized water, it makes them feel. Now is that because they're finally hydrating?
I don't know. But what, what alkalinizes water is adding the electrolytes to it. So that's, that's how it gets to your high pH. So it's the, it may just be the electrolytes do that. They needed.

There's a lot of questions and more questions. We get some more questions here. So it's hard to say you got to find something that you like. I do, you know, I want to warn about the plastic bottles. It's an issue. They did just come out with like a two gallon container that with a little spout on it, which I love, but the truth is if I go to a hotel, I'm not drinking my tap water hotel. We still need plastic bottles. Unfortunately.

Yeah. So I brought my water. If I don't, if I don't do an essential bottle, I have a glass canister with one of the glasses on top that I got on Amazon. Like everything was $7. It's really cheap. I'll fill that up. And I, before I do, I have a reverse osmosis. Uh, Is there an electrolyte mix or if I don't do that, I'll do a squeeze of lemon, a little salt.

So I'm ready. You know, I got into that habit to be ready for seeing the morning for him. I kicked him to the ground. I'm starting to drink my water. I will say also that alone can be life-changing for many people just as having a big thing of water, first thing in the morning and doing nothing else, most people will notice a big difference if that.

And there was something about the lemon too, and lemon water first in the morning, no science, but people swear by it as well. You know, maybe, maybe you could have the minerals do it. I don't know. I don't know. It could just be that it tastes delicious. And I can tell you people hate the taste of water. They do.

[00:30:18] Bertrand Newson:
I was having a conversation with an athlete today, I was like, oh, water. Nope, that'd be water. Mix it up. So if that is meant, if it's cucumbers, if it's a little of honey and citrus and sea salt, just to get a little bit of twist, but get the hydration and even if to help, to kind of please the top talent as well and get this.

[00:30:40] Dana Cohen:
Yeah, we talk about beauty waters in the book, which are basically single ingredient waters.

And you just masturbate them, like masturbate some blueberries and throw it in there, infuse your water, you know, easy. Even like rose pedals could be really nice and fused or some, some you can get funky with it. Get interesting. Basil, you know line and lavender, like, so there's fun, fun things you can do to play around with.

[00:31:04] Bertrand Newson:
Ginger?

[00:31:05] Dana Cohen:
Just vinegar?

[00:31:06] Bertrand Newson:
Ginger,

[00:31:07] Dana Cohen:
Oh, ginger.

[00:31:08] Bertrand Newson:
Ginger.

[00:31:12] Dana Cohen:
Ginger I love, I, you know, it's great that ginger and Lennon and mashing them together or going to live blender really easy and delicious. And you can freeze those in ice cubes too. And put that in your you know, you don't have to put them in a food processor or simple little thing to do. Yeah. So then when I try to eat while I do I do you know, when I do great, I am.

I try to have a glass of water before. A little controversial also people like, oh, you shouldn't drink with your meals, you know? And there's definitely a couple schools of thought around that. I think if you do it before you eat you, people are worried that you're gonna so with drinking, while you're eating that you may be fleshing out enzymes or lessening the enzymes in your, in your food.

I'm not so sure that's true. Maybe there's something to it, but I'm doing it about a half an hour before. There's actually studies that show people who are dieting and drink a glass of water before every meal will lose about five pounds more on average than people who don't do that. For many reasons, whether it's they're feeling fuller or they're hydrating.

So that's a great habit to get into. What else? You know, just a plant centered diet. I eat meat, I eat red meat. I eat fish, I eat chicken. I try to eat organic almost exclusively. Sometimes I don't do if I'm going out. And I know there's some things I will never eat. I will never eat. Farm-raised salmon.

You know, there's certain little, little things I have. I don't have that. I don't do. I took a lot of royalty, which is a great way to hydrate. We talked about coffee which I was talking about. People get really excited about when talking about coffee because the studies show that anything under four cups of coffee is not a diuretic. So people are drinking coffee, go for it. It's good.

The one thing I will say, though, if I were to drink four cups of coffee, I would be a nervous wreck. Caffeine is a drug. So caffeine plays a role here, maybe in somebody who can't tolerate it versus, you know, somebody kinds of that. That is something I, to sort of be a little cognizant of and worried about. But for the most part coffee is, is eight. Okay.

Yeah. What else? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, those are, that's what I do in Damon. We can talk about movements now because the way that I look at movement is very different than the way athletes look at movement.

Fascia and Movement

[00:33:44] Dana Cohen:
There's a whole chapter on fascia and, and movement in the book. And, you know, that's just become very in Vogue and talked about and finally, really being studied.

But probably not that long ago, fascia was never talked about really even understood. You'll get a really understood fascia, our body workers, you know, they know it better than, than all of us massage therapists and PT people think they really understand fascia.

But it wasn't until a couple years ago when this French doctor decided to put a camera under the skin of a living person, and there's a great YouTube video called it it's called in living fascia or living fascia.

And what you realize when you see, because prior to this, we'd only ever looked at fascia under dry desiccated cadavers, and basically you'd cut through it to get to the vessel or to get to the Oregon and throw it aside. Like what does that we don't need it.

And, and for people don't know, fascia is this connective tissue that surrounds every single cell and every single organ in our bodies, this webbing system. And and so what we saw when you put it at the camera is that fascia is a hydraulic pump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's so sort of instinctive, but it was mind blowing because we've only ever thought that fluid gets moved to be a blood and lymph.

Now we know that that, you know, fascia acts as a hydraulic pump. So the idea of moving, or do you have, you have to move your joints to lubricate them. Now we really, you know, it makes so much more sense. And also why sitting is the new smoking cause you're squelching delivery of hydration to your periphery.

We, we quote lots of stuff, not lots but about studies in the book about fidgeters people who fidget and move live longer than people don't. And there's a great study. They did that where they actually, these poor dyes, they would have them fidget one leg for like two hours, and then they would take a muscle like a vessel biopsy of that one leg versus the other leg that they didn't fidget.

And what it shows is that the damage done to the vessels on the inactive legs or the dehydration or they, what, I'm sorry, I just wanna stop. They would dehydrate them. And then take the biopsy. And the damage from dehydration has only 2% dehydration, which we go through all the time is as damaging as smoking cigarettes.

Yeah. Yeah, really interesting. So but, but going back to the movement, I got my studies mixed up going back to the movement the idea that we have, we, we lose so much movement as we get older. We're born, we're born with something like three or 400 different movements. We, when we're like in our fifties, we lose.

Yeah. So we have to continue moving and twisting and turning. And so we talked about micro movements. I know, I love it. Every time I do this

you gotta talk about it and do it. Yes. So so the micro movements are made of things and they're literally twists and turns and bends and whatever it takes, and even her eyeballs, like, you know so movement is a hydrate. I don't know where I'm going with all that. I think that answered.

[00:37:21] Kevin Chang:
Absolutely. Yeah. I think you're talking to us through your routine and, you know, and it's fantastic talking about movement and we always talk about how motion is lotion and, and getting out there. And, you know, even, even at daily walk, even doing something a little bit everyday, how much that can help you in the long run.

And so, yeah, I think, I think that just backs it up by science, which is fantastic.

[00:37:44] Dana Cohen:
And I would say even more than just daily walking though, like I would say before. Carl, your toes do, do, do ankle swirls you know, twist and turn and Bob, your head up and down. You know, just sort of twisting, I think is, is an underrated movement.

Like we don't twist enough and in fact it's getting worse because we no longer, I always, I use this often. Our cars are now made with that front camera. And so we no longer have to like look out the back to back in the car to do that anymore. So it's even more important to sort of twist and turn into all this.

[00:38:25] Kevin Chang:
Well, just wanted to say, thank you so much, Dana, for jumping on the podcast with us, we know that it's super late over there on the east coast and that, and that you're an early, early bird, I'm a morning person. So thank you again so much for jumping on with us.

Social Media

[00:38:39] Kevin Chang:
Any parting words, any, anything that you want our audience to listen to and where can they find you online?

[00:38:45] Dana Cohen:
The website is www.drdanacohen.com. Dr Dana Cohen dot com, And you can find me on Instagram, doctor
Dr. Dana Cohen. And yeah. I think you people have to really pay first and foremost attention to hydration and start here.

And then most, and I'm talking to people who are at, who are just not feeling great. Start here and then most other things will follow. You know, it's, it's a great starting point. It's quick, it's simple. You can, everybody can do this. And it's the one thing that I'm stickler that meaning, you know, that 80, 20 rule with diet, if you're getting 80% of a, of a good, healthy diet, I'm happy, but with hydration, I really need you to just be on top.

And once you're on top of it for a little while it becomes habit like anything else, and it's not hard. None of this is hard. So yeah.

[00:39:43] Kevin Chang:
Thank you again so much.

[00:39:44] Dana Cohen:
Thank you guys.

[00:39:44] Kevin Chang:
Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the RaceMob podcast. Check out all of the show notes or find a running buddy online at RaceMob dot com. Please subscribe to us on apple, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcasts and leave us a review until next time. Keep on moving.