Barbell Shrugged - [Physique Transformation] How Hormones Help Build Muscle and Burn Fat w/ Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash and Dan Garner Barbell Shrugged #644

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged:   The relationship between testosterone and cortisol The relationship between calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients Why micronutrients matter for achieving a lean physique Optimal hormone ratios for physique transformation  How does menstrual cycle affect performance Understanding gut health and it’s affects on physique Stabilizing hormones as a sign of health   Connect with our guests:   Anders Varner on Instagram   Doug Larson on Instagram   Coach Travis Mash on Instagram   Dan Garner on Instagram   ————————————————   Diesel Dad Mentorship Application: https://bit.ly/DDMentorshipApp   Diesel Dad Training Programs: http://barbellshrugged.com/dieseldad   Please Support Our Sponsors   Eight Sleep - Save $150 on the Pod Pro and Pod Pro Cover   Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged   BiOptimizers Probitotics - Save 10% at bioptimizers.com/shrugged   Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://prxperformance.com/discount/BBS5OFF Save 5% using the coupon code “BBS5OFF”

Shrugged family, this week on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking about how hormones affect your physique transformation. Everybody knows about testosterone. It's important. We're going to talk about that one. We're going to talk about how you can focus on gut health, how you can focus on hormone health, and really how all these pieces really get into losing the body fat that you'd like to lose, building the muscle you would like to gain, and how those two worlds can play together

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Let's get into the show. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, Dan Garner. Today on Barbell Shrugged, we are talking about how hormones affect body composition. And we should also leave this thing off with some performance because we can't mention this person's name because there are actual labs and all this stuff. But we share a common athlete who just came back with a four-digit testosterone score. And he also just happens to be an insanely strong person that we coach.

I think it's a really cool topic to sit here and actually talk about how hormones affect performance. Because as we were joking about pre-show, all of us really live inside this bell curve, right? And we're in these like normal ranges of testosterone and that's kind of the big one that guys focus on, but with hormone levels. But what happens when we start to play at the optimal edges of performance and physique and how we can actually train these people and how you can start to, uh, build processes into your life and build systems into your life to optimize your hormones, which then translates into better performance and, and physique, um, and in your body transformation. Um, Dan, I want to kick it to you a little bit and, and just what are kind of like the,

the big hormone levels or not hormone levels, but the big hormones that people really want to start paying attention to when it comes to any type of physique or performance kind of transformation in their path? Dude, to be honest, all of them. I know people hate that answer, but I don't care. This is a show about providing people the real information and to try and create any type of hierarchy in a system that depends upon everything working optimally. It's kind of a fool's game. Even to discuss, like it's very common now in more cutting edge circles to discuss the neuroendocrine immune system rather than the endocrine system. Because it's nearly it's impossible to discuss the endocrine system without the impacts of the immune and neurological system. It's impossible to really bring up any of these things without, without also understanding the

importance of everything that else that comes into question. So when we bring up something, say, such as testosterone, like we did a entire podcast on last week, that is going to have like a huge impact on a lot of the strength, muscle mass and fat loss goals that we want. But probably the most important thing that I could say in this entire podcast is that you when you look at labs, you are measuring hormones to analyze enzymes. It's a totally different mindset. So when you have a hormone, that is the measurement, but you're not actually measuring, you're measuring testosterone in this example, to analyze the enzymes that either allowed that synthesis to take place or did not allow that synthesis to take place. So for example,

let's just keep in testosterone. When we have that hypothalamus pituitary gonadal access, like we talked about last week, we have the hypothalamus that secretes gonadotropin-releasing hormone to the pituitary. Then we have the pituitary that secretes luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone down to the latex cells of the testes. That's our, you know, hypothalamus gonadal access to create testosterone. Once LH binds to receptors in the latex cells, we are able to create testosterone. Now, that testosterone synthesis was merely the end product of many different metabolic pathways that either took place or didn't take place, whether we have a lot of testosterone or a very small amount of testosterone.

Two good examples here is that let's say we had someone whose blood work showed an excellent or even high level of luteinizing hormone, but then a very low amount of testosterone. We know that the stimulation of that hormone is there and taking place, but the actual synthesis or generation and creation of this hormone is not taking place. So then we have to take, you have to have that knowledge of not the endocrine system to understand how the endocrine system is actually going to function in the outcome, because it's been demonstrated

many times over. And these papers exist. There's an enzyme called 3-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase. It's a mouthful to say, but it's- I'm glad you know that one. Write that one down while you're driving to work and listening to this podcast, guys. It's basically an enzyme that allows us to convert uh pregnenolone into either androstenedione or testosterone but that enzyme is directly inhibited by arsenic cadmium lead and mercury so you didn't if you had low testosterone but higher lh we are lacking three beta hydroxy steroid dehydrogenase activity due to heavy metal toxicity. So you didn't have a low testosterone problem or a stimulation problem, but you rather had a

toxicity problem. We've also seen in research that, and this is kind of where gut health comes into play, elevations of something called lipopolysaccharides. We've talked about it quite a bit in the past. I think honestly, once we do like 100 episodes, this will just be its own course and it'll all, you know, tie together and make sense. But lipopolysaccharides, it's something that can be as known as endotoxemia within the gut. These papers exist in humans that elevations in circulatory lipopolysaccharides have an antagonistic relationship with testosterone. So poor gut health can directly lower testosterone. There's multiple papers on this. So when someone, you know, you open the podcast with what hormones

impact body composition, all of them. But what's more important to understand is that hormone that we are measuring should only be used as a tool to analyze the enzymes that determine whether or not that actually happened. Yeah. Um, mash, I actually want to kick it to you for a little bit because, uh, it is one of your athletes that we, that I was referencing a little bit earlier. Um, and you've coached at this point, thousands of people in scene, uh, really everywhere along the spectrum. I'd love to know kind of like without even seeing someone's labs. And now that we have some of their labs and we can actually go in and see what's going on really like inside their body.

How great is that difference for you and what, and like your mindset in training and programming for people that obviously are playing at much more optimal levels than, than the standard population. It's just, he's, he's, he is able to do things that most people aren't. And so it's everything that I thought was like a rule is not, is not for this one particular person. And he's able to just do things differently you know he's able to you know hit monster lifts you know three days before a competition and then go and win the competition

he's just his ability to recover is you know the second to none and the funny thing is the same person we're talking about is like not sleeping well uh he doesn't you know follow any particular diet yet so he's excited the cool thing about when he got these lab results is now he's got i've got buy-in from him about doing you know focusing on his sleep focusing on his nutrition and doing those little things because now he realizes if cortisol wasn't so high as well who knows it would literally be like this guy's on drugs but it's not yeah when you read um i guess when you're when you're coaching the majority of your team that lives kind of in normal ranges or is less optimized um in their physiology as this guy um does it throw out all of the old game plans

and you have to kind of go and rewrite potentially what's possible for training programs? It's definitely, he definitely doesn't do anything what everyone else does. His program's totally over here and everyone else's is on certain bell curves of their own over here. He's on his own little island.

So, yeah, no one else does anything close to what he does. So it wouldn't work out. And like the way – like on a day-to-day basis, he always comes in. And, you know, like Dan was saying, it's just – he's fine. You know, I'm one or two. You know, I'm looking at just trying to be able to give input with Dan here, but like looking at some of the reasons why people have higher, you know, or, or better body compositions. I'm just curious, you know, is it, you know,

obviously it's genetics, you know, that's a, I've imagined that's probably the biggest part, but I'm curious. He all is always had this ability to know if he should or shouldn't go hard that day he's got a very and it's very very like most people are very um gosh they are not in tune with their own bias their ability to auto regulate doesn't exist but this this young man has always had that ability and i wonder if that's that you know come to play too because he's never pushed himself past where he should go. He's very good at pushing himself, but he also knows when to say when.

I'm just curious what all factors contribute to that high testosterone rate. Yeah, a lot of factors will contribute. But I think just to piggyback on that, like ability to auto-regulate, Tom Platz is a guy I've got a lot of respect for. He's a lot of people know him as the man with the crazy legs. So he said the three aspects of becoming an incredible bodybuilder were genetics, education, and instincts. And he said it's very, very few people have all three. But when it comes to instincts, it sounds so much like when you're just explaining his ability to auto-regulate, that comes down a lot to instincts. It's like when you know, okay, I've got my stimulation in, there's no need for annihilation.

So we're going to stimulate. We're not going to annihilate. We did our work. Let's get out of here so that we can live to lift another day. That's something that takes actually a lot of emotional maturity, because even like I am, I'll be the first to say that I can be the one who wants to get after it, who goes to failure, and then ends up smaller than the guy who does it. So yeah, that whole instincts component of it's absolutely huge. But when it comes to driving all of the factors involved in maximizing testosterone, man, so sometimes you want to drive maximal levels of

testosterone. But then there's this strange situation too, where there's a very noted degree of testosterone sensitivity between individuals. So just like if somebody had a reactive hypoglycemia post-meal, means their blood sugar gets really low right after eating, it's because they actually are an insulin hyper responder. So they dramatically lower their blood sugar because insulin has such a hyper response in them that they have reactive hypoglycemia due to and hyper respondents to insulin. Yet we see this in athletics as well with testosterone. You're going to have one guy and another guy with equal levels of testosterone, but the other's ability to build muscle mass is on a completely different level. Like I actually worked with a football player from North Texas, whose testosterone was only I think, maybe 400 or so, but he was absolutely stacked and strong.

So it was a situation where I was like, is this you know, am I actually just looking at somebody who's wildly efficient in their testosterone, and they're wildly reset receptors are wildly sensitive to the effects of testosterone, because that matters too. You'll see it actually in, say, pro bodybuilding and pro powerlifting too. Just give myself as an example. Let's say me and Jay Cutler, both TRT. Who do you think is going to gain more muscle mass? It's absolutely laughable, because some people are hyper responders to these drugs so what we should you know probably focus on most probably within this podcast and future podcasts is the people who aren't um on that far end of the bell curve most people just want more testosterone

because uh they'll be the first ones to describe to you that they are not hyper responders. Yeah. And I think that leads really to kind of like what the biggest piece of the show is, is optimizing body composition or improving your body composition and knowing how hormonally, how hormones affect that process. Because I feel like, um, and trust me, I've been in this, uh, in this role many, many times over the last 26 years of training of like, I want to get in shape or I want to lose 10 pounds for summer, like summer shred seasons here. Like when you're in high school and college and you're not like competing in anything. And it's like, well, I'm just going to drop the calories. My abs are going to show up and it's like i'm just gonna drop the calories my abs are gonna show up and everything's great but there can be a better way i would imagine than just cutting the calories like you should be able to do it by just getting as healthy as possible and that that gets into

what hormones need the levels that you need them how you actually get those hormones to that level and and you don't have to go and starve yourself um You know, if you're going to get to Jay Cutler level 4% body fat standing on stage, like there's a piece to that, but the, the, the normal person should be able to just get as healthy as possible and have the body composition that they're, they want. Yeah, bro. You see, you nailed it. Like so what you just said 99.9% of trainers do not understand is that when you are healthy, that's tying back to the beginning of the podcast when all of these systems are working in syncretic in order to produce the end result that you want and health. And let's just use your whole example. So if I

want to get lean for summer, and I want to do it in a healthy way, well, then I'm going to ensure I have full health of my body. Now, getting lean is going to require a high metabolism. Well, there's research out there that's demonstrated that people of low zinc status, when repleting zinc, increased resting metabolic rate by over 900 calories in less than four months. 900 calories. For people who may not understand the enormity to that, that is two huge extra meals that you could eat per day and not gain a single ounce of body fat from. Instead, those meals are going to go towards more nutrient density, more micronutrients, more fuel for training, more anti-catabolic activity while you're dropping body fat. That was only from zinc.

And that's because zinc is required to create thyroid hormone. We need zinc, selenium, and iodine in order to create thyroid hormone. But when you lack one, you have a major reduction in thyroid hormone. And then when you have a reduction in thyroid hormone, you have a reduction in metabolic rate, which means in order to gain the same level of body fat loss as someone who did have optimal zinc status, you would have to absolutely starve yourself because the person who has optimal thyroid hormone and zinc status, their calorie deficit could perhaps be at 2,200 calories, whereas yours would have to be at like 1200. Or to use the exact math, it would be minus 900, right? So that'd bring us to 1300. So you're that is 200 2200 calories versus 1300 calories. One person's going to be eating like lettuce, like a

rabbit and feeling like crap and have no fuel for training, probably have no sex drive, have no constant cravings, wanting to cheat, and working against their body rather than with their body. And due to a simple micronutrient optimization, the other person is going to be able to be more consistent on their plan and look better and leaner and retain more muscle mass on the way down. That's from a healthy eating approach. This person just simply got their micronutrients in. And if you eat healthy, you also have healthy gut health. So let's just actually kind of continue this same analogy and even work it into thyroid. So there's something in our liver called gallbladder. And the gallbladder secretes something known as bile into our small intestine. Bile, people mostly know it if you're in, if you research this stuff, most people just think of bile as if it breaks down fats, dietary fats.

And that's absolutely true. We use it to break down and assimilate fats, but bile also has a lot of different signaling mechanisms. So bile is what also allows the body to convert T4 to T3 in brown fat tissue and in skeletal muscle tissue. So you're actually able to convert inactive T4 to active T3 because bile signals this activity to happen in skeletal muscle and in brown fat. Brown fats actually has like a ephedrine and caffeine work together. It stimulates a fat to actually calories to create heat so that you can, you know, stay warm. It's that's why it's, that's why people will use actually ice baths to activate brown fat to burn more calories. But I digress. That simply came down to someone having gut health. And that's kind of why I say

everything connects to everything. And I realize I'm going everywhere with this statement right now, but that's just because it really is the case. Almost nobody, if say, what hormones should I focus on to get jacked and lean? They'd probably say testosterone and thyroid. Jacked with testosterone, lean with thyroid. Well, thyroid is not going to do shit if you don't have bile. And hey, guess what? Testosterone is is not going to do shit if you don't have bile. And hey, guess what? Testosterone is probably not going to do shit if you don't have bile either, because we synthesize testosterone from fat. And bile is what allows us to digest and assimilate fat.

So not only is it converting T4 to T3, but it's also digesting and assimilating fat to allow testosterone synthesis to even take place. So no one even looks at bile, yet we don't have the get jacked hormone or the get lean hormone without it. And that resides in the gut. Wow. Let me ask you a question because this is like an old thing since the 90s. But the guy who had Balco Labs, him and Charles Pulligan promoted the zinc and magnesium as if it were steroids. And so, but like, it sounds like based on what you're saying, if a man was like deficient, it very well might appear. Because some people did take that ZMA stack and saw tremendous results.

I took it, but I was only 22 years old. I took it and saw nothing because I was already, you know, up here with everything. And so could it, do you think most men need in your, in your experience, would you say that most men 40 and above need zinc and magnesium? I would actually, yes. So the thing is, um, and it's, it's like, because it's kind of both answers. Because zinc and magnesium will only increase testosterone if you are currently low in zinc and magnesium. So adding more zinc and magnesium on top of an already sufficient status will not have an additive effect. But at the same time, most people are low in zinc and magnesium. So like you actually,

the answer is kind of the same. Going from low to normal is what gets the increase. And there's no additive effect on top of normal. But most people are low. They just simply are. When you look at statistics, people's micronutrient status is embarrassingly low. Like we keep, as years keep going on, our micronutrient, like we've never been in a society where we're overfed and undernourished. And that's where we're at right now. Like we keep, as years keep going on, our micronutrients, like we've never been in a society where we're overfed and undernourished. And that's where we're at right now. We just, we have so many

more calories and absolutely zero micronutrients. Like in the same conversation of hormone status, just for hormone release, just for insulin release, for example, we need potassium to secrete insulin. And it has to be there in order for insulin to even be released. Yet, NHANES data between 2003 and 2008 demonstrated 98% of Americans, 9-8, do not receive dietary recommended intake for potassium. So you start actually kind of thinking about these things. It's like, okay, well, how many people have chronically high blood sugar? An absolute ton. Well, potassium is required for the secretion of insulin, which would have otherwise lowered blood sugar. And NHANES data suggests 98% of the population does not meet the recommended intake of potassium. So do people have a really crappy

carbohydrate habits and insulin resistance? There's certainly an element of that. But when 98% of people don't get enough potassium, then let's maybe focus on this because our body knows what to do, but it can only do what it wants to do if it's being given the nutrients to actually get the job done. Yeah. Yeah. The car needs gas to start you know yeah yeah you got 100 everything's a fuel for every kind of like you know um chemical reaction in the body so if you don't have it you know that's gonna happen this is this is i think this is really good for the people listening today i feel like there's a lot of like easy takeaways but then if they're like me they're thinking damn i really want to know a lot more so yeah yeah you know similar to when people are talking about cholesterol like you have

your your total cholesterol and your hcls and your ldls your triglycerides but then you also have like the ratios the optimum ratios between them regarding hormones like we often talk about you know siloing just your your total testosterone as an example without really referencing it in relation to the other hormones. Like I know like there's like the cortisol to DHEA ratio that's important. Are there other, you know, can you expand on that and or other ratios between your hormones that you feel are optimum for performance and body composition? Yeah, I mean, so ratios are important, but they're kind of almost impossible to get exact. So like, that's kind of sometimes where

the information gets lost in the noise. Cause someone could be like at 1.9 to one and not two to one. And they're like, Holy shit, Dan, what should I do? I'm like, all right, calm down. We're going to be just fine. The real like important part of ratios, we can provide a few examples here. But kind of the importance of it is due to sensitivity. So for example, progesterone increases the sensitivity of the receptors of estrogen. So when you have adequate progesterone, it allows estrogen to do its job better. And that actually happens over the course of a female menstrual cycle. So typically your female's typical menstrual cycle is going to be 28 days. For the first two weeks, there's going to be an increase in estrogen

for the first two weeks. And this is actually anabolic for females. So this increase in estrogen, and this research is out there, by the way, and females can build more muscle mass and strength in the first two weeks of their cycle than compared to if they do equal training volume in the last two weeks of their cycle. And this is due to the estrogen dominance in the beginning. Estrogen is anabolic, it's anti-catabolic and also increases insulin sensitivity in females. So you get a major type of growth effect here. And then in three, there's three days of, what's it called? What's it called when the egg is released? Ovulation. Ovulation.

I got you. You've got three days. That's the time where you just step you're, you just step away. So that it's okay that you forgot that. You just. Well, I mean, that's also the time when the girls are super into it. So. You got it.

There's an innate, there's an innate factor of female sexual activity going up during ovulation. Right. So, Anders, while you're walking away, I'm stepping in, dude. Me too. I got the wrong part there. That was my bad. Yeah.

So we've got our three days of ovulation where basically estrogen bottoms out and then progesterone increases. And the reason why progesterone increases is because that's after ovulation, progesterone, pro-gestation. It's what allows the female to begin, if there was fertilization taking place, it's what allows the female to begin the baby process, the baby making process to actually take place. But progesterone elevations actually create a type of insulin resistance. So it has the opposite effect in females. Progesterone as kind of like a yin yang though, because it creates

a little bit of insulin resistance, but females can expect an average of 100 calories per day increase in RMR during that two week period. So you can have like an extra, you know, a couple of pieces of dark chocolate or wherever you want per day in that final two weeks to help with dietary consistency and not suffer any type of metabolic effects or messing up the deficit that you're currently on. And then once that progesterone period goes away, provided you're not pregnant, the progesterone will go back down because it resensitized the estrogen receptors for the next cycle to begin to take place. And that takes over that whole process. So when we talk ratios, lots of times it's so cyclical things

can take place. Another good example actually is estrogen by itself increases the sensitivity of leptin. Leptin is a hormone that's very big for fat loss and maintaining metabolic rate in a caloric deficit. While a lot of people try to completely eliminate estrogen, estrogen is what allowing leptin to do what it's supposed to do. So that's really important to care about too. And two more examples of ratios and relationships. When you're measuring somebody's anabolic catabolic status, it's excellent to look at their testosterone to cortisol balance, cortisol being systemic catabolism, testosterone being systemic anabolism. So you want to make sure that that teeter totter is working towards the direction of your current goal. But with respect to brain health,

the relationship of cortisol to DHA is important because cortisol, when it's elevated, I believe we talked about this on the cortisol podcast, but I'll go over it again. When it's elevated, I believe we talked about this on the cortisol podcast, but I'll go over it again. When it's elevated, it actually creates oxidative damage to certain sections of the brain that are responsible for memory retention. And but it's been demonstrated in research that no matter how high cortisol goes, provided you still have homeostatic levels of DHEA, DHEA will protect the brain from the oxidative damage of cortisol. So all of these ratios and relationships are just through the examples I just mentioned for insulin sensitivity, anabolism, catabolism, fat loss, metabolic rate, brain protection, health, the sensitivity of other hormones to do what they're supposed to do. In the end of the day, I can make this stuff sound hyper complicated,

but just be balanced. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle. When you have balance, nothing is more important than anything else. And everything will work better when everybody's invited to the party. I've got a question when it comes to women, because I was trying to find my notes when you're talking about the, you know, the menstrual cycles. And recently I did some research when it comes to, well, I looked into the research. I did not do it. But, and, you know, there are these set, in theory,

the follicular phases like this, ovulations like this, the luteal phases like this. But then when they did the studies on how much a person's, say their, their 1RM, how much did it vary? Like, you know, overall with all the women that they measured, there was not a big, you know, you know, change. But of course you and I both know that, you know, their effect size is not the same as ours. You know, what we see is important is not what they see is important, but you know, it was very varied. So my, my question is when you guys do your blood test, do you ever look at the individual menstrual cycle of a female? Because it seems to, based on the research,

really fluctuate for the individual. Uh, yeah, I, I do. I have looked at a ton of it. You could actually do a full 28 day cycle with daily draws of females and you can map it across and see where people are at. I'll typically do that, but only if there's underlying hormonal problems. That's basically the reason they came to me for, like, let's say they're spotting at certain times of the month, or especially if I'm working with an endurance female and she has no menstrual cycle at all, I do want to see what's going on. So when I do, I'll absolutely do tests like that, but it's not to overly take advantage of any of these small windows. It's more so to see where the heck is dysfunction taking place, because when I can identify

that, I'm going to get a larger systemic effect. Right. I've always wanted to map it out simply because, you know, obviously, if you could perfect things, it would be nice. You know, if those first two weeks was exactly what you said for all of them, it would be nice to always do max effort on day 14, you know, ovulation. And then to maybe just focus on the the volume lower intensity for those last two weeks it would be perfect but like you know but then again let me ask you this question too but then again let's say i did that and then they have a competition and then it's on their you know it's at the end of their luteal phase you know theory in theory when they're the weakest then

you're screwed i guess so like i don't. What are your thoughts on trying to do something like that? I was just grabbed my notebook. Cause I was going to say, don't forget to talk about mindset. I was going to write my note for myself when you're asking that question, but that's exactly a great point, which brings me to my next question after you answer that. Yes. Okay. Well, yeah. So that's basically, I don't actually, in many cases, the art art of coaching i'm not actually going to tell them some certain things so like i'm not actually going to say okay well then this is the time when you're most anabolic and this is the time when you're catabolic because um physiology is going to follow psychology there is an element of where if you tell someone a certain thing

their mindset is going to make that thing absolutely come true. And then they will perform to the degree of their self-perceived expectations. So if you tell them, okay, at this time of the month, you suck. At this time of the month, you suck. Then they're definitely going to suck. Yeah, I know. Yeah, 100%. And you kind of, you know, you shoot yourself in your foot that way because in the attempt at appearing intelligent and scientific, you actually totally forgot the art of coaching and screwed your client over.

Agreed. Yeah. So like the only thing I'll kind of do is I know all of that information in my head and I'll be able to control that on my end, but I'm not going to put that on them. Communicate it. Agreed. Exactly. But one thing that I will communicate to them, because lots of times, and males have this problem too, but females certainly have a problem with the scale, stepping on the scale and either having a positive or a negative emotion with it.

One of the biggest problems with that is the water retention fluctuations due to hormonal changes. There is enormous amount of water retention. Yeah. But the seven days prior to your first day of bleeding, so in the final week of the follicular phase, that is going to have the highest amount of water retention the whole month. So the seven days prior to your first day of bleeding. So if you weigh yourself, say during ovulation, and then you weigh yourself in the last week of your current cycle You're going to go up several pounds in pure water weight due to water retention And yes increasing potassium during this time can help

Increase diuresis and reduce water weight So if you have a a female who has to cut weight and her weigh-in is in the last week of her cycle Then increased potassium during this time would help. But what I like to do is actually monthly weigh-ins according to where they're at in the cycle. So instead of weekly weigh-ins and you see that like roller coaster of, am I even making progress? What's happening? We'll actually compare January 1st with February 1st, you know, and then, and that's that, that exact, we would just do that.

However many times that if they want to do weekly weigh-ins, that's fine, but we're going to compare it to the month before because comparing it to the weigh-in before doesn't make sense due to water fluctuation. Right. That's awesome. All right. So last question. And so like, you know know if you were to take a

female is there a way that is you know let's see on a budget because i'm working with most of the college kids with they could they do like a blood draw at their own doctors every you know every day for 28 days or at least every couple days and then to see the changes and like i would love to get them to do this and just let me see it not let them see it would be the better damn what's your what's your setup at inside tracker i feel like they have like probably the easiest way to get all that stuff done yeah for sure so yeah i've got a deal for anybody listening now with inside tracker if they want to get the labs i absolutely love you go to inside tracker.com slash Garner and use the coupon code Garner while you're there too. I get, I get asked that question all the time on Instagram and stuff. Where should I go to get labs inside

tracker.com slash Garner. You go there and then you're going to be able to get, get your labs easy peasy. And this is for Canadians too. i know canadians struggle so much getting labs um i'm canadian so i know um i figured this out for you guys too so inside tracker.com slash garner you'll be able to get all your blood work there too this is great man they can just get the labs they set the phlebotomist up for you and you won't be analyzing at all for them but they can at least see and be able to get some like consistent data. Totally hammer that. That's good. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No problem, man. That's just as an easy way. Um, basically kind of like a service where the phlebotomy is set up, you know, you're getting a good lab and then you also don't just get your results. You get a bunch

of data to go with the results to an actionable on top of that. So yeah, I wouldn't connect, wouldn't connect myself with them in any way if, um if it wasn't going to serve you guys in a big way. That's going to be huge. I can't wait to, yeah, I'm going to have all my females. I just need to know. I don't want them to know. I just need to know so I can try to plan. You know, what you want to do is perfect training, but like never let them know anything. And so that's all I want to do. Optimize training. Yeah. You and me are the same that way. I always say hard on me, easy on them. Right. That's what I want. Let me hold all the data. You just come in and perform.

Just do what I say and get the results and don't worry about it. Yeah. Hell yeah. A few minutes ago, you were talking about estrogen and everything you were saying in relation to strength and muscle mass performance seemed very positive. I feel like the general population perception of testosterone and estrogen is that they are polar opposites. Like testosterone gets you big and jacked and estrogen is like bad and it's catabolic and it's like feminizing and decreased aggression. Testosterone is increased aggression and confidence.

Like they're polar opposites, but that doesn't really seem to be the case. Can you shed some light on that and tell us the truth of the matter, how they relate to each other? Sure, yeah. So testosterone and estrogen, they are a relationship that works together

and also a relationship that's different in males and females. You can see this in mice, believe it or not. It's weird. It connected gut health and testosterone and estrogen. First of all, mice go through puberty, which is something I didn't know. That was a new thing I learned, but it makes sense. And then when the mice go through puberty, the females get more estrogen, the males get more testosterone. But if you take away their microbiome after they go through puberty, the females start more estrogen, the males get more testosterone. But if you take away their microbiome after they go through puberty, the females start making more testosterone and the men start making

more estrogen. So it's very strange when there's disruptions in microbiota. And of course, this is a mouse study, I'm not trying to mislead people, that it's very feminizing to males and very androgenizing to females. But you actually see this in human data too. Females who get PCOS, it's like the moment they get PCOS in human trials, they have an alteration in their microbiota. And females, PCOS is notorious for very high testosterone. And that comes right congruent with an alteration in microbiota. So kind of just like another cool example that came to my head there on why an understanding of system-wide physiology is important to understand endocrinology. But

estrogen by itself, it is anabolic. It is anti-catabolic. It is important for fat mobilization. It does so many positive, it's cardioprotective. It is great for bone density as well. Estrogen is actually the prime hormone for sexual drive in males. It does a lot of things. And testosterone, of course, does a lot of those great things too that a lot of people are already familiar with and stimulating muscle growth,

stimulating strength development, being muscle protective, even in a hypocaloric state. A lot of these things, they are mutually beneficial. Like, and that's kind of one weird thing that I understand people sometimes it's like, we didn't just pass a million years of evolution in order for biology to not know what it's doing. Okay. Anytime, anytime we've thought we're smarter biology, we're immediately reminded that we're not. And when people speak so confidently about stuff, that's why you guys, like, I'm always talking about research here. And I'm always talking about research because I have no confidence.

Like, the more you learn about physiology, the less confident you become. So you're like, okay, but this paper said this, this paper said this. It's like, you kind of have to use that because when you learn so much, like for a good example, so insulin was discovered in 1921, 1921. There are papers to this day, 101 years later, we're still figuring out what the heck it does. 101 years later. Do you guys know, we talked about leptin in this podcast. Do you want to know when leptin was discovered? Does anyone know? I have no idea.

1994. It was discovered in 94. Anybody you hear saying the word leptin, they don't know what they're talking about. That's stupidity though, right? Stupidity is not the lack of knowledge it's the illusion of knowledge it's exactly right yes when it is when you have something that's discovered in 94 and you're acting like your supplements figured it out i'm sorry but you're a freaking

idiot yeah so just just relax wait for more data to come out, and when in doubt, seek balance. Agreed. You guys watched a real quick tangent. But the people who go on Instagram and attack other people like Squat University or they attack Stuart McGill because of lack of studies, and then they get mad at them because the studies they quote have like the pig, you know, spinal cords or spinal columns. And I'm like, bro, you can't do that research on humans alive.

I cannot go. I can't say, hey, Anders, will you volunteer for this nice little study? We try and snap your back and see how much tension it can take. I'm going to take 300 pounds of pressure and break your spine in multiple places. Is that okay with you? Hell no, it's not. Dear God. Like, yes.

So, like, anyone who wants to hate on those dudes, like, when it comes to, like, anecdotal evidence, they have so much more than any of you out there talking shit about them. That's all I had to say. One thing, getting to the body composition piece that I feel like myself specifically have really realized or learned in the last six months, and I can't wait to get all my labs back here in the next couple of weeks or whenever we actually get to find out what changes were actually made. But I've found that I get a more honest representation of my current actual lifestyle by being significantly healthier now and getting better sleep and then feeling like things are much more balanced in my physiology, my health, whatever you want to call it, that balance allows me to have real feedback from the lifestyle.

And what I mean by that is I've had for the last four weeks an insane amount of stress from family to being out of town and a lot of, you could call it just like lifestyle things. There's just been sick people and stuff in my family that's been additionally stressful on top of normal life. And yeah, that stuff. There's just been many extra things. And what I've noticed is that my body handles these things much better and that I normally would, when I'm out of town and I eat poorly, my body is like loaded with inflammation. I can see the scale going out of control. And it's just because like

the food quality sucks, the not getting all the vegetables. Even if I am eating vegetables, it's like soaked in canola oil or I'm at a restaurant, like things just aren't ideal. What I've noticed over the past four or five weeks is like my my weight has actually been really stable i feel like my body composition has remained pretty stable is it is it the best no i don't feel as great as i could because i know that stress is off foods off like there's a lot of pieces that aren't um aren't great right now um and they haven't been for the last four or five weeks. But when I hop on the scale, it's like, yeah, it's 188 every day, which is like a pound more than my normal, stable, like body weight. And normally, I feel like the scale would jump five, seven, eight pounds in a direction that makes you feel like crap every time you stand on

it. And it's, I feel like it's a testament to the resilience that I've gotten through the program and how hormonally I don't know exactly what it is, which is why I want to kind of understand how does actually being balanced really lead people to being able to have a stable body weight or a stable health or to be able to be more resilient in their physiology so that they don't, when things do go crazy, their body doesn't overreact, start holding inflammation. Because I talk to people all the time. It's like, well, I feel like I'm really healthy. And then all of a sudden I'll just gain nine pounds.

And you're like, well, there's something very wrong inside because if things are healthy, you should have a resilience built into your body that doesn't force you to go off the deep end and have these crazy fluctuations. Yeah, for sure. So the whole crux of how we operate in the rapid health optimization program is to improve one's adaptive reserve. So what we're essentially doing, and I've discussed it in the past, is we're utilizing the theory of constraint in order to remove

any type of obstacles in your physiology that are holding you back. So basically, you will perform to the degree that you are constrained. If you have a constraint with the gut health, if you have a constraint with your hormone system, you have a constraint with your immune system, you will only perform to the degree that you are constrained. So what we like to do is do all of your lab testing, look at over a thousand different biomarkers, identify the constraints and remove the constraints because they are currently holding back your adaptive potential.

Now, I view that adaptive potential through all incoming stressors. Training is a stressor, sure, and that's the language most of our audience is familiar with, 100%. Physical stress will create an adaptive response. But our ability to adapt to psychological stressors, emotional stressors, environmental stressors, these will all be better controlled through more balance because balance drives a larger adaptive reserve. And a kind of an easy way to think about this, given the theme of this podcast, is through balance, you will have much more hormonal balance. We all know how much hormones impact mood and irritability. So if we had poor balance, therefore poor hormonal imbalance, we are going to have a lot higher irritability in patients,

mood disturbances, which leading into Andrew's explanation there, your ability to react and respond to stress is on a completely different level, simply because your hormones are on a completely different level. When you have the physiology to tolerate stressors, you are able to respond to those stressors rather than react to those stressors. I like that. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. It's been really interesting because I feel like the first five months I had everything really dialed in.

The nutrition may not have been 100% to plan, but as far as the macros, making sure supplements and everything is dialed in. And then the last month has just been, I'm actually like kind of scared to do all my labs because I don't want this last month of chaos to totally throw things for a loop. But my body's held up extremely well. My energy's been great um and i really believe that that on like the learning side of it has been one of the biggest things of like just finding a uh what healthy feels like and then understanding that health can be a very resilient thing that your body can withstand long gaps of um imperfection when it comes to nutrition and stress and sleep and all those pieces. But you have to go in and get there and do the work first.

Totally. And it's grown in, man. That's just what we have. We're going to have like, we're going to have seasons in our lives where things are going to be a little bit tougher. So yeah. Yeah. You just got to prepare for that by being, make yourself resilient. Yeah. Dan, you're the only person on this program or on the show that we have not told people kind of like how people can actually go learn this.

Not only can, you know, regular human beings come and join rabbit health optimization and be a part of this program. But coaches, people that I want all coaches to know that if you go and learn these skills, you will separate yourself from the pack. Like there's so many fat loss coaches in the world,

but very few people that actually understand health. But those are what all of your courses are built on. Like, can you tell people where they're at, what they can get when they're, when they're in those courses, you've made it like literally an entire, like four or five months on the show and not promoted a single product yeah

because i would have i would have gotten them yeah i didn't even know yeah well i appreciate it dudes i like to uh prove myself the old-fashioned way so if uh if over the past few months people have um agreed with my approach to um you know maximizing performance and maximizing health then yeah i already have courses on this stuff so you can check it out over at coach agreed with my approach to, you know, maximizing performance and maximizing health. And yeah, I already have courses on this stuff. So you can check it out over at coachgarner.com. I have the ultimate training mentorship, the ultimate nutrition mentorship and the physique transformation course. So those are all full courses that you can check out at coachgarner.com. And the idea is very, is very kind of like how these podcasts are laid out. And it's almost like

everybody knows the old adage of, if you, you know, if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. With those courses, I set it up like, if you give a coach a protocol, he'll coach for a day. But if you teach a coach how to make a protocol, he'll coach for a lifetime. And that's like how this type of podcast is like, I show you guys all of the stuff behind it, so that you know how to think so that no matter who comes your way, you're going to be able to help them, because you're not going to fit them into a slot template, but you're going to know exactly what you need to do for the physiology that's been presented in front of you. So that's how the courses are all designed.

They, they teach you how to coach for a lifetime. Yeah. And this really is like, uh, all the coaches that we have are going through it. Um, cause not only do we want to be able to coach,

uh, the clients on just kind of like hitting their goals specifically, like we have a really good idea of understanding, uh, strength training side of things. Um, but now that we're, we're running labs

and you're interpreting them and all of our coaches need to be up to date on your methodology and all that. But I really want coaches to know one of the biggest things that has come out of for our business and really our methodology at this point is separating yourself from the masses and you have to continue to keep learning additional skills.

And once you think you've mastered macros, well, there's, you're like just getting started in this thing and, and you have to go to develop the next skill. And I really believe that dance courses are, are a way that you can, you can really separate yourself from all of the other trainers that are teaching fat loss, body transformation and pieces like that. So that, that go do them. All of our coaches do them. And I really believe that you should as well. So Travis Mash, where can people find you? Well, right now, you can literally find me on coach garner i am at the website currently i am all right masterly.com or you can go to instagram

masterly performance beautiful dan garner um courses over at coach garner.com and instagram at dan garner nutrition there it is doug larson. By the way, I can vouch for that. Having gone through many nutrition courses and graduate level micronutrient courses, et cetera, Dan's ultimate nutrition mentorship especially is very comprehensive, high quality information. There's all the stuff that you kind of quote unquote have to deal with all the time with understanding

to sleep more and to get carbs fats and proteins like the basics it's all in there but then also like the the higher level deep more detailed stuff with micronutrients and hormones and all stuff we talked about today it's all in there as well so um a very nice course i highly recommend that you go check that out like andrew said it's one of the first things we have all of our coaches do when they they come to work with us they go through the nutrition mentorship and training training mentorship as a part of just being on the team. So Dan, well done making those courses. I really enjoyed going through it when I went through it. I appreciate it, man. Thank you so much. You bet. You can find me on Instagram at Douglas E. Larson on Instagram.

And I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner and we are Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged. If you would like to see what it actually looks like when Dan reads your labs, make sure you head over to rapid health report.com. You'll be able to schedule a call with me where we can talk about optimizing your health, anything body composition related, and really just turning you into a total bad-ass rapid health report.com friends. We'll see you guys next week.