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Language: en
when I was at my most sexually vital and
excited about life mid-30s I was lean
had a decent amount of muscle at least
for me and really felt good my question
is though do you think if you had a gun
to your head did I feel awesome because
I was lean and had a decent amount of
muscle or did I feel awesome because my
testosterone was higher than it is now
in my mid-40s and what I'm trying to
figure out cuz at some point I am going
to do trt but so far I've done nothing I
haven't even gone out of my way to
naturally optimize my testosterone but I
feel like I'm getting to the point now
where I need to start really thinking
about that and so I'm just curious
between those two um for a guy of any
age if you needed to make them feel like
life is worth living would you optimize
testosterone or would you optimize
physique that's tough to say cuz when
you say leaner two that could be not
conducive to opal testosterone levels
too because I know a lot of people in
the fitness industry for example young
guys in their 20s who are trying to make
a name for themselves and go viral and
stand out they'll literally walk around
at 6 7% body fat year round and they
look great and their ego is inflated and
they get all the compliments and they
think it's you know the best thing ever
but their testosterone levels are like
200 whoa yeah they're like literally
hypogonadal at 21 years old Jesus yeah
from being lean or from yeah like
calorie deprivation excessive cardio
like their body isn't essentially start
starvation mode perpetually there's
definitely like a balance to be had
where you could try and keep your
hormones as ideal as they can be well
let's say that I did the blood test and
I slide it across the table what's the
first thing that you would look for you
know that the person sliding it across
the table saying I want to feel awesome
yeah you go to what what are like the to
three things that you're going to look
at okay I guess from the neurological
side and muscle building potential side
I would be looking at free testosterone
in particular which would be the freely
circulating Androgen that dictates
muscle growth if I was to be looking for
signaling to actually determine if you
were truly hypogonadal or not and needed
something like trt I would be looking at
they're called gonadotropins which is
the signal from your pituitary to your
testies to actually make intratesticular
testosterone so that would be lutenizing
hormone and follicle stimulating hormone
would that go down if I'm on trt those
would go to nothingness interesting yeah
like they would be subclinical and show
that you're entirely deficient because
you would be using an exogenous Source
like pinning exogenous testosterone
which would then tell your brain we
don't need to make anym uh genotropin
because we don't need to Signal the
testes to make any more testosterone or
have spermatogenesis either and that is
where fertility rates can decline from
using exogenous testosterone as well and
then from there that's where you get the
testicular atrophy from using steroids
super interesting okay so that was to
what's the third thing that you would
look at maybe like fasting insulin just
to see how insulin sensitive somebody is
I've seen you talk about this on your
show multiple times but it's kind of
like your body's ability to actually
utilize nutrients effectively and
actually like get glucose into muscle
and if you are having resistance to
getting the actual energy into cells you
were going to have issues actually being
an optimal functioning human and
maximizing muscle growth and all of
these things it's interesting so glucose
has been my obsession but now as I start
thinking about what what's that next
level for me as I get older I really
start to think about trt uh and for
people that don't know testosterone
replacement therapy so is that do you
just look at numbers is in a blood test
is that an age thing like how do you if
you're working with somebody how do you
help them decide is it ability to put on
muscle what's the determining Factor
ideally it's a hybrid of symptoms and
biomarkers however
I'm sure you've probably met a guy in
your life who had some
unreasonably I don't know like crazy
genetic predisposition to gaining muscle
but then on their blood test it's not
necessarily reflected in well how come
their testosterone level is only 500 or
600 and I'm not more jacked and I have
an 800 like it doesn't always work that
it's just you have more test equals more
muscle than the next guy it's also you
know receptor sensitivity density gene
expression subsequent to that like there
are a lot of things that play into it so
it's not always down to just the number
cuz hypothetically you might need more
testosterone than the next guy to
achieve the same functions from a like
physiology perspective like you might be
able to get away with a 400 total with a
free that is 2 to 3% of that and feel
totally fine have a perfect libido be a
vital human and have nothing going like
seemingly wrong whereas another guy
might have a 600 or 700 and have
symptoms of low te because he either
needs more or too much of it being bound
up by binding proteins because of his
lifestyle and or Diet model or what have
you um so it kind of depends like
ultimately it would be dictated by you
know are you waking up with morning wood
do you still have a good libido how is
it compared to you know in your most
vital period of life you know comparing
to your mid-20s or whatever um assessing
muscle growth potential like that is
kind of a metric that could be used like
if you notice your body composition is
suddenly declining despite you seemingly
having the same routine that you've
always had that would obviously be like
a pretty
good factor to keep into account um but
on blood test typically you're going to
see the manifestation of low te in
that's signaling to your testes or if
you actually had it's called primary
hypog grism is when the testies
literally don't respond to those signals
and that's like where trt becomes the
most warranted in general can you spike
the gonadal signaling or do you have to
go like if it's low or it's present but
you're not getting the release of
testosterone is there something that you
can do to to boost that signal yeah so
the signal to your testes is all based
on a feedback system so it's your body
determining okay we don't have enough
testosterone and estrogen to facilitate
certain functions in the body so we have
to make more but it's going to be
dictated too by energy intake Sleep
Quality macro and micronutrient intake
not just your protein carbs fats but
also the micronutrients you're taking in
the quality the foods you're eating all
those things are massively impactful on
what that signaling capacity will
actually be so it doesn't always boil
down to oh you were just too lean too
like if you were following a diet that
was totally deficient in fat or
deficient in zinc um magnesium like what
have you like certain things that are
very uh more heavily proportionately
contributing to testosterone production
these things can have very negative
downward pressure on your pituitary
output of these hormones and down the
line or Downstream to that prevent you
from making as much test as you could so
as far as like what you could do to
spike it a lot of the same principles
that I'm sure you preach regularly on
this channel about uh you know lifestyle
practices sleep hygiene diet quality a
lot of people Overlook problems with
sleep though with things like sleep
apnea is very common and men like a lot
more prevalent than people are aware of
and they think they sleep oh I'm in bed
for eight hours and I'm sleeping but the
quality is atrocious so stuff like that
is uh very impactful so if I want to put
on on more muscle which I do but not so
my thing is is honestly we were talking
about this before we started rolling
your time is finite you can only
allocate your energy to so many things
you're going through that now with
content creation versus actually
building businesses um I have the same
with building a business and building my
physique and so I always tell people you
can tell how much I care about physique
by looking at me I'm not overweight uh
but I'm also not jacked because it just
took so much time and energy to do that
um so I would like to put on more muscle
I don't want to be in the gym 2 hours a
day 6 days a week um and I know at your
Merit Clinic you guys aren't just like
hey get on trt like you guys are pretty
thoughtful but so first I want to
know it should one put off trt as long
as they can minus like symptoms that
would require that like when I heard
Rogan say that he started trt in his 30s
I was like whoa I I would continue to
push it off lest you tell me otherwise
um well the thing with it it kind of of
because again you could go by the
standards of the medical community or
even kind of the more vague
interpretation of optimization at all
kind of depends on what is important to
you so hypothetically if you wanted to
push your body harder than even
replacement you could just take
full-blown steroids if you wanted to and
it's kind of but why wouldn't we because
I'm assuming you don't recommend that or
do that's the thing is because when
you're saying should I push off trt it's
kind of like well if you're planning on
getting it on it eventually how much do
you care about forer right now um zero
okay so that's one in favor of the trt
side um then you would look at your
actual signaling to your testes and how
adequate is it or inadequate and also
what is your your actual response at the
organ itself and then you can kind of
dictate well is it deficient horribly
deficient like where do I stand on that
Spectrum to actually get me to how I
feel right now because again you have a
lot of pillars of Health that are super
dialed that are also supportive of you
you like potentially being right on the
brink of feeling not great like I don't
really know where you stand on that
Spectrum but everything is contributing
in some facet to some degree and trt
maybe it takes you up to the top of that
Spectrum maybe you're on like some guys
are teetering on like the brink of like
being subf functional in terms of not uh
having a high quality of life it kind of
depends so as much as I would love to
say you know wait 5 years or wait
specifically this amount of time it
would very much depend on a lot of
context about your own individual
situation all right so deciding when to
do trt really comes down to if it's not
disrupting my life if I'm sleeping well
if I feel good if my in fact check me if
any of these are the wrong things to
look at if my libido is high enough if I
have sort of that you know zest for life
I feel driven I'm still going probably
not the time to do it probably not so if
I want to start adding
muscle and my tea were deficient because
if that's not today it's going to be a
day soon how do I approach this do I
want to take testosterone directly do I
want precursors how do you go when
somebody comes to you and is like hey
I've tried sort of all the um basic
stuff how do I now accelerate this
personally for me it would be like a
full-blown analysis if they're actual
diet quality which could involve like
there's there's programs that you can
use online like uh there's one called
chronometer you can just plug your diet
in it'll show the actual micronutrient
density of what you're eating like how
many vitamins and minerals of each there
are in the food J reading and then from
there you can actually pinpoint if you
have a real deficiency that is
contributing or not um and then B that's
where targeted supplementation could
actually be warranted rather than just
blindly taking a bunch of stuff um so
there's that and then assessing your
what are some basic supplementation like
what's a
common yeah vitamin D huge um do you
advise that through sun exposure or
through supplementation depends on
vitamin D man because it's like modern
day is it the most conducive to vitamin
D that perhaps than it was hundreds of
years ago it's kind of I don't really
know what the answer is to that but all
I do know is I see a lot of low vitamin
D statuses these days and it's very very
prevalent and a lot of the working
environments and lifestyles are very
anti-c conducive to getting enough
vitamin D from outside so and some
people it's just like literally where
they live so maybe supplementation is
warranted says the man from Canada yeah
I have to use vitamin D myself yeah no I
can imagine I'm assuming sleep is in
there as uh one of the basics do you
consider working out as a way to spike
testosterone yeah it's kind of like uh I
fig what called the Goldilocks zone or I
don't know what the the terminology is
but basically too much of it could be
the opposite of helpful but too little
also not going to be helpful too so
having you know like a good resistance
training routine where you were focused
on trying to progressively overload and
gain strength rather than just fluff
workouts going through the motions kind
of stuff um is and that's more important
than cardio um for muscle certainly for
and muscle is going to increase my test
more than yeah building uh good muscle
focused body composition is the most
conducive to that for cardiovascular
Health having like ultimately these are
things that shouldn't be should I do one
or the other like you should be doing
both ultimately so um both are going to
be helpful but I would say making sure
at minimum you're getting in your heavy
lifts for the week the most important of
the weightlifting do you consider heavy
a rep range
thing yeah like uh in general it kind of
depends on what you are going for though
cuz some people you know they're
powerlifters and they are prioritizing
strength over hypert so the range will
differ for them but in general like
standard 8 to 12 rep ranges using
weights that you're not going to go to
complete failure on your first set but
by the last set you're hitting failure
on the last rep kind of thing and then
trying to progressively overload and add
a pound or two every single workout and
focusing on that keeping a very
regimented log book too A lot of people
will just do the same exercis and the
same weights for years on end and then
wonder why their physique doesn't change
but they have not been tracking anything
when they could have been otherwise
microloading every single time they go
in the gym like there are literally like
0.5b increment plates you can buy on
Amazon that you can just chalk on if 5
lbs is too high of an increment which is
a problem at some gyms like you have to
at some point you're going to plateau
and at that point is it reasonable to
add five pounds every time you show up
no you're going to be you know stuck
spinning your wheels a bit and that's
where using micro increments or going up
by rep you know doing another rep on the
on the set instead might be a goal but I
found those like 0.5b plates really
really helpful what about so your ize
your duration of working out I assume
you've been working out since teens or
20s yeah so for me what I found was I I
got to the point where there were just I
it was always a battle between I'm
trying to get my weights to go up but I
keep getting injured have you given how
long you've been at this are you still
like heavier lifts more reps or at some
point do you go yeah this is the weight
that I do and I'm just going to stick
here yeah for me I have prioritized
other things over body composition for a
while now like I still Jaz not nearly as
much as I was but I also it would be
unreasonable for me to expect to have
maintained my lifts at what they were
because I used to use reasonable amounts
of steroids whereas now I don't use
those so um for me though I've just uh I
try to progressively overload when I go
in the gym still um and track uh with a
log well it's not it's a app not a log
book but you can use a book or an app if
you want um but yeah I still try to
focus on the same principles but it's
certainly it's not the same weight that
I was using back in the day but it is
the same principles applied and still
trying to make progress because if
you're not trying to make progress in
the gym like you're not giving the
adequate stimulus to tell your body okay
you need to actually grow to support
this load because at some point it gets
used to what you're doing and then you
need to actually tell your body hey you
know this is an increasing Demand on
muscle so build more say support it
because you can't do it right now
so how do you I mean
you're
big like maybe not bodybuilder big but
you have very robust which I'm sure
comes across on camera even hiding under
your sweater over there um so how much
time do you have to put in to maintain
it like for somebody that really wants
to build a physique what are those
straightforward principles that you're
still
deploying maintaining is magnitudes
easier than gaining muscles
which I guess is sort of something
people can look forward to is as much as
it seems like a daunting task to build a
bunch of muscle once you're there
actually retaining it is not that
difficult um or at least I don't think
so given that you're not using a bunch
of hormones to support it um so for me
typically I can maintain my physique on
just like a few days a week um ideally
four days a week is kind of my schedule
now an hour in the gym in and out uh any
more than that our gym how many days a
week four days yeah and for me that's
just a classic split of you know chest
shoulders back another day is arms and
legs um I think I don't think I'm
missing anything there um calvs on legs
as well um if I came in during your
workout would I think you were trying to
kill yourself no I don't think so
interesting yeah it's kind of like the
minimum minimum effective volume I can
do to maintain what I have is what I do
because I also get my mental bandwidth
sapped when I go really hard in the gym
MH so if I was allocating priorities to
gaining muscle and trying to build my
physique up my volume would look
different and higher than it does at
just maintenance amount when you were
adding the muscle if I had seen you work
out would it look like you were trying
to kill yourself maybe when I'm going to
failer on the last set of each exercise
but I still do that on were you like a
guy that was like screaming in there two
hours a day what did that look like I
think that's a common misconception that
you need to be in there for hours a day
six seven days a week like even for a
bodybuilder who's a professional and is
taking copious amounts of steroids they
would probably not be in there seven
days a week for two hours interesting
yeah because at some point you're just
doing so much damage to the muscle
you're never recovering like yeah it's
called Junk volume when you're just
going above and beyond what you need and
it's almost like anti-h helpful that's
interesting so where is The Sweet Spot
you get a guy he's a total dweeb what do
we do so uh let's start Natty and then
maybe we'll we'll Veer in a second but
so starting him off Supernatural but we
we need to get this kid jacked no
[ __ ] around we have 18 months to do
it so one how many pounds if we he does
whatever you tell him he eats what you
tell him he sleeps when you tell him he
micronutrients all of it this kid is
religious he does exactly what you tell
him to do what is that going to look
like for him like what do we what do we
start him off with probably figure out
what his maintenance calories is which
is how much he needs to eat to not
either gain or lose weight 2000 okay so
that's super low but anyway let's just
say you need a number yeah so 2,000 it's
probably going to be closer to 3,000
really what yeah for maintenance for a
guy who's exercising regularly and is
Young this is because he's going to work
out yeah if you were just sedentary and
doing absolutely nothing then you're
just basically expending energy for your
like movements sitting down like your
fidgets and stuff which is a lower
calorie amount I think it's called a non
exercise or non-activity exercise
thermogenesis or something it's like
your neat calories it's how much you're
going to expend just by functioning as a
human and then on top of that is all
your activity which you then factor in
for your caloric intake what's the
average person 21y old guy what's the
average 21 year old guy uh I think when
you if they are working out and
exercising their maintenance might fall
between like 2700 to 3,000 wow yeah okay
so our guys at that let's say but now
we're going to get him in the gym how
many days a week I would start with four
probably Monday Wednesday Friday Sunday
so every other day would be fine
interesting yeah okay so now we get him
in the gym are we using your split which
you said was back CH sorry shoulders
chest back what did you do on back day
back it was just back yeah it kind of
for me just back or back buys I do just
back but really do you get buys their
own day or do you treat arms on the same
day one day your mix is weird walk me
through it again again it would depend
on what your weak points are so if it's
a newbie it's totally different for me
like for example my shoulders are my
dominant body part so I just shove it at
the end of chest a and I barely because
your shoulders grow easily yeah and they
maintain easily too so I don't really
put that much volume into them so for me
it's a dictation of my weekly volume
based on how much I can actually
allocate before I'm fatigued and then I
distribute that volume accordingly based
on the body parts that need more
attention so I have a terrible chest so
I do more on chest versus delts I barely
touch them so for a newbie I'm angry
with you right now I just want to I want
the record to reflect well maybe you
have a better Gest your shoulders are
beast mode Okay Okay so we've we've got
the kid it's every other day yeah we're
going to allocate his energy based on
what he sucks at for now it's like
figuring out what he sucks at is
impossible if he's never done it so I
would just do like basic you know the
compound three lifts you know bench
squat dead lift I would allocate those
to you know squat on your leg day dead
lift on your back day bench breast on
your chest day and then you know fill in
other complimentary exercises depending
on you know I would probably start him
on really low volume to begin with and
then see how much he can handle um is it
so fatiguing that it's like affecting
his next workout where he's not
performing as well and you kind of like
micro adjust from there but starting
with just you know a few really strong
exercises like it's not rocket science
you do like three to four sets of each
eight to 12 reps whatever you can handle
but actually the thing is is sometimes
coaches
will need the clients to send videos of
doing the exercise because their
interpretation of what going hard enough
is actually not going hard enough so me
just telling him to 8 to 12 reps like I
don't actually know that he's going hard
enough I think a good Target is by the
last set of that exercise you are
hitting failure by like the tail end of
that set so like your last rep is almost
impossible for you to do and you need to
spot her essentially should you be able
to walk out of the gym normally if
you're leg day or should you on your
first leg day ever you will be a [ __ ]
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yeah but that's just cuz it's a virgin
muscle not the first time I so I very
consciously went from I don't work out
to I work out like a demon yeah and ah
no one gave me that warning and so I put
photos of Hugh Jackman this is like PQ
Jackman Wolverine okay I've got him
plastered everywhere I'm going to look
like Q Jackman I'm going all in so go in
go so hard that if I sat in a chair for
more than five minutes when I would get
back up I would have to stop stretch
before I could walk again it was Unreal
but that became my Benchmark I didn't
want to get that far because that that
actually made it hard to move um but I
remember one time at the end of a
workout so this is I was very poor at
the time and my driver side car door
didn't unlock so you had to unlock the
passenger side door reach across and
unlock the driver side and I had just
done chest and chest shoulders tries
which I would do on the same day
and I put my arm down on the seat to
reach across to unlock it and my arm
just it like gave way and it fell in my
face and I was like that's when you know
you've worked out hard enough or was
that stupid and that was just we're now
into it's moving me backwards yeah I
think it's kind of hard to say oh you
went too hard to a newbie because
they're super sore on day one I think
that's kind of expected but they don't
need to do as much as almost anyone else
who has been actively doing it for years
because such a little stimulus is needed
to achieve growth at that point that you
can get away with much less volume at
the start and still get your newbie
gains going so it's kind of like you
know there's no magic number um but um
yeah if you walk out on your leg day
like honestly after three sets of squats
on your first leg day ever you're
probably going to be sore even if you're
a newbie if you actually like went close
to failure that's just expected from a
virgin muscle so I wouldn't read too
much into it unless you were literally
doing like I don't know 20 sets of body
part or something that would be way
overkill for a newbie um if they were
just start well maybe not way Overkill
kind of depends on again how hard are
you going on those sets right so he's
only got 18 months though so Ball Park
me if 20 is probably too many sets per
body part what is the he's doing what
Derek tells him to do yeah I think um
maybe like again this is just like a
ballpark number but maybe like 60 sets a
week and then the last allocating those
between the four workouts and again like
the split if it's two 60 sets per week
per body part total split across how all
the days and if that was too intense for
somebody too they could technically
split one of those days into another day
in itself like chest and shoulders a lot
of people they need their
shoulders or their chest not like some
supporting body parts might be fatigued
that otherwise would warrant separating
that body part into a separate day like
for you obviously triceps are not going
to do as well by the time you get to
them after you've done a bunch of bench
breaths and stuff so for a newbie after
he's hit his you know failure set on
bench and then you tell him to go do
what's his like main compound tricep
exercise that he might be doing maybe
he's doing if he does a close grip bench
breast or something like good luck
you're going to get zero out of that
because you're so destroyed at that
point so that's where you know a
separate arm day might make sense so how
you split that up again like there's so
many free programs online from people
who are reputable in the space with uh
work programs and whatnot so um I think
it's pretty easy and accessible to find
that now but ultimately like 60 70 sets
a week if you can handle it 80 but like
I think that'd be a good starting point
and just separating that across four or
five days depending on how you want to
do the split if you want to have a you
know a separate shoulder Day from your
chest day or not it kind of depends
again on your time and whatnot but um
and then yeah just going into failure in
your last exercise of uh the set and
it's uh not that complicated and make
make sure you get your body weight and
protein per day in grams um and if it's
not that complicated why do so few
people have
physiques um because I think a lot of
unrealistic standards are putting being
put out there by people in the industry
that walk around you know with 200 total
T's who are natural that maintain these
absurdly low body fat percentages and
then also guys who were on steroids and
you know are very forthcoming or not
forthcoming about the why would that
make so I'm going to I'll give a counter
argument they're lazy okay so put it
this way you thought the Hugh Jackman
2001 physique was great ask anyone in
the fitness industry if that was good
they'd be like that guy's skinny
fat yeah not kidding okay interesting
but let's take this headon so I don't
think it's bad role models I think it's
laziness you think it's unrealistic
expect why would that stop somebody from
getting a physique because they give up
yeah I just think there are a lot of
there's a lot of skewing of what people
see as a good physique now as opposed to
I think they could achieve the huge
Jackman 2001 naturally and with you know
most people could probably do that it's
just there is so much saturation of
Fitness industry physiques now that it
has anyone who's kind of following that
I don't know niche of content and maybe
it is a bit more of a subsection so
maybe it is only a certain subsection of
people that have the work perception
including myself but it certainly is
inflating what is perceived to be good
so I think again the people who aren't
achieving somewhat assembl so we're
arguing about the word good yeah uh
which is all subjective yeah yeah yeah
okay
so fair but I will say I very quickly
got into a bodybuilding universe so I
know the most like distorted physiques
ever and I remember one time coming into
work and showing my partners like I want
to look this guy on the cover of
whatever uh body building magazine uh I
was like I want to look like this and
they were like guaranteed that guy's
Photoshop they're like there's no
Universe in which even with drugs that
somebody has a chest that bubbly and but
even that like having something to aim
at having something that excited me so
much the idea of being able to one day
look like that even though there was no
Universe in which I was ever going to
get there because it was Photoshop
probably steroids plus Photoshop like
really like extreme extreme it still was
EXC in and so it got me to go into the
gym and so when I look at the people
that I love that and especially when I
used to be leaner and bigger people used
to come up to me all the time like what
do you do what do you eat all that and I
was as natural as they come which is why
my physique was Me by most people's like
a high level guy be like this guy's a
joke he's [ __ ] tiny and he's fat uh
but I felt really good and so people
would come up to me a lot what do you do
how do you eat like how do you get that
physique
and my answer was always like it's
pretty basic in terms of like getting
lean and getting big or two separate
things so let's make sure we separate
those out I first got muscle and then I
leaned down and I did it really stupidly
and nobody should take my advice but you
can I'm walking around with the results
so that is what it is but my thing was
like the only hard part here is actually
not eating the thing that you want to
eat and then actually doing the Reps and
being willing to be like oh I think I'm
about to throw up so if you can do that
like you're going to get the physiques
yeah I would argue that you probably
don't need to work to feeling like
you're throwing up though as well so
maybe that might even be putting people
who are completely new hearing you say
that they're like oh like no chance I'm
doing that now maybe on like a heavy
squat or a leg press I'm certainly
wasn't asking myself that every day I'm
too lazy for that yeah so yeah like
honestly there is a most people that
don't have the physique that is the peak
of their genetic potential is out of
lack of willpower and adherence to
something consistently ultimately so
it's not like oh I'm not going to work
out because of this insane expectation I
would never reach it's also laziness too
but it depends on the person I was just
saying you know the the celebrity goal
physique is often times unattainable
because it's not realistic interesting
so we'll get to that in a second there's
something I want to ask you about that
specifically but first do you regret
doing hardcore steroids no because it
made me very aware of my health and
learning more about optimization and
skewed me in the direction I am now
which is a lot more uh it's not
necessarily longevity focused because
again circling back to the first
discussion we had about should you take
trt or not there's like absolutely
something to be said about
if you wanted to push your body as long
as you're aware of the give and take
relationship of the pros and cons of it
you don't necessarily have to do
anything within the confines of what is
socially acceptable so if you were
wanting to take a [ __ ] ton of steroids
like you you could it would just be
unhealthy but there is potentially some
level of well maybe I want to push my
body a little bit and maybe it takes a
couple years off my life but maybe the
quality of life is significantly better
via this so for me it's uh I don't know
I try to
gauge these things in a more what I deem
to be realistic way because I want a
high quality of life too so I I feel
like I've experienced the aggressive
polar extreme of I am deteriorating my
body for this extreme outcome that is
basically just cosmetically pleasing and
is inflating my ego and then on the
other side of the spectrum I'm very
aware of the longevity research and the
anti-aging stuff be as frail and gaunt
as you can until the last day you die
but you live to 100 so great [ __ ] job
I want to kind of meet in the middle
that's where I'm at so having that I
don't know the education or learning
about both sides has been very helpful
and educational to me personally and I
think helps me impart that knowledge on
I don't know the people who are
interested that follow my
stuff but do you is do you think there
is a moral case against people doing
steroids like do you have no problem hey
you understand this going to shorten
your life a little bit but hey if you're
good I'll walk you through how to do it
well like are you unconflicted you give
that advice or is there a little like
well there's obviously some Nuance
especially now that I have a tele
medicine platform and things like some
people might think oh he's trying to
like promote taking hormones via the
clinic or like I I feel like I'm pretty
I've remained unbiased in that even from
the business side of things like I would
prefer people get the full context of
their situation before they hap azard
jump on hormones cuz for us like we make
money on services and blood work
education of our patients not
necessarily just here's a script of test
and ask result this that get out the
door and we'll just make our money on
the medication like that's not how we do
business so for me it's always been
about the education and I don't really
care what people do as long as they are
educated about it ideally before they go
into it like when I was younger and I
started taking gear steroids I wish I
knew a lot of the stuff I know now in
hindsight and that is kind of the I
don't know manifestation of a lot of my
content is stemmed from my experiences
with that and what I wish I knew and
education you wish you knew back then
what do I wish I knew yeah um
mainly the impacts on the cardiovascular
system um that that it deforms the heart
yeah it's uh morphology and function
like the shape size function of it all
can be very significantly impacted from
basic negligence on something as simple
as your blood pressure not being
modulated or assessing it like some
people don't even check it and little
bit walking around like stage two
hypertension perpetually because the
drugs they're on and then they end up
with a heart attack at you know 35 years
old or younger I've seen people dying in
their 20s Jesus from that well
indirectly but it's because of the
downstream effects of that so and the
problem too is when I first started
bodybuilding and getting heavily into
learning about performance nancing drugs
and whatnot there was this sentiment
that went around the industry like where
are the bodies and it wasn't very
documented who's dying because it was
not very highlighted social media wasn't
really like prominent and it just really
wasn't talked about that much and
typically the only people that get
reported on that die are big names in
the industry so a lot of people like
bodybuilding wasn't like a mainstream
sport anyways if you can even call it a
sport and it just wasn't really being
noted and you often times couldn't
attribute a death solely to steroid use
anyways because if somebody dies at 40
it's like oh genetic predisposition or
this or that and it's like well yeah but
the steroids plus the genetic
predisposition make it way worse so yeah
it's uh stuff I wish was more uh it's
the problem though is that education
didn't exist too so it's you know I wish
I had it but it wasn't really readily
available as well so that's kind of
where I think now is great because
people at least who are jumping into
this stuff have education at their
fingertips for free letting them know
know hey this is the reality of this
stuff if you're going to go down that
path and it's not risk-free and here are
the very real manifestations of risk
profile that you could expect in the
coming years and if you're going to do
it anyways how to try and attenuate that
risk as much as you
can why does it piss you off when people
lie about
steroids doesn't really piss me off I
just think it's like disingenuous and
often times it kind of depends on the
person in the context but if you're
trying to sell a product or service that
is marketed around your physique and
then you are heavily implying that it is
solely your workout program or solely
your the coaching or whatever it's like
yeah these things are obviously the
underpinnings of how you built the
physique but like you also would be 30
lounds lighter if you weren't on
steroids so I feel like there's an
obligation to at least give that context
like hey by the way this is also in the
equation for me and this is why I look
the way I do cuz it could otherwise be
misleading if you're this guy walking
around who's this Larger than Life
Persona and people are trying to Aspire
to be like and you're also selling
workout programs or what have you and
then you are or supplements or what
whatever it is and you were not being
transparent and forthcoming about hey
like this is what I do but I also do
this other stuff which is massively
impactful on the end
outcome would you have full respect for
uh an influencer coach whatever that
that was like okay here here's my
workout routine I hope you sign up it's
going to be amazing uh here's the gear
that I take and uh I've got here you
know 30 people that have taken my course
they're all natural you can look at
their results not as cool as me because
I'm on the gear so I look way better
would you be like yeah [ __ ] yeah or
would you still be like oh
God there's gear involved and even
though he's being honest it's just not
as cool no it's fine as long as you're
just again it's like realistic
expectations if you're marketing it as
if you are representing your out end
outcome as an expectable and repeatable
process when it's just not without
hormone augmentation that's where it
gets murky if you're an enhanced guy and
you just have good information on diet
but you don't talk about your drugs too
like I don't really have a problem with
it necessarily it's more when you're
representing an outcome that is tied to
something you're lying about is more the
issue so often times you know it's kind
of irrelevant to me personally okay so
now my real question that all this is
pre amplitude do you think it's cheating
in sports if people do um
performance-enhancing drugs if it's
against the rules of their sport like it
depends like Brazilian jiu-jitsu for
example rampant steroid use but it's
kind of unspoken that the majority of
people are just using drugs they can
it's that is like the most finicky
conversation in that sport because it's
technically not banned via you're not
getting tested but it's also somewhat
frowned upon if you're you know the
Gearhead and maybe not everyone else you
know if if you if you're natural and
you're competing against guys on gear
like obviously you're going to think
there's an uneven playing field in a
sport that is actually regulated and
tested according to water standards or
whatever it is yeah like cheating is
cheating so it's just a very very
prominent thing that still Happ you
wouldn't like the double standard so
it's like uh nobody's getting tested
still think maybe it's not ideal because
it it isn't like you know what people
are doing or you know what the rules are
so it still could create an uneven
playing field definitely hated in a
sport where they say you can't and so if
there are people that are finding a way
around it that's really shitty so I'm
all for a world where uh we just say hey
that we have these exogenous substances
that people can take and instead of
drawing a line I just want it to be out
in the open yeah and so that there is no
double standard so that people can
decide whether they want to do it but
like
for take something like BJJ or cycling
and I'm not an expert man and so who the
hell knows like how many people actually
do it or not but for me hearing that oh
yeah everybody's doing the blood doping
or whatever in the tour to France I
don't go oh now the tour to France isn't
cool I go damn like these guys go hard
like they're taking their blood out of
their body they're hyper oxygenating it
they're putting it back in and it's like
I might say I think that's pretty dumb
because of the high risk and like the
odds of you dying are just astronomical
but man I want to see I want to see
humans push themselves now I get though
that what I'm saying like hey that walks
a line do we want kids emulating that do
we want to put that out there so is
there like is this just Tom not having
thought enough about it or is it like
hey once you get into the professional
leagues let people push themselves it's
tough man because it's like I don't
think there's a definitive answer to
that and many debates could be had about
it I think that sport is entertainment
at the end of the day so it comes down
to a debate as to well if you want to
make it as entertaining as possible
obviously s Everyone to the gills that
would be the logical answer if you
wanted the max entertainment factor and
then it comes after that it's like well
do you want to be encouraging drug use
among the youth to then aspire to be
like fill-in the blank professional
athlete you know if they're going to be
getting paid this much is that something
that they should just take that risk in
order to get that
outcome I don't have the answer man it's
interesting it's interesting cuz yeah I
I definitely don't want to encourage
kids to do it that one really scares me
yeah um but at the same time when you
get into the professional leagues so
many people are doing it I would rather
just see like what's the truth of what
people are doing so obviously the Conor
McGregor thing is utterly fascinating
he's allowed to step out of the testing
pool and as long as he gets tested for 6
months he can come back in now I don't
know [ __ ] about like steroid use but it
looks like he's probably yeah uh been
doing something he sort of admitted as
much indirectly seemingly and my thing
is I don't have a beef with that yeah me
NE I you know if it's conducive to his
injury recovery and it gets him out
there quicker like if it's within the
confines of the rules like go for it I
think just a lot of people I don't know
if he became aware of this rule through
like his connections or whatnot or like
finagling it in some special way that he
was kind of given more leniency or if
it's just you know his location it makes
it more problematic and harder to test
them because they have to Outsource
people who test on behalf of usata in
Ireland who really knows but you know at
the end of the day there's hormone use
in seemingly all sports yeah yeah it's
interesting even as I'm giving my own
answer it you can like hear yourself say
and then almost debate against yourself
yeah well so the thing the the right
question is do you want kids doing that
and that I definitely do not especially
because you get parents that want to see
their there was a kid that I went to
middle school and high school with now I
don't know him well enough to I would
certainly not say his name in case I'm
wrong about this but what I heard was
that he was on steroids now when I say
this kid had density of muscle at 12 I'm
talking it was
Unreal and
that always worried me that if that was
true that that was pressure from his
parents and wasn't I just can't fathom
how at 12 how do you even get steroids
but he he was a freak and um he he was I
think he was like 5'8 and he could high
jump seven feet it was unreal unreal and
so that that worries me that he has
potentially if it's true done you know
longlasting damage and I have to imagine
that parents were involved yeah I
remember tons of guys in my high school
that would take year for really yeah is
that just because you're so young it
seemed
so yeah for football trying to get a
good uh scholarship to a college or
university that is going to get them
further in their aspirations and you
know it's uh pretty obvious when
somebody shows up to gym class and all
of a sudden he can bench 50 more pounds
within six weeks Jesus yeah that's
interesting now BJJ guys don't see I
don't pay enough attention but I don't
think a BJJ guys is having physiques so
are they doing it for Recovery or are
they all jacked and I just don't pay
enough attention body weight is very
very important for moving people around
and again I'm not a BJJ expert by any
means but obviously if you're a
heavyweight the more muscle you have on
the easier you can in part and like get
that is that broken down into weight
classes yeah but there it's there's
deviations between them and ranges so
obviously if you're at the top end of
your weight class it's more ideal than
being at the bottom or the middle and
the more you can push a guy around and
use your weight to your advantage hugely
impactful obviously Force production
hugely impactful too on anything to do
with manipulating somebody else's body
who's fighting against you um oxygen
carrying capacity significantly
increased when you're on androgens
really yeah there's a lot of benefits
from it like you could like it
stimulates the release of epo as well
thp R thr potin so like never heard of
that really it's like the main drug used
by cyclists or it was anyway when I say
this is not my world I F the precursor
to actually making new red blood cells
yeah so increasing your oxygen carrying
capacity in sport obviously like broad
spectrum beneficial in essentially
anything you're doing with the exception
of like I don't know archery or
something and there's drug use in that
too beta blockers
for what anxiety if you can slow your
heart rate and calm down way easier to
shoot a Target wa yeah and if you use
certain beta blockers that cross the
bloodb brain barrier like Propranolol
you can actually like very significantly
calm yourself down and get like an an
anotic like anti-anxiety effect so it's
uh very common among public speakers um
pianists also using it interesting yeah
a lot of people use beta blockers drugs
worry me but at the same time I'm not
like if I needed a drug I would take a
drug I'm just trying to limit the number
of times that I need a drug whether it's
Tylenol
Advil anything I try to limit the amount
but that's from a longevity standpoint
not from a like I want to see people
perform at their best see it's
interesting though because it's like
there's definitely something to be said
about some genetic risk factors are so
aggressive and unique that pharmacology
may be the only way to attenuate your
risk for longevity purposes so if you
had familial hyper cholesterolemia for
example are you going to avoid taking a
cholesterol or lipid modulating
medication yes okay but am I wrong I
mean maybe here's the thing I I don't
I'm not coming from a place of superior
knowledge I'm coming from a place of
paranoia and so I'm just like oh I get
it but like whenever people take drugs
there are second and third order
consequences that we're not thinking
about and so that's the thing that
worries me I don't have a a moral
compunction with it but it's like if I
can avoid it it's just weighing the ROI
so it's like is whatever benefit I could
get out of the drug going to outweigh
the potential side effect burden even in
the trt side of things especially the
side effect burden that we don't yet
understand yeah that's the one that
worries me thing though is is some
people have genetic predispositions that
you know you're not functioning
correctly if you have a complete
deficiency in the production of an
enzyme for example are you're not going
to take a drug that might facilitate
this function because I want to be
natural like I feel like that would be
potentially moronic that would be
moronic in my estimation yeah anything
where I felt like it was impacting the
quality of my life or if I really
believe like from a longevity standpoint
I'm actually going to live longer based
on the well in fact I was going to say
based on my you know genetic limitation
or problem or whatever but do you know
much about Rapa yeah okay so Rapa I
there were people really pushing me to
do um God what's the other diabetic drug
that everybody's like you got metformin
everyone was like bro you got to get on
Metformin you don't understand and now
of course data is coming out where it's
like well if you need it and you're a
diabetic yes better to take it then not
take it but if you're not a diabetic it
could at a minimum blunt the impact of
working out and may have other knock on
effects and it's that kind of thing
where you know follow the science
probably a bad way to say it since
science is hey we're going to be wrong
we know we're wrong and so we're going
to keep refining refining refining based
on the data and so follow the data might
make a lot more sense um but rap ay is
the first one where I'm like o maybe
there really is something I think
ultimately this is where educating
yourself is the most important though
because for you with a CGM for example
you can assess what your blood glucose
control is like and post post response
to bringing that back down into range
through going for a walk versus
metformin 10-minute walk more effective
than metformin in studies or you use
interesting yeah so but again does that
mean metform has no utility depends on
the context but if you are checking your
metrics meticulously like presumably you
do and have all these things going on
you could probably set like be able to
tell better than the data for your
specific situation is it a worthwhile
drug to be using what do you think about
rapid do you think it's going to end up
being [ __ ] like everything else or
like everything else but the truth is
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you have to be willing to go the extra
mile to stand out and do hard things
better than anybody else but there are
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all right my friend back to today's
episode I don't know enough about it to
say for certain but I think anything
that is anti- mtor igf-1 what have you
will have
some positive impact on longevity
potentially but again it circles back to
the whole Roi on Vitality of Life
quality of life relative to that extra
few years you've tacked on M Z I think
there is a way seemingly and this is my
just perception to implement it with a
negligible impact to any perceivable you
know downsides from it like I I think
people like micro do it on an infrequent
basis and see no perceived impact in a
delerious way to their performance or
anything but that is just what I've
heard anecdotally from uh um some of my
colleagues and whatnot but I have never
used it I haven't really looked into it
that thoroughly and could be worthwhile
but it kind of to me probably stems back
to the whole context dependent situation
and assessing what it does to you like
sometimes you just have to take [ __ ] and
then see what happens you know like if
you're worried about what's going to
happen like you almost sometimes it's
just take the drug and then see if it
affects you bad and you can pull it out
and the half life is short enough that's
out of your system in five
days so what what are the things that
you've experimented with like that that
you think there's something interesting
here as evidenced by the fact that you
you either use it with some degree of
frequency or you use it continuously I
do use aetam which is a cholesterol
absorption inhibitor essentially and I
feel like if I can keep my APO be down I
have I personally have better peace of
mind that I'm not going to end up with
black buildup now again I could
hypothetically get scans done regularly
and and check for soft plaque buildup
before it becomes calcified and actually
get a CA score down the line like I can
probably you know I could probably
assess that regularly and figure out is
my lifestyle and die and everything
conducive to that outcome to begin with
where I even need to be on the
medication but it's been a lot more
difficult for me to get access to that
kind of diagnostic service even in
Canada even as a tele medicine service
provider myself I have to go to the
states to get stuff done and it's
problematic so for me taking a
medication proactively based on what
I've seen in my blood work has been
worthwhile to date maybe in the future
I'll drop it but that is something that
I've been using myself so obviously the
body needs cholesterol is there
something that you do in your lifestyle
that you think is um creating an
inappropriate cholesterol response yes
so I'm on trt for context so okay and
that spikes your cholesterol that lowers
your HDL a decent amount and then LDL
can be slightly elevated a little bit
and inhibits uh lipid metabolism to some
extent interesting yeah is that because
it's exogenous or is there like guys
just have a naturally problematic col
cholesterol the reason why it has
influence on these enzymatic processes I
don't really know physiologically why it
happens it's almost you know could be a
feedback loop from if you have androgens
coming in and because again when you
administer this stuff it's coming in in
a bolus that is not really
representative of what would be normal
and endogenous you have a dial Rhythm
that you know pulses multiple times and
you have a they're relatively small and
they go up and down it fluctuates just
like for example when you get your blood
work get it done in the morning because
that's when your test is at its highest
because if you get it done in the
afternoon you might be 200 points lower
just based on the time of day which is
notable but that sort of thing is like
there are feedback systems and similar
to what you said what's happening two
three steps down the line you know with
uh lipids there is absolutely an
influence from exogenous androgens and
the more androgens you apply the worse
it gets hm yeah what about uh do you
worry at all about joint like C
tendon formation if you're doing I don't
know if if the same things are true of
trt but I know that some of the problems
that bodybuilders end up having which is
why they tear their muscle I remember my
business partners and I used to talk if
someone tears their muscle from the bone
I guaranteed on steroids and uh is that
like have we gotten more modern with
that and that's not as much of a problem
or there things you can do to support
that yeah um there are things you can do
to support it but in general I think
that issue more stems from the fact that
when people use super physiological
amounts of hormones as in more than they
can naturally produce they end up with
strength acceleration that is exceeding
what their tendons and whatnot can
handle so just because your muscle can
force something up it doesn't mean that
all of the supporting infrastructure can
also progress at that fast of a rate but
Force production from andrens the
psychoactive effects are definitely
significant on your ability to move
stuff around that you wouldn't have been
able to otherwise
you're recruiting more uh of the twitch
fibers or you're just being like a
[ __ ] psycho aggressive yeah so it's
like similarly to even stimulants like
there are things that can you can
acutely increase your performance even
with the same amount of muscle because
you can actually recruit more motor
units than you would otherwise yeah very
interesting so I I feel like people are
conflating the fact that people's
strength outcomes and the things they're
doing in the gym performance- wise are
exceeding their infrastructure's ability
to support those loads not necessarily
that the steroids inherently are
degrading all of these systems got it
yeah got it got it okay that makes a lot
of sense talk to me more about estrogen
so if you have too much testosterone in
your system it gets turned into estrogen
um it the common wisdom for an
uneducated bro like myself would be you
don't want estrogen but obviously that
isn't true so is it a ratio between the
two and as testosterone goes up I want
my estrogen to keep Pace or do I really
want like a huge discrepancy and I just
need some minor amount of estrogen yeah
the first thing you said is accurate
there is a enzyme called aromatase and
that is what converts or aromatizes
testosterone into estradi and this is
the main Prime there's mult multiple
estrogens and different metabolites of
them but the main primary dictator of
estrogen's functions is estrad and
testosterone aromatizing into estrad is
done at
a kind of like it's facilitated based on
what you need in certain tissue so you
will have like sight specific conversion
to estrogen in your brain heart like all
over the place and your body's
regulation of this is dictated by how
much input it has from the testosterone
but also how much it needs to facilitate
functions around the body and this is
actually the main dictating factor or
one of them on how much testosterone
output you have because just like you
said there are a bunch of different
things affected by one primary hormone
with testosterone it converts into DHT
which is the thing that pushes you
through puberty but also to estrogen and
that
facilitates uh brain health it's
neuroprotective and this is why
Alzheimer's rates Skyrocket and
menopause um cardiovascular disease
massively impacted by lack of estrogen
like it's very very supportive
cardiovascular health and vasod dilation
uh multiple different things in the body
and having a lack of estrogen is
counterproductive to health performance
well-being I mentioned the serotonin
part earlier um and even uh erectile
quality so for somebody estrogen yeah so
like a bodybuilder for example and I've
experienced this personally taking a
bunch of steroids tons of androgens in
my body but crushing my estrogen to
nothingness with an aroma taste
inhibitor I was literally asexual
essentially waa yeah penis only existed
to urinate that was the function of it
at the time I also stopped caring about
uh dating entirely I was just uh nothing
mattered to me is this peak more plates
more dates early days yeah I guess
that's really interesting what the hell
so was that was that like a three alarm
fire in your head where you're like uh I
should want sex more than I do or were
you like thank God that's some [ __ ]
anyway like now I can focus on what I
back then I was just like oh wow you you
almost don't even notice when it's
happening and I was dieting at the time
too so I just thought you know some of
it is exacerbated by calorie deprivation
because often times bodybuilders will
crush their estrogen levels to try and
you know like dry out for a photo shoot
or a contest or whatever interesting dry
out meaning you get really lean yeah I'm
I'm a I'm a wet fat I always look a
little soft oh God like it's not good I
in fact I empathized with liver King in
the emails where he's like lower back
fat man I just can't shake it yeah
that's my woe so crushing your estrogen
will dry you out well that is the
perception but I feel like it's a a
misguided one I think that you can
achieve a body composition that is dry
looking as long as you're lean enough um
it's just again we're getting to the
hyper extreme that's irrelevant for
probably every single person listening
including us so no one's going to get
that lean where they would ever be in a
position to want to estrogen to even try
and get dry like ultimately the main
thing to know is estrogen is also very
impactful both in men and in women for
neurological Health cardiovascular
health um facilitating sexual function
uh mental Wellness mood regulation just
a myriad of different things temperature
regulation too yeah like women who are
postmenopausal like hot flashes
brutal that is so interesting the number
of things that the body uses hormones
for you would think oh it has one
function if I see and body do this but
in reality the body has wild amounts of
context and it can use it in very
different ways when I heard that uh
mitochondria have hormone receptors on
them so they both generate and can
receive feedback via hormones uh I was
like I had no idea that a that they had
any receptors whatsoever but that's
really fascinating how the body uses a
relatively small number of hormones
neurotransmitters etc etc to communicate
and to get the
incredibly complex Symphony that is the
human body to do what it's supposed to
do at the right times yeah it's wild how
much stuff just like floats around in
your body and goes to receptors and
binds and then does stuff and again
similar to the genetic predispositions
like some people who have uh like
sensitivity issues at the receptor might
otherwise have an inability to
facilitate some function because the
receptor itself is not active enough to
actually transcribe uh gene expression
so they might have to take some
exorbitant amount of fill in the blank
drug or some other thing in order to
facilitate something that otherwise was
just suboptimal and not conducive to
their quality of life or health very
interesting so I want to go back to when
your penis was just for urination yeah
yeah did were
you did that set off alarm bells or or
it just happened so slowly you didn't
really care well it happened quickly and
it was like hyp I was it was apparent
that this was happening but I uh I guess
over time you have pattern recognition
and I noticed multiple times certain
drug interactions or using too much of
an aromatase inhibitor or whatever would
cause a situation where even I would
have a raging libido but then the my
penis would have erectile dysfunction
because I wasn't I I was using too many
drugs that were overlapping or I was
crushing my estrogen too much or
whatever like I was aware of it but it
wasn't really clicking that maybe
estrogen is more important than you
think like these are things that I don't
know sometimes stuff happens you you
don't aren't educated enough to connect
the dots so at the time I just wasn't
which fortunately now people are
becoming more aware of the impact and
why there was conversion to certain
hormones and that just ha asly
intervening and just inhibiting the hell
out of an enzyme might not be the best
thing in certain situations so which is
great that people are becoming more
educated now though because previous to
that there was and still like very very
cookie cutter prescriptions of trt out
there where it will literally like
compound an aromatase inhibitor into
your testosterone and force you to take
it with your test and stuff like that so
as long as people are aware of it I
think it is the most important thing but
back then I had no idea so I'm super
freaked out by the fact that sperm
counts are
plating that pre pandemic you had a
third of like 20 to 30 something year
old guys were had not had sex in the
last year that that number has probably
gone up since the pandemic which has
isolated us more and more and so when I
think about I don't know if it's
microplastics if it's just being obese
which is something we haven't talked
about I think guys everybody needs to be
super careful about carrying too much
body fat but when I think about uh if
I'm not mistaken you're more likely to
have elevated estrogen levels if you are
obese than if you're not you're nodding
yeah so atpo tissue will be a direct
regulator of how much aromatase enzymes
you have so the fatter you are the more
estrogen potential you have as well the
more likely you are to get fatter the
more likely you are to increase and it
becomes a positive feedback loop
indirectly not because estrogen will
make you fat it's more because if you
have more estrogen that is more receptor
activation which is telling your brain
we have enough estrogen
but we had a lower amount of
testosterone to get that amount of
estrogen because you're fat so the
disproportionate amount of aromatase
activity in that amount of testosterone
you have a disproportional ratio of
testosterone to estrogen because you're
obese but estrogen is one of the main
dictating factors that tells your brain
we don't need more estrogen but what is
it that makes estrogen testosterone
therefore less signal to your test is
and lower
testosterone that's really terrifying
yeah so that obesity feedback system is
like very very uh suppressive on
testosterone in like a indirect way and
that's aside from like the metabolic
dysfunction and all the other stuff that
could cause it woof so do are you
unnerved at all by where we're going
with young men being less they pursue
sex
less um yeah like it's pretty uh
troubling and I don't know how much of
it is environmental
poor diet um Sleep Quality is obviously
diminished widespread now um and then
but also the lifestyle factors are very
very impactful too and it's all like
it's all combined and is uh you know
culminates into this you know cluster
[ __ ] essentially yeah if you had to
start teasing apart the cluster [ __ ] and
assigning like not a precise percentage
but like what are our big problems is it
environmental factors is it dietary is
it modern dating and so you're getting
into this weird
um thing where your top tier guys are
getting all the women and so this is
creating a problem like if I had to
start assigning blame I would I would
100% say those three things so uh social
media all round the cultural problems to
that and then you've got bad diet is
probably my number one the thing that
freaks me out the most and then
environmental factors like microplastic
and things like that that are endocrine
disruptors like those are my big three
yeah I would probably say tied for one
is sleep and diet if I'm even allowed to
do that in the scale we have here sure
so yeah Sleep Quality you know you
obviously big proponent of what do you
think [ __ ] up people sleep though um I
I forget what percentage it is but it's
like 80% of people use caffeine I don't
necessarily think caffeine's bad but I
think a lot of people abuse it and the
halflife is like 5 hours so factoring in
it's called pharmacokinetics when you
factor in like how long it would take
for a drug to work its way out of your
system it is still in your system it
takes 25 hours at minimum depending on
if you're a fast or slow metabolizer to
like get it to a point where it's not
you know significantly impactful on
maybe it could be like 20 depending if
you do four or five half lives but in
general it's like a full day of
clearance essentially so people who are
using it all day and pushing 500 600
milligrams caffeine or even 300 400 or
what ever if it's too late in the day
even if you perceive it's not impactful
on your Sleep Quality it could very well
be um so there's that stimulant abuse is
rampant and then also that drugs Aderall
[ __ ] like that yeah yeah and those are
going to negatively affect your ability
to get to sleep stay have you ever tried
that all yeah I've never tried it is it
awesome um it's
uh if you're dialed naturally it will
give you the shortterm perspective that
it better but I think in the long term
that becomes your acclimated set point
and at which point you would probably if
you didn't medically require it it's
doubtful that it would be it's kind of
hard to say because I know a bunch of
people are shaking their heads right now
like no it's [ __ ] awesome shut up so
interesting so the drug I most wanted to
try in the world was mfil and before I
ever tried it I told people I really
would like to get addicted to mfil I'm
kidding but that was like the joke and
then I tried it and for people that
don't know mfil is an anti-narcotic drug
that like fighter pilots use for sleep
apnea huh yeah for sleep apnea yeah I
technically have a prescription for it
whates it makes you stay awake exactly
because so why would you give that to
somebody oh oh oh CU they're tired all
the time it's the ultimate Band-Aid
because and this is like a
representation of the medical system as
a whole almost is if you have sleep
apnea rather than trying to fix your
sleep apnea let's give you a drug that
keeps you awake oh my God yeah so it's
like narcoleptics obviously that's a
like a real problem that you can't
necessarily fix but with sleep apnea
often times it's like a physical
impediment of your neck being too large
or you being obese or whatever and that
could be fixable or you use a seap
machine and you manually manually fix it
which is huge on quality of life and
everything that comes from good quality
sleep and it will add decades to your
life potentially if you're somebody a
cpat machine yeah interesting because
your neck is so muscly yeah when I got
my heaviest it became very apparent that
something was making me unable to get
high quality sleep because I started
within sitting down for 5 minutes within
a university class I would fall asleep
and I couldn't stay awake for the life
of me and this is big from muscle big
and fat cuz when I would bulk up the
most I got to like I don't know 260 Plus
or something and I would sit there with
uh when I was sleeping I would basically
be choking to death essentially every
night whoa yeah is that a common thing
among lean bodybuilders
yeah so muscle will do it maybe not as
quickly as but it will do it the
distinction between natural and enhanced
bodybuilders I would say it's more
common in lean enhanced bodybuilders
than natural why would steroids play a
role cuz you have like 40 to 50 lbs more
muscle building potential than the but
it is still it's the muscle that's the
problem it's just enhancing yourself is
how you get that kind of excess mus mass
is the problem so if it's fat or muscle
got it like either way you are getting
like a phys like Gra is working against
you and you have like a physical
impediment of your neck while you're
sleeping and this is why a lot of people
will sleep apnea myself included if I
fell asleep upright I would not snore
and I would not apnea but if I lie on my
back all of a sudden I'm aping again and
it's almost worthwhile like I feel like
anyone who's weighs more than I don't
want to put a number on it because this
would be not like a medically qualified
way to do this but in general just
recording how you sound while you're
sleeping if you don't have a significant
other to tell you or just recording it
anyways and just hearing what are you
snoring how bad is it sometimes people
are shocked and terrified when they hear
what's actually happening while they're
sleeping and you would never know unless
somebody told you and even sometimes
significant others they will just think
you're annoying loud
snorer I got I'll go sleep in another
room I just can't deal with my husband
whatever it is but he's actually like
slowly killing himself whoa yeah that's
crazy okay very interesting tangent so
mfil uh tried it and I used it so my
wife is British so we would routinely
fly to London and I was trying to really
perfect my switching time zones which by
the way for anybody that wants the time
zon switch like it works like a charm
the second you wake up get sunlight in
your eyes on your skin as much as
possible it is so much easier if you're
going somewhere sunny and warm then it
is going to London is nightmarish it's 8
hours so it's your only 4 hours off the
exact flip of nightmare City and it's
always gray and cold and so very very
hard but anyway get your sun exposure
but I was trying to find a way to not
feel that sense of like oh my God I'm so
sleepy and so tried mapel and what I
found was that you still feel tired you
just don't feel like you're going to
fall asleep and so I was like it is
better but it wasn't enough better to
feel like oh I've really solve this
problem um but the other drug that I'm
very interested in is adderal just
because I find so I was diagnosed with
hyperactivity disorder when I was young
but because I could sleep through the
night my mom decided not to medicate me
which I will eternally be grateful to
her for because she had to put up with
the hyperactive child so I imagine there
were times where it was pretty tempting
uh to medicate me to get me to calm down
uh but she didn't very great grateful
for that but when I'm writing especially
I find myself like ah my mind wanders to
this ah my mind wanders to that and when
I'm dialed in and I get so much done I'm
like oh man if I could just find this
flow all the time Aderall is my one
Temptation yeah it's uh it kind of
depends how it impacts you and I guess
my description of what it was like for
me would be probably different than most
people but I actually find I'm uh almost
more scatterbrained on on it CU it's
it's very stimulating and it also
elevates my libido significantly you had
me at hello and but paradoxically causes
severe Vaso constriction so you're horny
but your dick doesn't work there we go
yeah not great so oh but it kills
appetite so so much that you can extend
your inter intermittent fasting window
to like 12 hours with relative ease and
then you have four more hours of not
only you hyper stimulated but you're
also way more mentally sharp just by
nature of not eating food too so there's
that component so there's a lot of pros
and cons and it kind of depends on the
person that's interesting so what's the
as somebody who is very slow to take
drugs what's the
downside um heightened heart rate and
blood pressure putting yourself in a
state of Perpetual sympathetic drive if
you're on it every single day which as
much as you know about stress putting
your brain and heart in a state of
Perpetual stress synthetically induced
is going to be problematic also it kind
of depends on which version of it you're
using are using an instant release or a
sustained release the halflife is going
to differ for how long it stays in your
system and as a combo of two
amphetamines very very potent in keeping
you not in a state that can get to sleep
and parasympathetic and calm and relaxed
so trying to be that guy who somehow
like gets the benefits of it during the
day and then perfectly shifts into your
nighttime routine and then wakes up and
is like totally refreshed and had the
best quality sleep how realistic is that
you know it kind of depends and that's
where you would have to use it and
assess and then get your feedback from
your sleep quality and all these kind of
things and yeah like I feel like the
utility of it even if it was via
recreational use would be on an acute
basis one to two times a week because
once you start to exceed that and
depending on your dosage too if you have
too much dopaminergic activity you're
causing like cell death in your brain
woof yeah that I am definitely not keen
to do yeah drugs are really interesting
what do you think about the um the
cultural
like promotion is probably the right
word of
weed I think that well thing is is it
seems to have reasonable applications
from a potentially Health promoting
perspective but on the opposite say what
you smoke weed no really yeah
interesting okay so keep going on the
opposite side of the spectrum though it
is potentially impactful on hormone
production may have some interactions
with also Sleep Quality it helps your
latency so you could technically get to
sleep easier that's why people smoke at
night time but it wrecks your Rim so
people think that they are getting
better sleep because the perception of
falling asleep is just did my eyes Clos
and I'm asleep but the quality of it
most people aren't tracking and in the
long term you were creating a dependency
on it where you will have a harder time
not using it to get to sleep but also
your REM is destroyed so you know maybe
there's some people who can take it and
they don't that might be too aggressive
of a statement it will destroy your r
maybe it won't depends on the person but
there are a lot of people I know who
just take it because they think it helps
them get to sleep but don't actually
check did it help your sleep quality or
did it help you fall asleep yep so so my
wife is no stranger to marijuana okay
and she was um tracking her sleep and
she thought it was broken cuz it was
like you had seven minutes of R and she
was like and and that I think is a
literal number if I remember correctly
and she was like there's no way there's
no way the ring must be loose or
whatever and then we looked into it and
it's like weed messes up your Rim sleep
she's like oh my God like I can't
believe that it's crushed that much yeah
which is crazy um why haven't you tried
weed I'm very curious it also seems to
promote a level of apathy which I am not
interested in whatsoever as the what I
would consider like highly productive
entrepreneur type so for me something
that makes me just laxidasical okay with
floating around life isn't really
conducive to anything about what I do so
for me it's it's not great like there's
no application of it that I see as
useful I don't have a desire to feel
high I don't need it to get to sleep
which I don't even think it's good for
that necessarily and the kind of mindset
it creates to me is not helpful and if
it makes me hungrier I don't want to eat
more I want to eat less and I want to I
get mentally sharp off not eating so
yeah now talk to me about the I know you
no longer resonate with the name more
plates more dates but what about the
concept of like getting because I think
one of the most important thing if you
want to be an entrepreneur and or you
want to get laid get in shape the things
you will have to do to your mind in
order to get your body there it it is I
will say emphatically it's the single
most impactful thing that you could do
for the rest of your life meaning all
the areas outside of your life uh would
be to get in shape agree or disagree no
agreed and yeah obviously the impact it
has on health as a whole mental
well-being all that kind of stuff is
huge and if you look good and you're
healthy and you feel good that is going
to manifest in so many positive outcomes
that are outside of what you could even
conceive probably like even if you're
having job I don't know business
presentations or job interviews or
whatever it is like it's only going to
be helpful for sure so I see no reason
to not prioritize it as like the lowest
hanging fruit that is the base
infrastructure for everything you build
on top of it like your health is the
priority which is kind of funny because
entrepreneurs will offer and skew in the
other direction and neglect it which I
have to sometimes check myself on even
because it's uh often times you can be
you know grinding away for 10 hours and
then you know what maybe I'll just you
know finish these emails and I'll put
the workout you know back another day
and then the next day comes you know
what like I'm probably fine and then
just skip another day and before you
know it you haven't gone to the gym for
two weeks so it is something you need to
prioritize for sure and I think it's
uh I think people know the importance
they just don't necessarily have
habits formed or the fortitude to adhere
to it necessarily or potentially don't
know where to start which hopefully some
of the education out there now like it's
definitely there's enough information
out there that at this point if you're
not doing it it's kind of like why the
[ __ ] not you know so yeah as much as the
name of the channel it's not like I
would ever make an argument for like no
if you put another plate on the bench
like you're going to get more girls
that's certainly not the case and at
some point it's just like especially
when it comes to hormone augmentation
like girls actually care much less about
the enhanced physique look than dudes do
so it's like at that point you're kind
of just boosting your own ego and doing
it for the validation from other men
rather than women because a lot of women
are quite satisfied with an athletic
lean looking guy who's healthy as
opposed to the Jack out of his tree
bodybuilder guy so there's that which is
at least a comforting thing to know
because some people think they have to
look like the fitness model to get the
you know top tier women or whatever but
yeah like ultimately the concept as
broadly as you want to take it applies
where it's you know I talk about more
plates it's like physique Health gem
Fitness as a whole and more dates is you
know at the time it was representative
of kind of like lifestyle but even
though it's more dates um so yeah you
know I've thought about changing the
name as I get older it's kind of it's
kind of gravitate towards uh feeling
like it's oh I don't want to associate
myself with that name as much but it's
also what I built my brand on until this
point so it's hard to depart from that
any thoughts
yourself um I don't think it really
matters so it isn't uh it's not like a
gross name I think that it actually does
point at something that is true to your
point it's the dates you have to broaden
out to mean less about um just getting
girls and more about when you have your
life together and you have the kind of
discipline that it takes to add more
plates to the thing it really it really
is exactly the same kind of of focus and
intention and doing hard things and
pushing through difficulty that you're
going to apply to be good at business
but I actually wanted to ask you so
you're in like in it as an entrepreneur
building businesses what is it that
draws you to that and is it the same
thing that Drew you to building a
physique is it different yeah there are
certain niches that I'm interested in
that I would nerd out on even if the
businesses didn't exist and one of those
is
pharmacology hormone optimization
health health in general preventative
medicine as a whole and then also
dietary supplement sort of falls into
that vein where it's things that are
more on the straight edge but also fall
into optimization back filling things
that are otherwise deficient or
imbalanced and how can I you know these
two things were areas of interest for me
before the businesses existed so it
makes it very seemless for me to
transition into a model where I am
making content about it but also
was already heavily researching it
anyways but now it's in a monetizable
fashion as well so for me fortunately I
don't think I'm going to experience
burnout Maybe I'm Wrong maybe you give
me some advice on that but for me I'm so
highly passionate about the preventative
medicine side of things in particular
and the supplement sort of is supportive
of that to some extent that I foresee
myself doing this very long-term
Enterprise Value minded I am rewarded by
the process more than the outcome I have
enough money to sit on that I'm good and
this is just where my area of interest
is heavily lies and I'm hyper passionate
about so I don't really see myself
deviating in any other Silo because I'm
so I know what I'm doing is what I'm
supposed to be doing and I feel like not
a lot of people can say that but I
actually know for sure like this is what
I'm supposed to be doing brother this
has been extraordinarily fun where can
people connect with you uh more plates
more dates on any social media platform
essentially you can find me I love it
keep watching if you want to learn the
daily hacks to melt fat lose weight and
live longer one of the things that I
want to really go ham on today uh
because you cover it so interestingly in
the book is burning fat changing your
life through your diet and the fact that
people struggle with it not because of
calories but because of a failure to
recognize how individual we are um walk
me through that dilemma talk about how
you approach in the book and what the
hell people are supposed to do with the
fact that nobody is like them which is
something you mentioned over and over in
the book help us yes perfect man yeah so
there's this term that we're really
working to impress upon culture called
your metabolic fingerprint all right
each of us has a unique metabolic
fingerprint and this consists of of
course there's genetic components
there's microbial components there's so
much about us that makes us so diverse
there's nobody like you in the history
of humanity who has the same metabolism
and there never be anybody like you in
the future and the craziest part Tom is
that there's even yourself right now
your metabolism next week is going to be
significantly different it's constantly
changing and evolving and adapting and
I'm really working to impress this upon
culture because this cookie cutter
system of nutrition has not has not
really given us good results if we just
look at what's happening with our
society a big part of that as you
mentioned when I went to school I went
to a nice private private university
very expensive they had a great Premed
track and I took a nutritional science
class which was an elective I didn't
have to take it and I thought nutrition
had to do with Fitness right so I was
like okay I'm gonna learn about how to
be more fit there was Nuance there
because you know I didn't really
understand the difference with health
and fitness and so the very first day of
class the very first day of class he
said that if you want to control your
body composition all you have to do is
control calories if you want to control
your health we just need to manage
calories calories were the tip of the
spear it was the thing that we were
taught if we can regulate this thing
this entity then we can regulate our
health now the big problem that's kind
of manifested in culture is that there's
actually these epic caloric controllers
all right sort of like epigenetics right
there's things that are above genetic
control now we know there are things
above caloric control that actually
control what calories do in our bodies
which gets back to our unique metabolic
fingerprint in a moment but getting that
from my professor and by the way sidebar
my my professor was borderline obese
himself and he was an incredibly
brilliant man and he was doing the
things that he he wasn't like secretly
going and like beer bonging like three
musketeers or whatever like he was
teaching us at the time it was the food
pyramid right seven to Le servings of
whole grains each day should be the
staple the the the base of the diet and
in that system of thinking all he did
was he created learned helplessness
because he kept trying to do the thing
he was just like well I just need 14 to
19 servings of whole grains and I'll get
it I just need to cut my calories more
and it wasn't working and what we know
today is that for example I'll give you
one of the the Epic caloric controllers
you've said this before Tom you've heard
many people say this it's not just the
calories it's the quality of the
calories just like with sleep smarter
it's not just the minutes of sleep it's
the quality of those minutes and so now
got a really interesting study this was
published in food and nutrition research
and I MA this out really well in each
marter the research want to find out
what happened what happens when you eat
a meal of Whole Foods versus a meal of
processed foods and so they had some
test subject to consume what they deem
to be a whole food sandwich which was
multi-grain bread and cheddar cheese all
right now that's of course is debatable
but now they've got the other group of
test subjects consuming a processed food
sandwich which was white bread and
cheese product and some folks might be
like what the hell is cheese product
that's what craft is craft singles they
can't legally call it craft cheese
because there's not enough cheese in the
cheese but as I digress so anyways
here's the most important part of this
story the sandwiches are the exact same
amount of calories the whole food
version and the processed food set
version same amount of fats
carbohydrates and proteins on paper same
sandwich it should have the same
Metabolic Effect according to the
calories in calories out model but
here's what happened after compiling the
data the folks who ate the processed
food sandwich had a 50% reduction in
calorie burn after eating that meal
versus the people who ate the whole food
version all right so I'm going to pause
it there why how how did they determine
burn right yeah so this is a great
example and little sidebar for everybody
to understand the pathway of fat leaving
your body or what we call this caloric
expenditure so that's one of the things
we're mystifying and he's smart is like
where the hell does fat go where does
fat go when you lose it where does this
quote burn process happen so number one
we've got when we're thinking about like
eliminating fat we not we can't
indiscriminately kill a fat cell itself
when you're born you have about the same
amount of fat cells that you have today
um what happens is the fat cells
themselves get filled with contents
right in the form of these energy
packets like triglycerides and what
we're doing by the way your fat cells
can swell up and they can become a 100
times their their size their original
size so it's it's crazy what fat cells
can do and so what we're with the goal
is when we're talking about quote fat
loss is getting the fat cell to number
one open to release its contents then it
needs to get shuttled to its end station
which primarily the mitochondria to
actually be burned at this metabolic
power plant and it gives off this ATP
gives off energy but what they
discovered was that about 84% of the fat
that we lose is is via carbon dioxide
when we breathe out so as you describe
the sandwich so first of all the mildly
processed sandwich because even cheese
is obviously processed food um does not
strike me as the ideal barometer for
whether this is accurate so it's
interesting that there are still pretty
staggering results between um mildly
processed and extremely processed and
then what is your prediction if they
were to do that with like the joh
Stevenson prescribed whole food diet
would that reduction in burn from where
you're at with a true real optimized
whole food diet be even more better yes
exactly that's the point that's the
point but that's getting back to what
are your genes expecting you to eat
because the further we get kind of
mutated and away from the the the origin
of a food the more complex it becomes
for our for ourselves to really
recognize how to use that food which
created these what I call these hormonal
clogs so this is why there was this
reduction in energy expenditure post
eating that sand which basically their
hormones their their tissues became much
more stingy and hanging on to that
caloric energy and the fat cells not
opening
up so that's number one they and this is
this is the part of the Nuance like we
can't identify the study doesn't
identify right where is the clog
happening but we know it's happening and
I would would argue that it's happening
throughout the entire process right the
fat cell being able to have its
intelligence to do its job correctly
because another thing even if the fat
cell releases contents it can get
reabsorbed somewhere else so it needs to
get to its end destination and then the
process of metabolism with the
mitochondria the mitochondria have to be
healthy and doing their job you know and
so so many pieces along this process can
become uh can become damaged you know
and here's a great thing about us as
humans we're very resilient like your
body can sort itself if you just look at
us like just look at what the body is
able to take how unhealthy we can be and
still be kicking you know but also just
imagine how good things can get as well
you know when we're give our giving our
bodies the right thing so our bodies are
always seeking to get back into
homeostasis it's always looking for that
but it's also very resilient at helping
you to survive and one of the things
that I really want to bring forward as
well in this conversation of fat because
again I didn't know we we would talk
about this but in our culture we're
trying to kill fat we're trying to get
rid of fat we're we have over 200
million people in our country are
overweight or obese right now and right
now we have 43% of our citizens are
clinically obese moving towards 50% half
of our population within the next couple
of years it's insane and I think you
come from a similar sit circumstance in
my family just say I got 30 close family
members 28 of them were obese growing up
for sure and these are this doesn't mean
mean that they're bad people it doesn't
mean that they're not trying it doesn't
mean that they want to be obese it's
just the nature of the environment that
we're in and not really knowing how
metabolism works and so this idea of IND
indiscriminately killing fat we have to
do away with that because our body fat
is actually is pretty amazing it's
actually doing what it's designed to do
it's what's enabled us as humans to
evolve and get to this point because it
was this incredibly incredibly
intelligent energy storage system
during times when things were a little
bit leaner and the problem is we we
don't have any lean times anymore at all
so you were a clinician for 10 years I
find your approach to talking about fat
right now very revealing and I'm
interested to know why you take it so uh
you're being very kind um as a
clinician have you learned that you have
to have a level of kindness to get
people to start doing the right things
like why lead with that instead of just
saying like because your book ends with
a prescription you tell people go do
this and look you cage it a thousand
different ways or you know head your bet
saying that I don't like to prescribe
things like everybody's different um why
are you leading with kindness when you
talk about
fat Tom man I love you this is why I
love talking with you you know it it I
it is very intentional you know I don't
come from very kind circumstances you
know like when I was in college and and
figuring all this stuff out I I lived in
Ferguson Missouri you know and I lived
in uh apartment complex sleeping on a
mattress on the floor I never met
anybody who went went to college let
alone graduated except maybe professors
or something like that but you know just
from the environment that I was in man I
was inundated with poor health and
violence you know and even myself I was
kicked out of high school my entire
junior year for fighting I got kicked
out of that same private university that
I mentioned that you know I went to in
the first place I got kicked out of that
school for fighting who does that who
goes to college kicks kicked out for
fighting I just grew up in an
environment where we're taught to solve
our conflicts with violence and to I I
say that to say part of it is I believe
that humans are inherently good and but
we are also products of of our envir of
our environment but we're creators of
our environment as well when become
aware of it and so once I changed that
started changing the inputs I was
putting into my body I didn't just
become physically healthier my my
thoughts changed you know my perception
of real ity and I came across this quote
from Einstein very early on and I I
mentioned it towards the end of the book
that the most fundamental decision that
we make is whether we live in a friendly
or a hostile Universe I love that quote
so much man like I get the chills right
now because I look I lived in what
seemed like a hostile situation and I
just start to see beauty everywhere man
I start to see potential everywhere I
start to see the goodness in people
because we're all just trying to get our
needs met and seeing in my clinical
practice nine times out of 10 the people
making it to me they had been they
weren't treated with kindness and so I
started to lead with that and see people
open up just when I let them talk and
here's a big tip for the coaches out
there if you let somebody talk if you
just ask them questions they will tell
you the cause and cure of what's going
on with them they already know but we
have to have the the patience and the
kindness to do those things and also KN
that often times even though they were
making the decision to put the food in
their mouth Yes but I'm coming from a
place where I didn't know that there was
a difference I just didn't know as soon
as I got access I started to make better
choices now you didn't know what that
there was a difference in the foods that
you were eating like the quality of
calories exactly yeah I didn't know that
there was a difference between a fish
stick and you know wild caught salmon
it's just food it's just stuff that we
eat and we're just trying to survive
you know let alone thinking about
thriving and cognitive performance and
all this stuff we're just trying to get
by you know but once I became aware of
how much food mattered that's part one
the awareness but part two is also the
accessibility I had to take myself
outside of my environment Tom and
actually you know go to you know mile on
the other side of town to a Wild Oats
you know like I had to make exceptional
decisions to make those things happen
but investing back in myself paid off
dividends but most folks don't even know
that that first part is an option to
begin with so we're leading with
kindness we're I'm assuming lowering
people's defenses we want to avoid the
morality of food I know online you
always avoid sort of BS um you talk a
lot about not getting involved in
arguments over minutia and staying like
hey let's look at the sort of big swaths
of what's actually going to make
progress Okay cool so we're being kind
we're I'm assuming we're encouraging
people to be kind to themselves this is
not a moral failing if you find yourself
unhealthy what this is is some
fundamental misunderstanding but you
just said that people if you let them
talk they'll actually tell you what the
what the fix is so if they know what the
fix is why aren't they doing
it this is a great question for me
there's two parts part one is the
education and this is huge and you're a
big proponent of this because you might
know that there's an issue with
something but you might not be educated
on
why that is and also what to do about it
right and so in the instance of food I
mentioned a little bit briefly about my
indoctrination in my first nutritional
science class which again my professor
meant well but he was teaching me
something that was fundamentally flawed
because it ignores the fact that your
body is made of food all right my my
colleagues I know the top Cardiologist
in the world top gastroenterologists top
neurologists the list goes on and on
they might go to school for 12 12 years
to become a cardiologist and learn about
food for two weeks and your heart is
made of [ __ ] food this is the problem
like you don't even know what the thing
is made of that you're treating and then
we're treating the dysfunction with a
drug right you got linil you've got
statins you're not understanding your
heart is made from food the blood
running through your arteries is made
from food the arteries themselves are
made from food so the system itself is
fundamentally flawed so again people
coming in they might be aware that yeah
I need to change what I'm eating I know
that but they're so far removed from
understanding how powerful it is and
what to do about it because of the cook
cookie cutter stuff that again my
colleague might get get two weeks of
training in which is like eat a low-fat
diet plenty of fiber all this really
superficial BS and then they're telling
their patients you need to lose weight
how how like and so often and I talk
about this in the book our system of
healthare has been so treating the
healthc care professional so poorly it's
a badge of honor to absolutely destroy
yourself in medical school and then try
to pull yourself out of it you know and
just so you see the high rates of
suicide depression anxiety obesity dying
from the very same things that they're
treating the system is flawed and it's
fundamentally because it's not
appreciating the fact that we as I'm
seeing Tom right now and as he seeing me
we're seeing the food that we' eaten
it's remarkable CRA that's really well
okay so I'm going to start um putting my
finger on some of the things that I
think end up causing people problems
this is obviously a world I'm
extraordinarily familiar with so put
somebody on a low enough calorie diet no
matter what those calories are comprised
of I could give somebody a Twinkie with
arsenic on it and if it is low enough in
calories over time if the Arsenic
doesn't kill them they're going to lose
weight they're going to lose fat on top
of a whole host of other problems but
like what do you say to that Sean
Stevenson oh this is good and there's
actually a professor who did the Tweaky
diet did the twey experiment you know
just like see I told you guys it's just
the calories now here's some of the
fundamental issues with that because
anybody who's just as even as remotely
versed in nutrition and just
fundamentals of health because again our
system of medicine just focuses on
disease not what creates real Health but
like what is this impact that it's
having on your neurotransmitters this
Twinkie diet what is it doing to your
pancreas what are you making your heart
cells out of right what is the long-term
ramifications of of a diet protocol like
that and so here's the the term that I
again I'm pressing upon culture is epic
caloric control we mentioned the quality
of food briefly but another one of these
major controllers is the microbiome and
I know that of course you had folks
talking about this on the show but I
want to take this to another level
because this has to do with your body's
processing of calories and research this
was published in the journal cell really
crazy study they discovered that there's
a certain bacteria that they found in
mice that blocked their intestines from
absorbing as many calories from the food
that they ate all right now through the
lens of alpath medicine we just need to
bottle up whatever bacteria that is and
sell that [ __ ] you know just block
people's intestines that's it you know
block people's intestines from absorbing
as many calories you can keep eating
what you want not under understanding
your body does not operate in a vacuum
there's no such thing as side effects
these are Direct effects because
everything's interconnected one of the
things I saw early on in my clinical
practice probably five years into it
I've been in this space for 19 years but
10 years in clinical practice probably
about five years into it I came across a
study because so many people were coming
in statins were like they were the
hottest thing on the streets all right
stat everybody was coming in on a Statin
and there was a study that came out
revealing that folks taking a Statin had
a 30% increased incidence of having
diabetes now all right something was
happening with creating abnormal blood
sugar you know does this have to do with
the beta cells does it have to do with
insulin sensitivity you know that was
open for debate but we knew that it was
happening and so when you when you try
to treat that symptom with okay we just
need to get everybody this bacteria is
this going to affect my bacteria's
ability to produce B12 is it going to
affect my bacteria's ability to produce
short chain fatty acids to protect my
gut lining and prevent autoimmune
conditions we can't think about in those
terms so here's where we do think about
it all right so they discover this
bacteria now we transition this over to
humans now this was from researchers at
The wisman Institute so Tom in my
practice I could have somebody send out
for a stool
sample never even see them a day in my
life I can get their report back and
know with a high degree of certainty
whether not they're obese based on the
makeup of their microbes that is
insane and so now the question is really
fast while you're on that side note what
comes first do you just have a bad roll
of the dice and uh you came out of your
mother's womb and the microbiome that
you formed happened to be obesity um
promoting or is it your diet the
microbes respond to the fact that you're
eating Cheetos and all that kind of
stuff all your cheeselike
products uh yeah which which comes
first it's a both end world it's a both
end World um because we are getting that
download specifically from our mother
but one of the studies was done in
identical twins all right you don't get
more similar of a person to study or
people to study to see the effects of
one thing or the other than identical
freaking twins man when they find a twin
whose bacteria Cascade is associated
with obesity insulin resistance and and
weight gain and then they find one of
the other twins who has an an a
microbiome who's that's associated with
leanness right and they track them over
years that they're they're in the same
household eating the same diet but the
twin who has the microbiome with the
Cascade associated with obesity became
insulin resistant more often became
obese more often than their lean
microbiome twin right and the microbiome
shifts based on our choices based on our
lifestyle because one of the number one
drivers and I broke this down in E
smarter as well what we discovered is
that folks who are eating more of a
quote traditional diet their hunter
gatherer closer to that type of diet
they have upwards of four times greater
diversity in their microbes than the
average person in the Western World
we're losing our diversity like crazy
and a big part of this is we're not
feeding the microbes their preferred
food source for them to stick around in
the first place all right so these are
what we call quote prebiotics and
anybody can go to Google and look in
Prebiotic foods but that's limited
thinking like we got asparagus jusa
maroke G uh onions and garlic that's
small small potatoes here's the truth
every single food has Prebiotic capacity
every single real food for some strain
of bacteria and there might be a food
that your ancestors have been eating for
centuries that is suddenly Stripped Away
by a diet choice or just by by proxy
just by the environment that you're in
and suddenly you don't have that
bacteria getting fed anymore it has no
choice but to become extinct in your
system right and so what the researchers
discovered was that the number one
weight as your bacteria diversity goes
down your rate of insulin resistance
goes up bacteria diversity goes down
your rate of diabetes goes up your rate
of obesity goes up your rate of insomnia
goes up as your rate of microbes goes
down all right we know that they have an
inverse relationship the number one way
to reverse and improve the diversity of
our microbes it's just so simple is to
just simply increase the diversity of
foods that we're eating now why does
that work I get why if I had depleted a
population and I can bring back what is
there but if it's truly gone
extinct is there dirt on the food like
how am I repopulating if I'm not taking
a supplement of some kind with a
probiotic in
it yeah this is a great question as well
so number one uh in my practice I put
people on probiotics so frequently and
we would get like these credible
probiotic formulas some of them take
like two years fermentation process it's
like Wizards do spells over them all
kinds of [ __ ] but we were missing the
point because they they're not able to
colonize and to populate in the gut to
do all the cool things that they can
potentially do if they're not given
their preferred food substrates they're
not giv their Prebiotic sources and so
to answer that question yes we do want
to have sources of probiotics coming in
preferably through food right and we do
go through that but also the most
important thing again is not missing the
point and this is the this is the point
when you eat a food when you we just say
we eat a berry when you're eating that
Berry you're eating a Prebiotic and
you're eating that Berry's microbiome as
well you're taking that on yourself so
it it is coming along with probiotic
with bacteria it's just the nature of
eating real food same thing with an
avocado you're eating that avocado's
microbiome if you eat some kale you're
eating that Kale's microbiome if you eat
some walnuts you're eating that walnuts
microbiome so we have this limited
thinking that I need probiotic you know
some kind of special probiotic food I
need some special probiotic supplement
no we're really missing the point here
food already has the thing but for many
of us especially where we are we can
like Leverage because I know some people
have gotten some wonderful benefits
adding into some fermented foods
absolutely but we don't want to miss out
on this Prebiotic because prebiotics are
needed for the probiotics to make
postbiotics all right so this is when
they're making vitamins minerals short
chain fatty acids in you for you it's
this beautiful symbiotic relationship so
I hope that Mak I want to draw it does I
want to draw a straight line from the
question about hey you can eat a Twinkie
and if your calories are low enough you
are going to lose fat and the punchline
of what you just said so here's what I'm
taking away from that you actually can
for sure I promise you you can lose
weight eating anything if you keep your
calories low enough now some foods
because of the signaling effect of
calories and not all calories are the
same you may have to restrict Tighter
and Tighter and Tighter on certain foods
than you would on others and so yes you
can lose weight eating a Twinkie diet
but as you mentioned not only do we have
those kind of effects but your blood
vessels and all of that other stuff are
made up of the very things that you eat
and in processing the like at a cellular
structural level and a signaling level
you're
changing the material that you're taking
in and it's like I get why people are
obsessed with like getting shredded and
being in good shape but when you begin
to understand that that is a thing that
happens and that there's actually a
whole host of things that happen then
people begin to think about it in the
right way now what I found amazing about
your book is you call out directly hey
boys and girls don't worry about whether
you're paleo vegan uh carnivore what
none of that matters listen to your
body yeah now it's what I want to know
is what the hell do you mean by
that we're right now there's a lot of
infighting over minutia as you mentioned
that I said earlier um and these
wonderful diet Frameworks these are my
friends you know the top person in each
of those and they the reason that they
write these books and that they have
these positions is that they see results
for their patients they see results for
the people that they're working with
they're not trying to be negligent
they're not trying to ignore the data
they're helping people but what's also
overlooked is that there's a large
percentage of people that each of their
diet Frameworks is not helping and
that's the truth and a big part of that
is many of these diet Frameworks even
though they can be wonderful they can
also imprison you and they can leave
things out make things off limits that
you might need that somebody else
doesn't need right but also it might be
protecting you for something you know so
there's there's balance there but we
have to have a little bit more agency
over our thoughts agency over our
choices and this gets into the
discomfort of becoming more educated
about who we are you know unfortunately
there's no easy way around this you know
if you're really going to thrive and and
to be the best version of yourself we
have to learn how we work but the thing
the thing that I want people to
understand and just kind of going back I
I got to really wrap this point up
because you really like made that
Hardline point about this with the
twinkie
diet those researchers at The wisman
Institute who understand about what's
you know with the bacteria in mice they
took bacteria samples feal samples which
feal transplantation is like one of the
hottest things on the street as well
it's super weird but it is um but they
take they took these feal samples from
folks who had a bacteria Cascade
associated with obesity and implanted it
into lean mice then they took another
set of feal samples from Human subjects
who had a bacteria Cascade associated
with leanness and implanted that into
lean mice those mice stayed lean the
mice who received the implants from the
folks with the bacteria Cascade
associated with obesity those mice
became insulin resistant
they gained weight and gained body fat
not because of calories not because they
changed what they were eating because of
the bacteria these principles supersede
any of the ideas that we carry about
just managing calories if you just get
into a caloric deficit because the mice
are already eating the same thing yet
they're gaining weight and I've seen
again many other people listening
especially if they're in healthcare
people coming in they're already at a
th000 calorie a day diet you know and
maybe they're six feet tall and their
weight loss has been stuck and then we
once we can have a certain level of like
stepping away and not thinking we have
all the answers and listen to the person
do some investigation we might find out
there's an underlying autoimmune
condition a thyroid issue we might find
out that inflammation is the causitive
factor because as you mentioned we talk
about that as well there's so many
things that control what calories do not
to say that being in a caloric deficit
can't just make weight fly off of
somebody absolutely but even within that
there are things controlling that
person's metabolism that's going to outp
picture different results from somebody
who might be at the exact same height
and weight starting off as them where I
want to keep pushing on though is this
notion of self-awareness and how you
listen to your body so um I'll give you
an example when I first started working
out I had been working out probably for
about 8 months before I realized that
you could fire your lats like you could
actually send a signal to that part of
your back and it would pull your arms
down and you have this understanding of
whoa when I fire that muscle I feel it I
can actually feel that muscle
Contracting and I now have a level of
control with food it's the same but it's
like steering a boat when you steer a
boat you do something nothing happens
and then 6 seconds later the boat moves
so it is very hard to drive a boat
because you have to account for that leg
food is insanely complicated if you eat
one thing and you're in a good mood
you'll be fine you eat the same thing in
a bad mood and it upsets your stomach
it's so complicated I mean that's just
one of a bazillion different ways but
people don't learn to connect I ate this
thing and I feel this way I'll give you
example from my own life about six
months ago Sean I'm I'm always sharp and
I was just like just in the middle of
the day all the time and I was was like
way out of it and then finally I
connected that feeling with the word
people use for brain fog I had never
understood what people meant by brain
fog and so all of a sudden I was like is
this brain fog and I was like oh my God
this is brain fog I don't think I'm
tired this is if it's brain fog it is
almost certainly something I'm eating I
end up tracking it down it was
pecans I have no idea why I can eat
pecans but when I eat them every day all
of the sudden cuz I'd gotten into this
routine where one of my meals was made
with a lot of pecans it was amazing and
over time and that was the worst part it
probably took four months of me eating
those that meal almost every day to get
to that point but then once I was there
until I removed them from my diet I
couldn't shake it no matter how much I
slept caffeine nothing I just felt that
brain fog stopped eating them was gone
in like 48 hours that's so crazy and
this is the thing is it can be something
so small and subtle like that and what
you're bringing up and how do we kind of
get this inner guidance system back
online first of all it's an
acknowledgement that it exists because
in our system we are so focused on
objective measures which I'm very
analytical so I'm super into that stuff
but being able to track the the data the
things that everybody else can measure
isn't even remotely close to how
powerful your subjective experiences
tell me something that matters more than
how you feel
I'll wait you know this is the thing
this is the most important barometer of
everything in our life and yet we get we
pay so little attention to it so basic
metrics that we can pay attention to
when we eat a meal just seeing how does
that make me feel how does a digestive
process feel but so I think so often as
well we start to have these alarms that
go off when we eat certain things and we
just keep hitting the snooze button on
it like ah you know this fatigue is
normal this stomach discomfort we get
these different responses your body's
giving you feedback that something's
wrong something's not right here and yet
we accept it as normal and so that inner
intelligence we start to create a lot of
static on the line all right so that's
part of it is being able to clear off
the static on the line and I want to add
another layer here just with a little
bit more science on what that static on
the line can look like there's this
wonderful I talk about the science of
flavor in each smarter and there's this
wonderful occurrence of something called
postingestive feedback all right
postingestive feedback and essentially
through our Evolution whenever we would
eat a food your body your your brain
your your tissues are essentially like
taking notes like okay you know we'll
just say just found some wild berries
you ate I got some Copper from this I
got some selenium I got some of some
amino acids I got a little bit of uh
Omega-3s from the seeds your your your
body is taking notes that when you eat
that food it's connecting a flavor
sensation to those nutrients and so now
when you start to become deficient in
those nutrients your body can submit a
craving a craving signal to go and eat
that food to get those nutrients back to
where we need them to be now here's the
problem processed food manufacturers
have really muddied up the Waters of
this post-ingestive feedback because now
we can make things taste like different
things all the time and it doesn't have
to be exact but it's just enough to
create
enough biological interference that we
don't even have that intelligence
anymore right so a big takeaway from
today and just overall for everybody is
that chronic nutrient deficiency leads
to Chronic overeating chronic nutrient
deficiency leads to Chronic hunger when
we're having these deficiencies part of
the big reason why we're having
halfhazard hunger and Cravings our body
are driving us it's not just the fact
that we're addicted right that's that
can be dismissive they're just addicted
to Sugar well they're probably deficient
in damn near every single nutrient that
they need to actually Thrive all right
and your body is going to keep
compelling you to eat more to get those
things in that's how we evolve and so
having that process you know again to
become kind of skewed and twisted up it
just it it makes another layer of
complexity of trying to figure out this
inner intelligence so to to help with
this and I provided some very specifics
in the book but again I'm very much on
we've got to experiment for yourself but
one of the things that was found to help
to reduce the impact of of
hyperpalatable foods on our brain funny
enough is chlorophyll all right
chlorophyll was yeah chlorophyll is
found to help to reduce the urge to eat
hyperpalatable foods and also to reduce
neuroinflammation okay do you take it as
a supplement
so just in Foods you know chlorophyll
Anything Green is going to be a good
source of chlorophyll so of course green
leafy vegetables but then you've got
these super dense sources of chlorophyll
like chlorella you know they even got
his name chlorella from the high
chlorophyll content spirulina but then
you also get these other benefits there
like was spirina is one of the foods
clinically proven to reduce
neuroinflammation and why am I bringing
this up where's the interference and
being able to know how we feel and what
do we
need Tom I want everybody to get this
because you're not going to hear you're
going to hear this in a few years but
right now you you hear it here first
with Tom
Bilu one of the biggest epidemics we're
facing today is
neuroinflammation all right inflammation
of the brain and one of the studies that
I talked about uh in the book this was
published in the annals of the New York
Academy of
Sciences they they reported that
specifically hypothalamic inflammation
and your hypothalamus is like this is
like your body internal
thermostat literally regulating what
your metabolic rate is your brain
doesn't give a [ __ ] how many if you're
trying to calorie count your
hypothalamus can tell your gut to reduce
the absorption of calories that you just
ate your hypothalamus can tell your gut
to increase the absorption of calories
from food you just ate all right these
things are epic caloric controllers
superseding that normal function so what
they discovered was that hypothalamic
inflammation is one of the
biggest driving forces of obesity
because it's throwing off our metabolic
rate all right and here's the other side
obesity is one of the biggest causes of
hypothalamic inflammation and it's just
creating this terrible Loop where people
can't get out of it and again I know my
friends you might have these diet
Frameworks but if we're not explicitly
helping people to reduce the
inflammation in their brain we might
just be spinning our Wheels here but
many of these wonderful diet Frameworks
though that are really worth their salt
they're accidentally doing it anyways
they're helping to reduce
neuroinflammation one of the foods that
was again clinically proven to reduce
inflammation
neuroinflammation funny enough and I I'm
this is not an advocation to for this
food it's just the data exists I was
shocked researchers at Auburn University
found that ooc canthal rich extra virgin
olive oil is incredibly effective at
reducing brain inflammation and it's
been found to repair the blood brain
barrier right your internal security
system basically keeping things out of
your brain that create more inflammation
that gets damaged over time especially
from you know excess sugar and the list
goes on and on but wow I didn't know
olive oil can do that [ __ ] that's really
remarkable and what they found was there
two to three tablespoons a day and how
do you go about that there's Nuance
there too you know um olive oil if
you've ever seen it in the stores nine
times out of 10 it's in dark glass
this is because it's
photosensitive light can damage olive
oil all right and so you don't want it
to be in clear plastic that's already
nasty it's already messed up all right
number one and also is this should bring
up well should I be cooking with it you
can and it might be healthier well
definitely healthier than these highly
processed seed oils you know canola oil
and uh ve quote vegetable oil but very
low heat but ideally and folks
traditionally we're going to use it as a
finisher so your meal is finished plate
it and you drizzle some olive oil on use
it to make dressings people put it on
sour dough bread talk to me about that
so massive individual variability
nobody's ever going to be like you again
nobody's had digestion like you nobody
ever will have digestion like you so you
are doing an N of one experiment whether
you want to or not how do people figure
out what to eat so this gets down to a
principles and not
not written rules not def definitive
points because again everybody is unique
so there's going to be principles on
every diet framework that are going to
make them successful and then there's
going to be things that can make any
diet framework go terribly wrong right
so what we want to do
is eat eat in a way that number one and
I just mentioned this earlier to help to
reduce inflammation so that these
internal guidance systems can get back
online this inflammation is it's a
really it sounds kind of hooky Tom I
don't know about you but it just sound
inflammation inflammation but it it is a
real problem because inflammation number
one is not a bad guy that's number one
we need inflammation it's a functional
part of our immune system a part of our
healing a part of just cellular
processing period we don't want no
inflammation it's a part of growth
however chronic inflammation
inflammation where it's not supposed to
be like this heighten neuro inflammation
can really really mess us up so the
biggest driving forces for most of us
today with inflammation specifically gut
inflammation is the consumption of
pesticides herbicides
rodenticides and you know I get I did
share one of the studies in the book
Finding conclusively a meta analysis
that pesticides do in fact not only
create inflammation in the gut but
create
abnormal uh gene expression from your
microbes right your micro most of our if
we go Gene for Gene most of the genes We
Carry in our bodies are not ours all
right we're
99% genes of other you know our our
bacteria Cascade that we're carrying
around with us and so these things
damage our Gene micro the microbial
expression of our genes all right so
this is not a small thing and we've come
to accept it as normal and right now we
have literally thousands of pesticides
have been approved by the EPA so-called
Environmental Protection Agency supposed
to be protecting us many of them have
been recalled many of them are actually
caught up in red tape right now like
cyos for example that's been found study
after study to lead to uh uh
neurodegenerative diseases specifically
for development of babies and creating
brain damage and and creating
skyrocketing rates of miscarriages you
would think it would be it would have
been gone it's happened so many times
it's disgusting because with these
companies it isn't innocent until proven
guilty it's innocent until it cuts into
their bottom line enough the lawsuits
because it's just you know it's just
business as usual they already have a
certain amount of set aside for all the
damage it's going to cause so it when
we're talking about avoiding pesticides
this isn't a it's not a trendy thing
that I'm talking about here these
chemicals are not designed for human
consumption but the premise is is
generally regarded as safe because we're
a bigger organism we're bigger than the
little pest that they're trying to kill
but things bio accumulate in our tissues
and number one and number two we're made
of little things smaller than those damn
pests we're made of these things and
they're damaging our microbes they're
damaging our cells so do we avoid that
by eating organic organic there's Nuance
there with Organic but it's going to be
generally a good step to make and we can
do that ourselves and as we continue to
demand it there's going to continue to
change what's available in the market
for sure so and also a way around that
because again not having a lot of money
I I would start to go to farmers markets
there was a farmers market in Ferguson
and meet the farmers ask them hey are
you guys spraying [ __ ] on your lettuce
you know and they're like absolutely not
you know and just talking to them
learning you know there's many and it's
much less cost right I can get three
times the amount of lettuce that I was
buying at Whole Foods or whatever there
for the same amount of money so um so
yes avoiding the things that are
damaging this internal intelligence that
are damaging our our metabolism right so
that's just one but then adding things
in as well that help to reduce
inflammation so what does that look like
one of the most important time and I'm
going to say this again and again
because this has this has to do with
metabolism but also it has to do with
our Sleep Quality it also has to do with
our cognitive performance and I know
this is important important for you as
well and this is the need to make sure
we're getting in plenty of DHA and EPA
all right this is so freaking important
I don't even want this to if anybody
does anything from this episode I want
to make sure that you're getting in
enough omega-3 fatty acids in the form
of DHA and EPA so number one DHA and EPA
have expressed Lanes if you want to
think about the blood brain barrier
being like a toll booth they have
Express passes to get into the brain
your brain sucks them up like in droves
because they're needed for structure of
your brain cells Omega-3s function as
structural fats in your brain creating
plasticity creating stability and signal
transduction so your brain cells can
actually talk to each other without
Omega-3s [ __ ] goes wrong real fast to
the degree one of the craziest studies
in the book they found that the folks
who had the lowest intake of DHA and EPA
had the highest rate of brain shrinkage
all right your your brain literally
shrinks rapidly if you're not getting
these fats in and so what it was was
just under 1.2 tspoons a day anything
under that increased the rate of brain
shrinkage what are the best three foods
or supplements to get your um DHA and
EPA okay perfect food first fruit first
the journal neurology found that folks
who consume Just One Seafood meal per
week do in fact perform better on
cognitive skills tests I think that's a
direct one to one response of those
Omega-3s uh but if you if you're not
taking a if you're taking a vegan or
vegetarian protocol I've got news good
news for you too but food first and then
of course there's grass-fed beef in that
same Spectrum has Omega-3s a high ratio
of Omega-3s uh eggs the best food source
though Tom is not the fish the fatty
fish but the fatty fish eggs so salmon
row and caviar can have three times more
DHA and EPA than the fish itself and
then we've got from there most of the
studies done on DHA and EPA is done via
fish oil all right so I did share some
studies in the book that are just really
shocking when it comes to fish oil but
then from there the next rung down is
krill oil right Krill that's a
microscopic shrimp super dense in acis
xanthin which makes your body absorb
Omega-3s even better it's incredible
that might be for somebody who's doing a
vegetarian protocol wherever that lies
on your ethics krill oil might be a
savior for your brain if anything
everybody today even if you're taking a
vegan protocol please get yourself an
algae oil all right a high quality algae
oil it has the DHA and EPA there but we
don't have clinical studies now to see
its Effectiveness but we do know that
it's there and I just don't want you to
wait around for that data DHA is so
important for your brain just to be
clear this is the plant source is ala
right this what you find in chia seeds
and flax seeds and hemp seeds I would
have patients get flax seed oil for
years I was missing the point it's not
the same as DHA and EPA but it's so
important for your brain that your body
can convert some ala into DHA but you
can lose depending on your metabolism
your unique metabolic fingerprint you
can lose 90% in the conversion process
and so you'll have to eat five bags of
chia seeds a day to get what your brain
needs you know it's just not doable and
plus you probably want to leave the
bathroom at some point um so that's
that's that part and I also want to
share this really quickly with uh
Omega-3s and Omega sixes this was a
study and this was published in the
journal nutrients and it found that a
large increase in the ratio of omega-6s
in the diet compared to Omega-3s
directly increases our our risk of
obesity but here's the most important
part listen to this
[ __ ] this another study
and this was highlighted and then I
broke this down I'm getting giggy giddy
right now another study highlighted e
marter found that an imbalance in Omega
6es to Omega-3s leads to dysfunction of
your hunger related hormones and
increase fat storage even with calories
being the same even with calories being
the same people with a higher intake of
omega-6s gained more weight and more
body fat and had more dysfunction to
their hunger related hormones all right
epic caloric controller Omega-3s help to
reduce inflammation omega-6s are not bad
but we need more Omega-3s right now
because we become such a omega-6
dominant
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