Patriot Power Hour #305 - 6 Spectra of Preparedness

[00:00:08] Statement of Purpose, Should I Email You, Should I Put This On Your Action Item List? You decide your own level of involvement! We are the Prepper Broadcasting Network

[00:00:20] You are now listening to the Patriot Power Hour, the newest show of the Prepper Broadcasting Network

[00:01:11] This live episode features the situational awareness you need to practice self-reliance and independence Introducing your hosts, Ben, the Breaker of Banksters and Future Dan, the editor of FutureDanger.com We are live May 13th, 2025, Ben the Breaker of Banksters It's episode 305 here with Future Dan

[00:01:38] Future Dan, we're gonna jump right into the news blitz, you ready for this? Go for it! Alright, let's start in the Liberty column, Liberty Indicators on this live May 13th Beautiful evening, rainy, but I love the rain AG says tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children as well as other child porn exist

[00:02:03] Prompted by a O'Keefe, James O'Keefe, covert recording FBI offices nationwide working through this There better be people that go to jail, so That is good news! We have one more article here in the Liberty column The President may suspend habeas corpus to end illegal alien invasion

[00:02:30] In national security, the second column on FutureDanger.com There is no active indicator or headline And that is literally after one week ago The Indo-Pac war seemingly was boiling over In fact, while we were on the air There were, or just about the time we were on the air There wasn't just artillery strikes, but a huge, huge air battle

[00:02:58] But, a ceasefire essentially has been declared And, knock on wood, things have been quiet Ukraine, Taiwan, Israel, Middle East All from a security standpoint, quiet So no articles right now Economically Excuse me Treasury To hit the debt limit in August Will they raise the debt limit? By how much?

[00:03:28] We'll certainly keep you up to date Here on Patriot Power Hour America's largest grid operator warns of summer power shortages A topical news article under grid goes down Dollar dumped A bit of a global shift to bypass the dollar Gaining momentum in Asia However, compared to where we were a year or two ago With the rise of BRICS and the fall of America

[00:03:57] Certainly does not seem like the U.S. dollar is going anywhere Anytime soon with all these deals going on Whether it was Saudi Arabia, the U.K. Or even potentially a truce On the trade war with China We'll be covering some of that But, really what we focus on here Of course, on future danger And Patriot Power Hour On Prev Broadcasting Network Is dangerous news And there really is not too much Of a natural column

[00:04:26] There's not much dangerous news Real fast Let's go look at Just to round out the economics, I suppose Over the last week Bitcoin has climbed from 93K to 104K Yep, could have made $11,000 in the last week Buy low, sell high That's my suggestion Gold, on the other hand Has gone down a bit in the last week From about 3,400 And remember, it was at 3,500 a few weeks ago

[00:04:55] Down to 3,256 Which certainly is not concerning or low If you own gold In fact, let's look at the one month chart Of gold This goes all the way back to 2012 But if you especially zoom in And go from COVID onwards Gold at 1,169 All the way up to 3,200 Quite an incredible jump Over the years We've been on air Future Dan

[00:05:24] Here, both Patriot Power Hour Generally and specifically here on Prepper Broadcasting Network So that's the news blitz Anything you want to focus on In particular right now? It's not often that Two of the columns are empty of news But they are So pretty safe evening In early May 2025, I'd say Good time to keep on prepping And well, we're in the middle of Ration of Ruins

[00:05:53] So every little bit of stress That I could, you know, avoid Is helpful with my quest for Massive calorie deficits And other challenges So not complaining But also not sitting on my laurels By any means It's just, oh yeah The world is saved Everything's good I don't think any listeners Of PBN think of it that way But always reminded myself And might as well Remind everybody else too Hey Firewolf Forge We see you in the chat

[00:06:23] Thanks for listening We're gonna maybe Maybe talk about Some of these headlines Later in the show But there's not really Much new here They are headlines But, you know, not Not really changing anything On the heat map dashboard So, what Ben and I wanted to do tonight Is Have a conceptual conversation About Prepping And just another way

[00:06:52] To look at it Perhaps So At the end of the show Maybe Ben will do a recap Of Ration of Ruins Tell everybody how we're doing With the mountain house But for the time being I wanted to Jump into Something we've been maturing Over several episodes What do you say? Let's do it Let's have at it So we're showing A pressure gauge But why a pressure gauge? Well Giving it some thought

[00:07:22] Came up with this Kind of Simple system To help you Reconsider Survival And And prepare this To survive So What we're going to talk about We're calling The survival spectra Okay And there's six Spectrums On For the total Survival spectra Food Water Temperature Energy

[00:07:51] Moisture And your temper And What's Interesting About those Six factors Is They They show how Your body Handles Different levels Of things It needs To stay healthy And If you think of it Like a gauge Where the green zone Is the Is the comfort zone Right And Different people Have different Comfort zones For these

[00:08:21] Matters So The picture we got here Is a nice Wide From two and a half To Seven and a half Wide On the top Right Lots of people's Comfort zones For food Water How cold it is Or warm it is Their energy level How wet or dry Their conditions are And And how their Mind reacts To that They're You know I think it's fair To say that

[00:08:50] Most Modern Americans Their Comfort zone Is Pretty narrow Pretty narrow For these things So let's talk about You know What each of these Spectrum are Their scale Right So the scale goes As you can see On the screen To the left The You know It's something That's completely Deficient You don't have Enough of it And it can make you Sick Or kill you Starved Dehydrated Hypothermic Right Starved

[00:09:20] Is a lack of food Dehydrated Is a lack of water Hypothermic Lack Heat Right And it kind of Scales Towards almost Enough Close To okay But not quite Right That's when you Feel hungry Thirsty Just cold Your comfort zone Is the middle You feel good You're sated You're hydrated Thermoneutral And then It swings the other Way too On some of these You know Some of these

[00:09:49] More than the other But you know Too much Right You know You And food And water Are the hard ones To go Too much on Right You know It's easy Not to overeat It's easy Not to Drink too much But Temperature You can go In very hot Conditions And be in danger From it Right And that's where It swings all the way To the right On the On the gauge Way too much Can be dangerous Hyperthermic Right Or When it comes to Your temperament Panic

[00:10:19] Right So You know Imagine each Spectrum as a range Green in the middle Is the comfort zone And red on both sides Start to get in trouble And And the body Seeks balance Right It wants to be In that comfort zone Loves to stay Where everything Feels right It's It's homeostasis Really Is Is the Is the Ten dollar word Right It's the homeostasis And For food Your stomach's

[00:10:48] Going to growl Because Of Of A hormone Graylin hormone When it's hungry And it's going to Feel full When you've eaten Enough The leptin hormone Right Water Right You know Your body Feels thirsty When you start To Slide to the Deficit side Energy You know You feel sleepy When you need rest So this is Pretty simple stuff Right So What's interesting Is they You know The different Six different spectrum

[00:11:17] Or scales They start to affect Each other Not enough food You're starving Makes you tired Exhausted Dehydrated Can make you You know Super skin Your skin You know Super dry Right You know Too cold Or hypothermic You know Uses energy Which then again Makes you exhausted So The compounding Effects Of this Are An interesting Aspect to it So You know If you've been

[00:11:47] Cold Hungry Tired Thirsty And sleepy All at the same time You know You're starting to get Into the deficits On Many of the scales It's not You know You know it When you feel it You don't like it Some of these Spectrum are External Temperature The air temperature The weather Of your environment Freezing snow To scorching heat Right And That's where Shelter comes in Right Being properly Sheltered To protect you From that

[00:12:17] Moisture Right Rain Humidity Or even Super dry Air effects On your skin Your clothes Those are imposed Externally On you And If you think About it Water and food Are external You have to Have them You have to Provide for them Right So those are Outside resources That have to Come into your Body To maintain That needle In the green Zone Others are Internal Right They're sort Of second Order effects Of temperature Moisture

[00:12:47] Water and food And I'm talking About energy Depends on how You know How much food You've had How much rest You've had How your body Uses energy You know That's internal And then there's Temper Temperament Your emotions Your reactions To stress Danger Fear Right That's internal So those Energy and Temperament Usually follow The primary External You know Temperature Moisture Water and food Right So

[00:13:17] For For some of These You can think Of a scale Perfectly from Zero to Ten Like the Gauge That we're Showing Right now And that's Temperature It'll It'll It's Dangerous In both Directions For others I said this Earlier Food Water Easy to Avoid Overdoing It It's not Something That preppers Talk about Like What are Your Preparations For not Overeating Doesn't make Sense Right It's Possible To get Injured On the Excess Side But

[00:13:47] You know It's not It's not Really a Consideration So Where are The tipping Points Where have We been In our Lives And can Think back To your Tipping points Where you're Getting Out of the Green Into the Red Or you're You're in The red But you Needles Going down Or up In a Way that You know Had a Compound Effect Maybe You know You were Calm You were Patient You were Emotionally

[00:14:16] Under controlled And it Started to Get into Anxiousness And Maybe even Verging on Panic Right So Where Are those Tipping points Been in our Lives We're going To talk About those In a Moment Right But The reason We're Talking about This On Patriot Power Hour Is it Applies to Our Azure Highland Exercises To include Azure Highland For Rational Ruin Going on Right Now Big time With food

[00:14:47] So What I advocate For is Widening Comfort Zones Preppers Think about How to Train To handle Tougher Conditions And how To make Their Comfort Zones Bigger Without Without Hitting Red Danger Zones Right So You know What we're Doing in Rational Ruin Practice Fasting Get used To less Food Without Going towards Starvation Right Without Malnourishment Right That's why We're Supplementing

[00:15:19] You know Be ready So Be ready So that Panic Stressful Situations Don't Turn Into Panic Right So We're Going to Talk about Lots of Ways To train For The You know Widening Your Comfort Zone And why Is that Important Because if You look At the Graph The Gauge Whenever You're Hitting That red And coming Off Of the Green You feel It's The suck Is starting Right And How

[00:15:49] Different People react Differently To that And The ones That Don't Cross That Barrier Very Frequently Or Maybe Young You know Earlier In their Lives They did It All the Time But They Haven't Done It A lot Lately You Got You Got Trouble Going On When You're Crossing That Tipping Point And You Know How to Be Mentally Prepared For It I Believe Is Very Important Because In A SHFT Situation

[00:16:20] Mental Preparedness Is Every Bit As Important As Material Preparedness So In Short The Survival Spectre Are Basically Six Gauges That You Can Visualize And If Think About Where's Your Green Comfort Zone Is It Shrinking Is Expanding Is It Is It Pushed The Boundaries Again And Remind Myself Of How to Control Myself When

[00:16:50] Things Start Going Well When It's Time Time To Use Your Preparations Then So Wanted To Talk About This How Training Can Widen Your Comfort Zones And Just Bring This Forward This Network Is Really Really Focused Many Of The Host Many Great Hours Of Content Talking About Things Like The Food The Water The Shelter

[00:17:20] How To Keep Them Intact How To Build Them Up To Be Resilient Right That's The Material Side What If Everything You've Prepped For Is No Longer Usable You've Been Driven Away From Everything You've Prepped Your Material Solutions Are Not Available To You For Whatever Reason Think Of A Thousand Scenarios Right But Are You Ready To Continue To Survive Without That And

[00:17:57] Water Water Temperature Your Energy Level Atmospheric Conditions That Were Really Wet Or Really Dry And And Your Temperament Right You know And Temperament You know Moving From Calm To The Absence Of Fear Would Be Apathetic And Swinging The Other Direction Would Be Anxious Trending Towards Panic When Have You Tested Your Boundaries On These Different Survival

[00:18:27] Spectrum And You know Let's Let's Do This In Your Life And Maybe Within The Last Three Years When Have You Started To Hit Limits When Have You Noticed That Let's Start With Food I Love It I Want To Give A Quick Shout Out To Jay Fergie In The Chat Also If I Will Forge I Will Get The Lightning Address For Some Bitcoin Donations I Swear I Will Do This Jay Fergie

[00:19:05] Says Hey Dream Right Right Right Okay Let's Start With Food Honestly Just In The Past Year Let's Start Before Ration A Ruin Just In The Past Year I Started To

[00:19:34] Push My Comfort Zone On The Fasting Point Of View I Had Probably Never Almost Never In My Life Gone More Than 24 Hours Without Eating Until March Or April Of Last Year Okay Okay Over That

[00:20:18] Went Out Of Shape Maybe Too Heavy You Know If You Can't Do Any Pull Ups You Might Might Not Just Be A Strength Issue Could Be You're A Little Too Heavy So You're Going To Need That Strength To Weight Ratio To Be As High As As Much Strength For A Pound

[00:21:21] And we would have something called victory vittles at 4.30 p.m. And they would bring in great food. And I would stuff my fat 17-year-old face because I was so hungry. And I often felt kind of sluggish. At the game. Yeah. And I didn't really understand it. But now I'm like, oh, my God, that was like the worst thing to do. That's totally on the excess side of food. Again, something that as an adult, easy to plan for.

[00:21:48] But, hey, just to make up a crazy scenario, what if there's fresh meat and no refrigeration and you've been rationing because you don't have a lot of food? Are you ready to eat an excessive amount of that food and take the consequences that come with it? Sluggishness. You're bloated. And you're probably going to be tired.

[00:22:11] It's going to make you more sleepy in a survival situation where being sluggish and sleepy isn't what you want to be doing. Right. You've got a trade-off to make there, right? Definitely. Definitely. And just relating to Ration Rune, I feel more alert. And we'll talk about some of the adrenaline and temper aspect. But less food for me equals more mental clarity, more focus, less sluggishness to a degree.

[00:22:39] Like after a few days of fasting, there's a quick drop off. But let's just say if I don't eat until 4, 5, 6 p.m. in a day, then I feel great up until then. You know, I'm just – anyway, there is something about overeating a little bit, both short-term and long-term, definitely. Yeah, the spectrum we're talking about, though, is about the now. How is your body now?

[00:23:02] And it gets weird because in a long-term scenario, overeating might produce a situation – well, you just watch the alone show, right? Most of those people go into the competition overweight. The winners – several people that have won it and the skinny people, people that are just not overweight in the least, they struggle. They struggle once the starvation hits, right? Sure.

[00:23:29] But we're talking about the now because that's where you get the tipping point. So you talked about a tipping point of pushing your tipping points for the deficit in food and really crossing boundaries in that regard only for the first time in the last few years of your life. And then hearkening back on the mistake of overeating and the effects of that. Let's do water now.

[00:23:55] In your life, have you hit either end of the spectrum on water? Overhydrating is hard to do. Yes. I was going to say again, alcohol – and I hardly drink anymore. But alcohol has – I had a lot of fun with it, but it's very poisonous. And being severely dehydrated in the morning, one time I went to go get an IV because I just couldn't get my water up. And I just kept, you know, being sick to my stomach.

[00:24:25] And I've had that from the flu as well. So we're not just talking about near alcoholism. We're looking at – you get very sick when stuff hits the fan. You could be having real problems keeping fluids down. So, honestly, maybe super dehydrated when I was younger, like 12, 13, 14. I had the flu really bad. I remember one time. But otherwise, it's unfortunately like too hungover or whatever. Set aside the alcohol, though.

[00:24:54] Have you ever gone – I'll tell the audience that, you know, during Azure Highland 3, at the end of that, you know, dark trail march, I was really thirsty. I mean, I wasn't in a danger zone, but it definitely brought me back to points in time where I didn't have the water I needed. And I felt it. Did you do Azure Highland 3?

[00:25:17] And, I mean, we tried to use the life straw in the stream at the end of that and found out those things don't fill you up with water really fast. Hey, that's the most relevant and great example, most recent example of where I was truly dehydrated because, well, if you remember, I – when my canteens fell off. So, I was – lacked some water on that march. It was like July.

[00:25:42] It was hot overnight, sweltering even at, you know, midnight, 2 in the morning hiking. And so, I was starting to cramp up a little bit. You know, you shared a little bit of water, and we definitely spent 20 minutes trying to use the life straw. And I probably got 16, 20 ounces of water. It took 10 freaking minutes, you know. But anyway, that was – that was hitting the red zone, not literally impeding my physical ability, but not very far away.

[00:26:11] A couple more hours of that could have been rough. Pushing your comfort zone wider, though. You agree? Yeah, that was definitely pushing the comfort zone and not in a true danger area. So, it's good to do that sometimes. How about temperature? This one goes both ways pretty, you know, equally left and right, deficit to excess. What's – maybe do it this way. What's the coldest you've ever been? What's the coldest you've been in the last three years?

[00:26:40] What's the hottest you've ever been and the hottest in the last three years? Coldest? Harkens back. All my stories are like football or drinking. But football, as a kid in Colorado, especially in like October, early November, we often played in late season tournaments and playoffs and stuff. So, we were playing really late. So, it was so darn cold. We're talking like foot plus of snow on the ground.

[00:27:10] Occasionally, we would even practice in a barn or something. But just so damn cold. Even with multiple layers, gloves, all that. Just feel like everything's going to fall off. So, that's good. Never actually got frostbite. All the times I've lived in Colorado in the Midwest. Heat. Here's a good one for heat. I don't know if it's the hottest I've been, but again, it goes back to an Oser Highland. Our very first one when we went through the dinosaur brush, as we call it.

[00:27:38] And maybe this integrates with some of your other thoughts that these different spectra, they kind of are interrelated. So, very tired. Had been awake 35 hours, let's say. Had done a lot of physical exercise the night before. And we went and it was starting to get hot. And I was wearing pretty relatively heavy clothing, again, in June or July. And it, you know, went from a nice 75 degrees at 10 a.m. to probably 85 plus with some humidity.

[00:28:07] We're hiking up in this crazy brush all of a sudden. And I had a heavy backpack, like, I don't know, 30, 40 pounds. And it was just, you know, it sucked. Let's just say it sucked. And then I started to feel like, oh, man, I'm kind of feeling a little dizzy. A little like all these components are starting to hit me at once. And I definitely felt like a little bit of heat exhaustion, kind of just like dizzy. Kind of felt like I was going to puke a little bit. All crashing at once.

[00:28:35] So your all-time high on the heat, excess heat, given the activity you were given, right? Not just sitting at the beach, but just was in Azure Highland one. Most recent. I would say, again, football like two a days in August. And it was like 105 degree heat index. And just like, it was just pure torture. So that's the closest all time. But in the last few years, it was Azure Highland.

[00:29:03] It was just a combination of the physical exertion, the humidity, the heat, and the tiredness all combined was, I felt pretty damn overheated. Was Azure Highland 3 Gotham Get Out pushing the cold side recently for you? Or have you been colder recently? That was not super cold, I felt like.

[00:29:26] And this is one where I feel like I had a great tolerance to cold, let's just say, 10 years ago. From when I was a kid up to 10 years ago. But I've let it lapse a little bit. You let the green zone shrink. Yes. When it's cold out, I'm like, yeah, maybe I don't need to go out there. So yeah, I think I've let the green zone shrink a bit. But it wasn't super duper cold in my opinion. I was cold, but I wasn't.

[00:29:55] I was more overheated with our first Azure Highland than I was too cold or under heated, if that's the right way to put it, for Gotham Get Out. And that's an inheritance from your youth. You grew up in Colorado, Indiana, cold states, cold winters. You've been there. You've done it. You know how to dress for the cold, so it's less of a factor.

[00:30:23] So you might be carrying something throughout your lifetime that helps you in that direction, would you say? Got to assume as much. People that grew up in equatorial tropics could probably do a lot better than I can, and I can do a lot better at a minus 15 degree wind chill than they could probably. Exactly.

[00:30:46] How about, before we do energy, because energy and temper or temperament are internal second order. Let's do moisture, for lack of a better term, just wet, super wet conditions or super dry conditions. When have you hit those maxes in your life? When have you pushed those green zones, gone towards tipping points on the moisture spectrum in the last three years?

[00:31:15] Last three years? Let me think if I've been soaked and just sitting in my soaked-ness for hours on end. Has it rained during an Azure Highland yet? No, thankfully. And by the way, it's raining a ton where I'm at right now. And if it was like 35 degrees and pouring rain during Gotham get-out, it would have been the most miserable. So there you go, about the cumulative effect or whatnot.

[00:31:42] I mean, football, I'm really glad that I played a lot of football as a kid because just totally soaked and miserable and muddy, and you just eventually love it. So when you go out to practice or a game and you know it's going to be crappy weather, you literally just jump into the biggest puddle you can just to get it over with. And then, you know, so you kind of learn that sort of philosophy. That's like pushing your comfort zone right before the game. That's a great example is that you're trotting out of the locker room. It's going to suck.

[00:32:11] But as soon as you get into it and get dirty and get warmed up internally, you know, playing the game, it's not going to matter. Sure. So just to break it mentally, dive into a wet, cold puddle to say, all right, my green zone, just I'm pushing it now. I know how to push it. I'm going to do it right now. Jump in the puddle. Yep. There you go. How about on the dry side?

[00:32:36] You ever been anywhere that was like parched, dry, arid, you know, the type of stuff where your feet and your skin, your hands can get kind of so dry that they get painful, your lips, your eyes. Okay. Yes. A little bit growing up in Colorado because it's pretty damn dry there. But I definitely remember in the winter in Indiana and just the Midwest generally, pretty freaking dry.

[00:33:02] You got some hard water, a lot of limestone and all that wind. You could definitely get wind burn. And I learned quickly, don't lick your lips, you know, because you're just going to get the worst chapped lips ever. So I've not really done any desert survival sort of thing by any means in terms of very low humidity or very dry. But, you know, dry cold is sucks. And I've had a lot of that. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:33:32] And, you know, the moisture thing, definitely the excess side in this case is what you worry about. Because when the temperature starts going down and the, you know, humidity or you're just soaking wet and soaking clothes, you don't have shelter, you can't start fire. It's a typical survival topic, right? Protecting against hyperthermia. So moisture and temperature really compound.

[00:34:00] That's the, you know, the environment coming right after you. Okay. We didn't mean to save it to last, but it worked out well. Let's talk about energy. And when we're talking about energy, like optimal is, you know, you're well-rested, energized. And the deficit side is easy to understand. It's, you know, you're getting tired and then you're getting exhausted, right?

[00:34:27] But the excess side, you know, you're overstimulated, you're jittery, you're over-energized. That's not a good state to be in either in certain times and places. When have you hit those kind of extremes lately and maybe max all time? The ration of ruin we're doing right now has gotten me at least a few times. Okay. Just so manic. Okay.

[00:34:56] Where I'm like super aggressive at work or I'm just like, I wrote like 20 messages to you guys in the ration of ruin thing yesterday. They're all relatively useful. I'm not like totally putting random crap in there. But I'm also just like kind of a little manic. And that's part of it's because I got more focus because my body's not digesting a bunch of food.

[00:35:21] And I've noticed over fasting that I need at least an hour less sleep per night if I'm fasting, at least those first couple of days. Because your body spends a lot of energy digesting, like a lot. So, but it can get way too much. And I think we don't have to go too far down the rabbit hole for that. But when you're not eating, you definitely get a big adrenaline spike. There's other hormones and other aspects.

[00:35:49] And just simply being hangry, just being kind of irritable, I'm sure has rolled into that a little bit. But so I would say from a temperament, like over. Hang on. Hang on. We're talking about energy. Let's leave temperament. Sorry. Let's leave temperament because they do. They blend together. Obviously, you can't separate them. But we're going to try to analyze this in these dimensions.

[00:36:14] Over energized can swing quickly to exhaustion. Right. You get hyper alert for too long. You're not going to just, you're not going to come off of the red side of the dial, like the 10 on our screen right now. You're not going to be hitting that 10. And then when the extra energy wears off, it slides back to a nice straight up five on the dial. You're going to drop to the opposite side.

[00:36:43] That swinging nature of the energy spectrum. I guess the other ones, they don't really behave that way. Right. Well, I guess externally, you know, the temperature. Right. In your conditions where it's super hot during the day and getting pretty cold again at night. That's tough. Right. That'll exhaust you. So I guess that one does behave that way if you're in the right climate.

[00:37:06] But internally, that energy from a lot excess swings back on you, doesn't it? Do you feel that during ration or ruin? I felt that in my life. But honestly, in ration or ruin, I have not been, if we were just going to use the scale, the one to 10. I've not been below a three except one night. And that was this past Saturday night. You know, actually went fishing.

[00:37:36] Didn't work out. Whatever. I was, it was still a fun time. I came back, but I was so tired. It was only like 930 or 10. It felt like it was three in the morning. So that was a total drop of energy. Totally blew out. I also went for like a three mile hike earlier that day, drove three hours round trip. So that was a huge swing negative of energy.

[00:37:57] However, the rest of ration or ruin, I've been able to keep my low energy level at like a four or even higher. And again, I don't want to conflate the two because we'll talk about why they're separate. But my physical energy, I feel like it's been pretty steady and pretty damn good during ration or ruin. And it's, it's my mental aspect. That's kind of a bit haywire. Well, energy includes mental energy. That's for sure.

[00:38:25] Give the mind power to get things done or you're energized. So they can swing to excess and to deficit, right? You can be mentally exhausted even if you didn't physically do anything all day. Right. But true. Oh yeah. When we talk about temperament, the six survival spectrum, that's, you know, a better name for that might actually be

[00:38:47] fear because that's what you have either an, you know, a deficit in, which I would call apathy in a survival situation. Right. All these other things start to go into the red eye and then you get apathetic and you could definitely get apathetic if you're hypothermic. Right. Right.

[00:39:07] So that's, you know, cold goes directly to apathy in, in, if it gets extreme apathy, but moving back towards the green, you're just anxious. Then you're in the green, you're calm, you're patient, you're, you're, you're handling your emotions and then excess fear. Like that, or I'm sorry. It's going to go from apathy, you know, a negative deficit.

[00:39:34] And then it's going to go to your comfort zone, calm, clear, patient. But there's going to swing into anxious and then all the way up to panic has, has anything we've done in Azure Highlands hit those needles for you. And maybe you can tell us in your life when you've hit either of those needles in a way that you knew it was bad and you didn't like it. Yeah.

[00:39:57] When we were doing the dinosaur trek, the anxiety was getting up to the seven or eights, not because of how I felt then, but I started to project the future. Like, okay, we've been lost in this maze of crap for hour or seemed like hours. It was only like an hour and a half, but I was like, okay, what if we're here for another hour or two hours or three hours and we get turned around? And then all of a sudden my mind's like, oh my God, what's going to happen? What's going to happen?

[00:40:26] I'm like, so I had to be like, look out. We're so close to everybody. We're not literally lost 50 miles in the wood and we're going to die. So, but I did start to slip in a little bit of panic of, oh man, what happens if I spray my ankle here or I do have a heat stroke or I do have, or one thing you told me later, which I'm glad he didn't say at that time was, oh yeah. By the way, there's a lot of underground hornet nests here.

[00:40:52] If one of us had stepped on that and got stung 40 times, it would have been a pain in the ass to try to drag out for medical help. So anyway. I totally thought of that at the time when I saw your condition and said, I, you know, let's, let's wait to see if we kick up. No time for jokes. Probably not a good time for jokes. So good assessment there. And it was compounded because let's, let's go back. You had less to eat. You've been hydrating, but it was really hot out.

[00:41:21] So you were, you know, the needle was heading to the deficit on, on water while we were doing that. Temperature, you already talked about, you know, 85 degrees or warmer. We had gone all night and, and, and arrived at objective gruff at Dave's house and, and got very little sleep and energies were, you know, running low. So it was beautiful day out.

[00:41:44] So it wasn't like it was raining on us, but four other of this survival spectrum were already getting tested. And you got yourself in that situation and push the, you know, the excess, you know, there's excess on, I got it. I got another point on that. I just, I kind of knew this inherently, but this is really pulling it out right now. Yeah. I had let my guard down because we had gotten to objective gruff. We had actually eaten some great food.

[00:42:12] I mean, I remember that oatmeal with the blueberries and everything at the NBC homestead. And so then after that, after we'd all kind of settled in and I kind of like let my guard down, didn't sleep or fully rest, but an hour or two of chilling. When you say guard down, what you're really saying is you were, your needles were all getting back into head and straight up on the gauge. You're getting back to comfort zone and everything. I thought I was like, I had started to, to get in there.

[00:42:41] And so when I went back into the red zone, it was kind of like an extra punch to the face. So that might've been a little bit of it, but like you said, all those needles were already at like, you know, yellow zone, let's call it. And they maybe one or two start to creep into the red. And before you know it, they have that kind of cumulative comprehensive effect.

[00:43:07] Now there's other spectrum scales that you can measure for how you're reacting to survival situations. Like we could, we could have one of these dials for pain, but, but pain only starts in the green and starts heading to excess, right? You're, you're, you're, you're without pain zero on the dial would be straight up and it would just go, you know, to excess, right?

[00:43:33] A little bit of pain, a lot of pain, but that's a dimension that doesn't swing into the other side. Right. That, you know, so for listeners out there, there's, there's probably other spectrum that we could consider. Very interested in seeing your comments and what you're thinking about along the lines of food, you know, outside of the, of the food, water, temperature, energy, moisture, and temper or temperament that we talked about here.

[00:43:58] And, and, but when I thought about this and I said, well, these are the six that really drive preparation, prepping to, to, to, to find a way to be in the right place, to be prepared in the right way. So that you're, you're not, your needles aren't getting thrown into the red when something, you know, a crisis hits, right? Yep. It could be other dimensions like this. Love to hear from listeners on what their thoughts are on that.

[00:44:28] But I thought about it. Most of them are just, they don't resemble the, you know, from one side deficit to one side excess. These six we think do, but again, you know, excess food, excess water, excess energy, right? Those are, you know, excess moisture, really dry. Those aren't necessarily the most dangerous side of the dials. Those, those tilt to the deficit side, right? Right.

[00:44:57] But temperature swings both ways. And I would argue temperament does. If you get apathetic, you're not afraid and you're, you're too exhausted, too wet, tired, hungry, thirsty, and mentally and physically drained to, you know, take care of the next step to live in the now. And to solve the problem at hand. That apathy could be, you know, a contributing factor to a deadly situation. You certainly can.

[00:45:25] And imagine when stuff actually hits the fan, if a family member was hurt really bad or even killed, or even if you had to evacuate and leave your dog behind, or there's just going to be so many emotional things going on as well as literally in your face that, you know, you want to have at least a little bit of wiggle room or the ability to get back. Like, you know, maybe you're going to hit that nine or a 10 out of anxiety. That's just how it's going to be.

[00:45:52] But can you quickly recover, get your bearings and try to get back into the green zone? Um, that's a little bit why we do these exercises. I'll tell you that. And just other, going back to preparedness, generally, you think food, water, shelter, those are directly related to these security is just, you know, tangentially related that you stay alive. So these six can even exist and have the temperament to do security correctly.

[00:46:21] If you're apathetic about it or you're panicked about it, you're in danger of pulling your own security. Absolutely. And great point. Um, and other types of prepping just all feed into these. Now, could we find another one or two? Maybe I'll try to think of any, but it's pretty comprehensive, comprehensive. I feel like this list of six. Yeah. Well, thanks for hashing it out for me. It's the first time we've done it.

[00:46:47] We talked about it in previous episodes, you know, kind of just as a brainstorm, but here are the six survival. Spectrums, the survival spectra in the plural. Uh, love to hear what people think about it. Now you said last Saturday night, you know, we were, we're running ration or ruin as our highland for right now, month long exercise, the longest we've ever done by a lot. Usually the other, other ones are just, you know, a two or three day event. This one's all month.

[00:47:13] You're so you're, you're running a deficit on food and for various reasons, you're, you're running, you know, on the X excess side of energy and maybe a little bit on the excess side of agitation, anxiousness on the temperament scale while we were fishing.

[00:47:31] And that brought about a lot of conversations about in a, in, in, in, in most scenarios that you personally are planning for survival fishing is not part of your tool set. That's not going to be part of your tool set. Is that, does that stand as your position or are you, are you looking in hindsight and saying, Hey, I had a couple of my needles in the red.

[00:47:59] And, and, and, and maybe, maybe, uh, you know, there is a place for it in your tools survival toolbox. I'll say this. A lot of time, the truth comes out when I have the full, you know, full gauge. So I still believe it's a pretty dumb idea to go out fishing on the shore. If they're literally marauders out there or people that'll kill you or stick you up.

[00:48:28] Now that doesn't mean it's not part of a prepper tool set and we are going to go out fishing. And maybe I was a little sour that I didn't catch anything. I will not lie, but I, you know, how about this? If there's an economic collapse, like the great depression, but it's not just people getting shot everywhere. Then yeah, you lose your job. You should go out fishing as often as you can. You ain't got much better to do. You could supplement maybe your storable food. Great situation to be prepped for.

[00:48:57] And you can consider that your own SHTF. But on the other hand, if the power has been out for almost any time, but especially if it's been out like a week or more in, you know, anywhere near you, you know, a hundred plus mile radius of you. There's been no power for a week or more. I am not going out, especially during daylight hours near a body of water. Just, I just feel like that is just so risky. So what are your thoughts there?

[00:49:27] It entirely depends on the type of crisis you're facing. Entirely. Are you in a without rule of law environment or an excessive rule environment? It depends. It's completely, completely depends. But the reason I asked you to describe that is to give a little window into what we're dealing with on ration or ruin.

[00:49:48] But also to think about, you know, you talk about the people in a, in a, you know, a fairly dense population area. They're green zones. They're not a prepper and they are not an outdoors types of person. They've, they're not a physical type of person. They haven't ever, ever pushed themselves. They have green zones that are tiny little needles.

[00:50:13] And you know, these people see them in social media, you know, it's, it's in the commercials. It's in popular culture, though. Slightest thing, but the, you know, the colloquial first world problem thing starts to put them on tilt when they're in it out of their safe space, out of their tiniest of comfort zones.

[00:50:33] And in the first week of a calamity, there's going to be so many people pushing through tipping points and, and getting deprivations and excesses that they've never had to deal with that, that it puts fear into you. Should put fear into all of us if you're near them. I think, I think that's what compounds your opinion on, on fishing itself, at least where you live.

[00:51:03] Yeah. Just, uh, people are so volatile and I'm seeing what happens to me when I'm, I'm still eating. I'm still eating, uh, more than 6,000 calories a week. And after just one week, I'm more aggressive. I'm more like, Hey, I want what I want. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes I'm a little too, uh, passive or too nice. So, uh, I'm getting some things done at work that I should have got done before, but I also got to make sure.

[00:51:33] I'm not a jerk about it, but, uh, you know, that's a good thing. But if, uh, everyone's trying to rush to get gas, uh, and the pumps stop, stop working or there's huge lines or rationing fights are going to break out. There could be shootouts. My point is if it starts to even get to that point, I don't even want to be near any humans, hardly at all. Just so much volatility, especially that first week or two.

[00:52:01] And yeah, I want to be tougher myself, but a good secondary effect of this ration of ruin is like, wow, if this is affecting me and I'm not saying I'm the toughest guy, but I'm somewhat tough. And I've been trying to expand my comfort zones, whether working out or mental strength and all that over the many years, the fasting over the last year or two. And I'm still kind of like volatile thrown off a little bit. Yeah.

[00:52:30] People are going to be losing it. Don't forget all the people that also, uh, are addicted to different drugs, medications and stuff too. So that's a whole nother thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if the pharmaceuticals, I will put them into the red when they come off of them in an entirely different scale. Right. So, yeah, absolutely.

[00:52:52] Well, I think, uh, rash or ruin and all the Azure highlands are for me an opportunity to start hitting tipping points that I haven't been at for a while to, and to try to accomplish something. That's usually manually physically hard to do something practical hand, you know, try to do something hard with my hands in the outdoors to, to, to, to, to trained in survival skills.

[00:53:22] While some of these needles are tipping into the red is, is useful for me to just as a confidence builder. You know, I'm, I'm a little bit thirsty. I'm a little bit hungry. I'm really, really tired. And I know I'm getting a little bit apathetic and just mentally say, all right, I'm crossing that boundary. I've been there before. I got to correct the situation. I got to just stay calm and keep that temperament, whatever you do.

[00:53:50] If, if, if any of these are, are vital or, or, or if any of these are, uh, you know, uh, first among their peers, I would say it's temperament, the mental. Don't let the fear set in. Don't let the apathy set in stay on that green zone and temperament. Even when you're all the others are trending negatively. And, and, and that's a path to surviving that situation.

[00:54:19] And then Yoda says fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. So I agree. Like, uh, you will be, if you're scared, you're more likely to lash out fight or flight. Maybe you'll run away. Uh, you need to be able to act rational under, under duress. Like that's something I, I need to practice every day.

[00:54:45] And one thing you've talked about is if you don't exercise these skills or this competency or just this toughness, it shrinks. And every day that I'm not, uh, trying to improve, I know I'm getting worse, but you also can't drive yourself too crazy. But, uh, but yeah, I'm glad we're doing ration of ruin and, uh, looking forward to going fishing again, getting my revenge on them fish.

[00:55:09] Now, when you're dealing with these things, it's important to remember in 2025 that a hundred years ago, most people didn't have electricity. Right. And, and, and start picking major technological milestones going all the way back to the ice age. Right.

[00:55:29] You know, where shelter was less, less affording of, of your comfort zone than it is, you know, even, even 300 years ago, you know, wooden architecture houses before that mud huts go on back to the paleolithic if you want. But humankind is able to survive.

[00:55:50] We are here today because, you know, way, way, way back in time, our biological and behavioral mechanisms to maintain that balance in the spectrum's comfort zone. You know, we're capable of a lot. What I'm trying to say is we're capable of much, much more than we've challenged.

[00:56:08] You know, there's countless stories of, you know, air crews during world war two that bailed out and had to survive for months, you know, and, and, you know, lost on the ocean in a raft after your ship sunk. And all those, you know, crazy, extreme survivor stories. Right. But the people could do it. Some of them could.

[00:56:31] But if you, I, again, if I come back to, if you, if you panic or everything's gone wrong and you're, you're just absolutely apathetic and you're not taking care to survive for yourself, then, you know, if you don't have the temperament, everything else is a real, real problem. So, Ratchet or Ruin right now. How you doing?

[00:56:57] I feel like I'm doing okay based off my weigh-ins and I'm not going to share the spreadsheet tonight, but maybe next week and definitely at our Friday wrap-ups, I'll start bringing the spreadsheet to share. But I've been keeping track of my weight first thing in the morning and right before I go to sleep. Now, it looks like I've lost about between two and a half to three pounds. One thing I've noticed is the weight fluctuations are huge.

[00:57:27] So, if I've gone 36 plus hours without eating and then I eat the storable food, a lot of sodium, a lot of carbs, and just food generally because I didn't have any, I can gain eight to ten pounds in just 24 hours. And then it'll quickly fall right back off. And so, there's a lot, a lot of swings. And before Ratchet or Ruin, you know, you always gain and lose weight throughout the day.

[00:57:53] I would usually about a four pound swing, four to five pound. So, almost doubled the volatility of weight, but it's also on quite a downtrend. My energy levels are equal or better, both from what I'm tracking on my spreadsheet as well as just what I feel like. My workouts are equal or better. My mental clarity and aggressiveness at work is more. So, I've got a lot done.

[00:58:22] And I'm not like anxious or tweaking out there. But I will say, again, sometimes I'm concerned about over-revving this first week or two. And then by week three or four, I might swing back to the apathetic. So, that's a little bit of a preview that I'm running my RPM is pretty high right now. And I don't feel too bad about it. But I'm also like, well, how long can I keep this up, you know?

[00:58:47] So, you had said when we kicked this off that 2,500 calories is your normal, what you use to keep it, your normal weight. So, somewhere around 17,500 per week. We've cut our diets to 6,000 in emergency food supplies plus supplementation.

[00:59:14] I'm doing the muscle milk, 160 calories times four or five a day, even on the no solid food days. So, this is a deficit without a doubt. And we're in, you know, week one and a quarter of a four-week exercise. Do you anticipate this deficit to continue to provide you with perhaps some of the benefits you just said?

[00:59:42] Or when can you foresee starting to hit, you know, real deficiency tipping point on the hunger scale? This is uncharted territory for me, which is what I'm stoked about. Like I said, I only started fasting about a little bit more than a year ago. And a lot more of a keto diet, a carnivore diet most of the time. Not all the time. But I have, I'm pretty much right now at the lowest weight I've been in about 10 to 15 years.

[01:00:11] But I know I had a lot of clean fat on me to burn in ketosis. In theory, I could keep up like this losing a pound or two a week for the next 8, 10, 12 weeks. And in theory, again, in theory, would have no negative physical effects. Now, once I get to that level and my body fat drops to 10, 12% or lower, start eating some muscle away.

[01:00:39] Now, a huge thing is vitamin supplementation. I have been supplementing with vitamins, fish oil, cod liver oil. So, even though my calories are quite a deficit, I have been able to get some of those nutrients in there. So, I feel like I have, and this is a, you mentioned it in the show, Alive or any, that's what it's called, right? Alone.

[01:01:09] Alone, alone. I was thinking of the movie where they eat each other alive. Not that one. Oh, gosh. My joke just ran out. Maybe my mental clarity is falling apart. Oh, yeah. That they come in overweight a little bit. So, if you can use the fat that you've accumulated, if your body's efficient at burning that fat, you can keep your energy levels equal or higher than when you were not fasting or eating low calorie.

[01:01:38] Not indefinitely, but as long as you have that fat. So, I've had the idea over the last year that, hey, I'm going to always carry a little bit of extra love handles because an extra 20, 30, 40,000 calories of fat on my body could be super useful as a prepper. I might not have washboard abs, but I'd rather be able to go without food or limited food for a couple months if I needed to. I've never tested that, though. So, now, I'm really going to test it and we'll see what it's like in the next few weeks.

[01:02:07] I'm pretty much right now at the furthest I've been, right about now. So, uncharted territory, especially starting next week, I think. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Me too. And haven't had a lot of negative effects thus far, but it's going to become a challenge. We're not even halfway through the month. What do you think of Mountain House? What do you think of the Mountain House product?

[01:02:33] Just teasing the product review that we'll really get into on Friday with Dave and James. Yeah, this is week two, Mountain House. I had three packs of it yesterday for my Monday food. I'd love to have some tonight, but it's a fasting night. I loved it. And I think even if I was eating my normal diet, I would still like it.

[01:02:56] But the fact that I've been calorie deficit and simply put, it tastes better than Ready Hour. It's scoring higher on the taste. I agree. Higher on the taste and honestly a lot higher on the nutrition preparedness and nutrition. More protein in it for sure. More protein. Feels like real food instead of just a powder mix, if that makes sense a little bit. What do you think of the packaging?

[01:03:27] Packaging is great. The form factor is great. You could literally just pour water in there, stir it up and cook it. You don't need a separate pot. Yep. Which could be huge for bug out purposes, right? Yep. Yep. I like all those things. The packages are small though. And then therefore, you know, the cost per calorie. Mountain House is much more expensive than Ready Hour.

[01:03:56] It is. And I'm going to try to put together a cost analysis. I'm going to need to figure out when I'm going to be able to do this, but I need to do it. I'm going to try to figure out a cost per calorie essentially between Ready Hour and Mountain House. So if you were going to eat, let's just say you ate 2,000 calories a day, no fasting, none of that. One week, seven days at 2,000 calories a day is 14,000 calories a Ready Hour versus 14,000

[01:04:23] calories of Mountain House. I said I would pay twice as much for Mountain House per calorie. But I got a feeling it's probably going to cost like two and a half or three times. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I'm right there with you. It's, it's, it's, you're paying for it. You're getting what you pay for. And we talked about Ready Hour and how we felt eating it.

[01:04:49] And if, you know, what depends on how you prep depends on how your plans are. It depends on your means. So throwing, throwing a chunk of change into Bitcoin and watching it, you know, run up might be a way to, you know, be eating a product like Mountain House that does seem to have more to offer in certain regards, but not in cost.

[01:05:15] Not in cost, but it still lasts 25 plus years based off the packaging. And, and one way I look at it, I like to tier my survival food, you know, the, at the first layer is just my prepper pantry and this is stuff that I use in my regular day and I just have a whole year supply of it and I rotate it. Number two would be something like Mountain House. Like, Hey, this is the best version. It's also the most portable version.

[01:05:42] So I wouldn't necessarily eat that straight away, but that's kind of a higher tier. And then not saying Ready Hour is the worst or anything like that, but that's kind of like the base layer where, Oh, I got six months of Ready Hour. Or also I can share with people. I can give it to people. If I had a friend, guest, family member that was with me for whatever reason, needed to barter it. But on the other hand, maybe you, you know, maybe I would personally eat the Ready Hour,

[01:06:09] but barter the Mountain House because my neighbor is a little more sensitive to the taste and I could get way more. I don't know. Something to think about to have different kind of layers. I guess that the bottom layer would be like spam and Twinkies. So you got to have that supply of your prepper, I guess. I don't know how long that would be edible, but yeah, more to follow on the product review of Mountain House. The jury's still out.

[01:06:36] There's still a lot left to be eaten this week, but we're going to proceed through Mountain House this week. Next week is XMREs. We're going to hit the Meals Ready to Eat. That'll skyrocket on the cost dimension. And we're going to see what it tastes like. But the portioning and packaging might be, might have advantages. This is what we're doing this month.

[01:07:03] And the last week of the month, we're going to put those three, you know, self-stable brand name options up against Dave Jones's homemade dehydrated food. We saved that for the last week. The endurance on that expected to obviously be lower. Or he's not producing stuff with additives that take it to a 30-year shelf life.

[01:07:32] But that's what we're doing this month for ration or ration. Either you're rationing or you're headed towards ruin. So looking forward to getting with you and James and Dave on Friday and see what we really think about Mountain House this week. Yes, sir. The second week review. Be sure to tune in that. Tune into that on Prepper Broadcasting Network this Friday.

[01:07:58] Although I will say I kind of want to go fishing this Friday evening around sundown because I think it should be good. Some good fishing. So maybe right after we're done, I'll hop in. But really, I think this has been a great show. We're coming up on a little bit more than an hour. Do you want to say Sloan Six says, stay with the dog. Probably talking about the situation where I said you had to leave your dog. I would do everything possible. Never, ever, ever to leave my dog. So I agree, Sloan.

[01:08:26] Firewood Forge was 119 in the attic today. Got a touch of the exhaustion. Saunas, whether it's a sauna at your gym or just your attic when it's like 100 degrees out. Go in your attic or in your garage attic, 120, 130 degrees in there. Go in there. Just lay in there or even do some slight calisthenics. Nothing crazy. Go at it.

[01:08:52] Build that comfort zone and keep it strong. You know, you might think you could do something that you did 5, 10, 20 years ago, but if you haven't done it lately, maybe you can't. Got to keep yourself tested for your dance. So awesome show. Anything else you want to hit on? Yeah, it's important to say that there's the green zone. There's the tipping point. They're stepping into the red and then there's doing stupid stuff that can get you hurt. So don't do the stupid stuff.

[01:09:22] Again, we are supplementing with vitamins, minerals, protein, this whole month of ration or ruin because we're not trying to replicate absolute deprivation in food. It's not healthy. Same thing with heat. Same thing with cold. Same thing with miserable conditions. It's important to get out there, test yourself, hit those tipping points, but you got to be wise about it. You got to have a buddy system. You have to have backup plans.

[01:09:50] Right now, I know I could go to the grocery store if I had to. I'm not putting myself in an all or nothing survival situation just to try to get extreme and touch those poles and do any risk with the exercise. That's my disclosure to our audiences. We're not advocating to go and do anything dangerous.

[01:10:19] Don't do this at home if it's not safe in your health and your conditions. But another, just to wrap up, even if you do hit those tipping points and you're exercising it, how long before the comfort zone shrinks back up again? It starts to tighten up. You haven't pushed yourself. And when you cross those boundaries in the future, could it be happening on a day that the entire future danger heat map is black on red crisis now?

[01:10:49] It's going down. Your prepping plans are in effect. In fact, if you're not ready for that, if you haven't pushed yourselves to deprivations or excesses, it's going to be a lot harder under those circumstances to get used to it again. Well said. You need a balance. You need some reserves for when stuff really does go down. But you also can't be just sitting on your laurels because every day you're not working. You're getting weaker.

[01:11:17] So don't burn out, but don't be apathetic. Good luck. It's the human condition. Find that good balance. It's all about finding that balance, but also expanding what you can do and what you can recover from when you get some bad news or something bad happens physically, mentally. Bounce back. Keep on prepping. Keep on grinding. All right, future Dan. Great show. Looking forward to hitting some more tipping points with you in the near future on Rational Race.

[01:11:46] Ruin, Ben. Deal. I'm down. We'll talk to you guys on Friday with the Week 2 Review. Until then, enjoy your food because I'll be dreaming of some tonight.