Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 548 - Don't Be Stupid - Get Your Blood Work Done!!!

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Today we are talking about the importance of getting your blood work done, even if nothing feels off. If you have a snap shot of what today looks like under the hood, you can then look back and see how you can optimize yourself to perform or simply live better. Today's episode is sponsored by Marek Health! Visit: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject and use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! This is the most comprehensive panel that covers everything you need and comes with a 1:1 consult with a doctor and a full written report on your labs. Do not over look this opportunity! Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use code "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

I'm not crying. You're crying. Allergies. I'm not crying because of the pain. I'm crying because of the emotion. And we're live. Oh, my God. And we're back.

All right. Let's try this again. I'm excited because today's episode is sponsored by Merrick Health. There we go. Did I get that right? This time. I think you got it right this time. There we go.

That's how excited you are, though. Jesus. Well, it's a pain in the ass, you know, getting your, not just getting your blood work done, but having someone kind of translate it for you. So I'm excited that we're teaming up with Merrick Health because they're going to be able to help a lot of the listeners of this show. I know people want to be jacked. They want to be tanned.

They want to be in better shape. They want to be stronger. And a lot of times you're going to find a lot of answers with your blood work. So if you're somebody that's been considering, you know, getting on hormone replacement therapy, or you're somebody that just wants looking to just increase your athletic performance, or you just maybe like last couple of weeks or months, you haven't been feeling great. It could be because your vitamin D levels are low, or it could be for a bunch of various reasons that getting this particular blood work will uncover. So check out Merrick Health. It's going to help a lot. Absolutely. It's at merrickhealth.com slash power project. You guys

will see the power project panel. This is a panel of, I think over 26 different labs. Um, this is stuff that they customize together with our input. We got the panel and we're like, ah, we kind of want to move some things around. And, um, you know, again, it was a long process. It took a lot longer than we expected, but we wanted to get it right. And we wanted to get it right for you guys at an awesome price. Uh, again, meralth.com slash PowerProject. You'll see the PowerProject bundle. It's male or female. And load that up into your cart and at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save $101.

Again, this is an amazing panel, an amazing deal. You're not going to find a more comprehensive panel at a better price anywhere. It doesn't matter where you go. But yeah, anyways, MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. Yeah, and they're not just testing your blood and kicking you out. They're going to explain to you what everything means. They're going to go over it with you and come up with the best plan to fix whatever might be off or low in your system. And the cool thing is, and this is why we're talking about this right now, it's like,

there's a lot of things that can be adjusted with your diet and your lifestyle like you don't have like hrt is cool but it doesn't need to be your first resort examples like when i was um bad idea to have it your first resort yeah you're not sleeping well and you're gonna jump right on that like easy fix is go to sleep i think the biggest the biggest culprit i can think was back in 2015 when i was prepping um my fats were really low and although i was i was pretty lean like i was like i was at single digit body fats for a while but even when i was at like nine percent and right now i'm at like eight percent right but at the time when i was nine percent eight percent seven percent i didn't have a libido like Like my sex drive was loathesbly dampened. Let me just be real here.

My dick wouldn't work in the times when it needed to. And I've never gone through that. Yeah, I've never dealt with that in my entire life, right? My libido was tanked. And even post-prep, my libido took a while to come back because I was on such low fats for such a long time. and even post-prep my libido took a while to come back because I was on such low fats for such a long time. And because of that, I can probably also safely assume I didn't get blood work done at the time, but my test also tanked because we know how big of an effect fats can have on your testosterone level. We've had multiple podcasts where you've had guests talk about that. And if

I just maybe dieted on higher fats, even though I looked healthy, everything would have also been right underneath the hood. And I think that's why blood work is so important, even though I looked healthy, everything would have also been right underneath the hood. And I think that's why blood work is so important because even though you might look the part, there might be some stuff going on underneath that you don't even realize until it's too late. Remember Vigorous Steve? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He had a lot of great information for us.

I think, you know, we're training, we're doing all these things and we're taking supplements and we really don't know. It's just a shot in the dark. We're doing all these things and we're taking supplements and we really don't know. It's just a shot in the dark. And so to get some blood work done, to kind of look under the hood and see what's going on, it gives you a lot better idea and perspective on what you should be doing next. There's been times in my life where I've just been like flat out overtrained. And I would go and get my blood work done and my liver panels would be crazy. And my C-reactive protein, which is a marker of your cardiovascular health, like that would be just whacked out.

And so I was like, oh, shit, well, let me figure out how to get that better. And then in talking to Stan Efferding, because at the time I didn't have a company like Merrick Health to help me in communicating with someone like Stan. Stan's like, well, just relax a little bit. It's probably just because you like to train. It's like, you know, get the, get the test again. And, uh, you know, don't make sure you don't work out like an animal the same day you get your blood work done or, uh, you know, maybe even the day before don't train. And then I would get it checked and then it was better. But like, what an awesome thing to like know that you can control these variables by sleeping better, by maybe paying attention a little bit more

to how you're training and not overdoing it, staying hydrated, all these various things. And I've been very fortunate to be able to get some of the blood work done, discover some of these things, see that my cholesterol's messed up or triglycerides or whatever it might be and start to take action and to, you know, get help and to have somebody kind of guide me through because I don't know how to, you know, I know a lot about nutrition. I know a lot about supplementation, but I don't know how to reverse some of these different diseases or to change my blood work, you know, move my blood work in a different direction. And so it's important that you got someone kind of guiding you through it.

Yeah. We don't all have a stand after digging our back pocket. No. Yeah. And then just because somebody had asked, I want to clarify and I keep forgetting. It's, you know, MerrickHealth.com. So M-A-R-E-K-Health.com slash PowerProject. But one of the things that I love about being able to get our blood work done right now is, all right, you can look around and be like, okay, amongst a group of people, like who's going to be the healthiest?

You know, in most cases, like in our circles, like it's going to be us. But if somebody were to ask like, oh, but like, you know, are you really healthy though? Like, where's your cholesterol? I get that all the time. Exactly. Like, are you sure you should be eating all that protein? You know, like those questions and Simo's rolling his eyes because we hear that a lot. And it's like, oh, you should have protein, but not that much.

Red meat though. Not even just protein. Don't have red meat. My dog. Oh, I have a story. Okay. So now because we got our labs done and you know, in my case,

my dad has high cholesterol according to the doctors. And so now I have to write that in my history form. My health history is like high cholesterol runs in my family. I got my labs done and holy shit, my cholesterol is in great shape right now. And I eat, I eat a lot of protein, eat a lot of red meat and it's like now i can point to this and be like yeah fam like i this is what i do and then here's the results i'm not gonna flip anybody off

but here's proof that like hey according to what i feel to be true it this is my truth that this is the healthy. This is the healthiest I've ever been. But also because of if you want to rely on the science or you want like papers to prove that I am healthy, like, here you go. No, you know, that's that's the case. So the funny thing is that I went to my doctor because I was getting the checkup on my foot again um and uh they they want the records of my blood work so i brought those so that they could have that right and when we had our first conversation when i first met him you know we're he was talking about my diet and he's

like you know just going over general health things i was like i i told him i eat a lot of red meat he's like oh you probably don't want to be eating that much red meat it's probably not that good for you you know you got to be careful about your cholesterol plus you're you're a big guy he assumed i was taking drugs and some shit which i'm not but he's like you want to be careful with all the stuff right anyway i was like i brought my blood work like that your doctor's like bro doing a net you're not i'm sorry when i was when i was 18 years old my doctor back then his name's i i loved the guy too but he was like he's like so when sema you're pretty heavy um just want to make sure everything good, man.

Like, yeah, everything's good. He's like, uh, you taking anything I should be aware of? I'm like, what do you mean? Doctor's like, well, if you are on anything, you know, you can let me know. Right. I was like, no, doc, I'm not on anything. Are you sure? He's like, are you sure?

That's so cool. Anyway, I mean, it sucks for him, but to the present, this new doctor, I brought my blood work in and he took him, he took a look at my cholesterol numbers, by the way, which are all great. Everything is great. Everything is healthy. I eat a lot of red meat, a lot of eggs. He was like, he almost had a heart attack because he didn't understand how everything

could be so good with the way that I was eating, which I eat steak every day. I eat eggs almost every day i eat very high fats right um but it was very also it felt very good for me to understand that like i am in a place where i look good but also because of a lot of the stuff that we talked about on this podcast and the way we eat everything under the hood is moving the way it should when my journey first started when i first started to look at blood work, which was a couple of years back now, my blood work was a complete mess.

I even had, I even had high blood pressure and all kinds of things going on. My triglycerides were high. My bad cholesterol was high. My good cholesterol was really low. We've had people on the show talk a lot about cholesterol and how cholesterol is not just – it's not the only marker, not the only indicator of your heart health. However, it makes sense to kind of keep an eye on it, especially if you have preexisting conditions and so forth. But I didn't really know like that I would

be able to make such drastic changes. I knew that losing some weight would help. I knew that, you know, eating better than the way that I was eating when I was powerlifting would help quite a bit, but I really didn't know. And then on top of that, for me being a person using performance enhancing drugs for many, many years, I think you have a tendency to under sell like, you know, what these drugs can do and how dangerous they can actually be. oh shit, okay, I'm in some trouble. You kind of lie to yourself. You're like, I'll get my diet straightened out and I'll do this better on A, B, and C, but I'm still going to take the same shit or I'll just take a little bit less.

Then you go back and get your blood work checked again and it's like it improved, but it didn't improve nearly as much. And then you can kind of figure out for yourself. It's up to each person, like how much and how long do you want to roll the dice for? It's kind of, it's kind of up to you. For me, I was like, you know, I need to make a change. I need to make a change. I need to make a change. Every time I got my blood work done, I was like,

I could do better. I could do better. I could do better. And so it is kind of led me to where I am now, which is just a hormone replacement therapy dosage. And when I get my blood work back, the cholesterol, the triglycerides, even like my blood pressure is, even sometimes my blood pressure is kind of low. And they're like, this is like, this is different than where I was a few years back. So there's been a lot of great changes in that. I would also mention, though, I don't want to oversell this to people. I don't want to say, hey, I feel way better and stuff. I've always felt really good, and I continue to feel really good. But I do think, I personally think that I avoided some pretty bad disaster

because not only was my lipid profile all fucked up and my blood pressure was high, but my fasted glucose and things like that were fairly high. So like almost pre-diabetic. So it's like that is a really bad spot to be in. From all the information that we learn on this show about heart health and stuff, it's like that,

that is a, that is a great recipe to die young. That's a great recipe to have some sort of heart issue. So I'm, I'm happy that I learned all this stuff I learned years ago. And I grateful that I have someone like Stan Efferding in my back pocket. But as you guys mentioned, not everybody has access to that,

but now, now you do, you know, with the company that we teamed up with, we're very, very confident these these people are going to give you guys the help that you need. I've already been through the process with them. I've gotten blood work from them. They have read my blood work. They translated it all for me. They told me what the plan is coming up next. I received pharmaceuticals from them. I utilized them. That seems to be working well. And even from that point, I got subsequent blood work done. And things seem to all be heading in the right direction. Yeah.

When you mentioned you were able to kind of avoid some serious issues, to this day, I mean, Sarmageddon was over two years ago now, and I still get flooded in my DMs from questions about that series. And I always talk about like, yeah, get your blood work done, get your blood work done. Now it's cool that I have like, here, get your blood work done here. You know, they'll take care of you. But one of the things, and I love Tony huge, no disrespect to him or not bashing him, but had I followed what he told me to do, I might have messed myself up pretty bad.

So let's see, I did Osterine for, I think it was 14 weeks, which was just too long. Like the normal standard, I think is like 12 weeks, which was just too long. Like the normal standard, I think is like 12 weeks. So I went a couple extra weeks and I was supposed to ride that right into a more potent SARM, like right after, but I got my blood work done. Thank goodness. And I checked some of the numbers and I don't know too much at that time. I was kind of like studying a lot of stuff with blood work. So I could see like right out the gate like that does not look good you know that looks pretty bad and I had Mike Mutzel kind of interpret it for me and he's just like yeah it's not good he's like you're fine

he's like but he's like you know you need to work on some things now but because I got my labs done I was able to like make the smart conscious decision to be like, I need to stop taking these supplements or what PDs, whatever you want to call them, because my labs look pretty upside down right now. Um, I talked about it with vigorous Steve, but I can't remember all the ins and outs of what happened, but my good cholesterol was terrible. My bad cholesterol was way high. Um, triglycerides, testosterone was plummeted. You know, a lot of things changed. And I would not have known because I felt fine in that moment. I felt good.

I mean, I was on a performance-enhancing drug. Like, I was stronger. I was feeling awesome. And then I looked at the labs and I'm like, ooh, like, damn, maybe I shouldn't be, you know, shouldn't be taking this stuff anymore. So, I think because of that, I was able to kind of avoid some of the things like Mark just said, you know, I was able to kind of skate by and be okay. And, you know, the thing is, is like for a lot of people, I'm not trying, there's no, not trying to scare people. But, you know, sometimes it is easier, like no matter if you're doing a nutritional protocol and you're feeling all right, or if you're on something, sometimes it is easier to just not look under the hood because you just don't want to see, you don't want to, you don't want to see what's going on. Sometimes some people don't even want to.

Um, but the thing is, it's like, especially I imagine if you are using, like if you're using stuff, they're not chemicals. If you're using drugs, this is chemistry going on. When I hear people talk about some stuff, I'm just like, how can you just say do this, do this, do this? There are all these interactions. Something's going up, something's coming down. Something else is going up. It's not that simple. So if you're choosing to do that, you better be sure that everything's going to be.

I know a guy, I'm not going to say his name, but I know a guy that was, he did some stuff. But after he came off for two years, he said he didn't have a sex drive for two years. Ouch. Right? That's a long ass time. That's a long time.

And then it slowly came back but it took a while and those aren't the, now he's back to normal but those aren't the things that you want to have to deal with. You know what I mean?

You don't want to have to. You're just thinking I want my arms to be a little bit bigger. You know, you think I want my arms and shoulders to be a little bit bigger.

Yeah. You're not thinking of the repercussions bigger you know you think i want my arms and shoulders to be a little bit bigger yeah you're not thinking of the uh of the of the repercussions you know and there's there's ways of doing these things safely to where you don't have to end up with uh you know end up with a situation like that but you can also like i think a great place to start for most people is just to get your blood work checked and then to kind of go from there. Like if you're trying to make really, really, uh, trying to really, really make big changes with your physique, I think a great place to start is with getting some blood work done and take a look and see maybe, cause maybe you've tried before. Maybe you have messed around with different diets and messed around with different protocols.

Um, but you're just struggling. You're having a hard time. lots of different protocols, but you're just struggling. You're having a hard time. Another great place to start for, you know, people that are a little older, people that are in their 40s and people that are in their 50s is same thing. Like if you just don't feel the same way you did when you're young, there's remedies for that. There's situations where you can like just get your blood work done. You can look into it. You can make whatever decision you want from there, whether you want to try to do it naturally with vitamins and minerals and getting better sleep and having a better nutrition plan. Or you can go a pharmaceutical route where you utilize some hormones to boost you up.

The word I was looking for was pharmaceuticals. Yeah. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology. Pharmacology of it all. But I mean, that's one thing I want to mention, guys. Some of these things could be as simple if you're not feeling the best. It could be as simple as you're not intaking enough fat and you're not getting enough sleep.

Because the reason why my libido went away for such a period of time was because I was eating 30 to 35 grams of fat for weeks. Right? And again, your body's like, you're going to die. Let's not focus on reproduction. Let's like, uh, it's conserve energy, conserve energy. Like every, like I was feeling like crap. And even when I came back to normal and I'll start eating more fat, it took me a while to get that back. Nowadays, since I am high fat and I'm just as lean, I don't feel bad anymore because my fat's where it should be, my sleep's where it should be, everything's good. I think, Andrew, you, I think every time when you're like,

I don't have good energy, you can usually get back. You just tell me, tell me. Well, yeah, I mean, so again, being somebody who's stillienced with everything, not, I mean, I'm coming around, right? I'm getting some experience. But I would talk to Nsema about my diet and be like, dude, I'm hitting my macros. Like, I don't know what's going on. Like, I'm not feeling too good. Or, I'm sorry, hitting my calories, you know, limit.

And then he'd ask me about my fat intake. And I'd be like uh it's pretty low right now and then like how low and then i wouldn't track and then i would track and i'd find out i'm having like 25 grams of fat for like probably like like two weeks straight ouch and then i would come to nc would be like bro dude like i'm just man i hit a wall or something i'm maybe i'm training too much or like i'm not getting good sleep. I don't know what's going on. And then again, how much fat are you eating? I'm like, oh, that's right. And it's just funny. It's just one of those things where it's like I know the answer, but because it's I just need somebody to tell me. But no, I absolutely feel it when I don't have enough fat.

And because of the foods that I like to eat, my dumb ass will under eat fat often you know we we like piedmontese and flat iron steak and bovette steaks are my absolute favorite and they don't have that much fat but they have a lot of protein and i do get very full so i'm satiated but again under ribeyes i know i need to i need to get some of those ribeyes oh tomahawk but like yeah because of that i would hit that wall pretty hard and then it seems just points it out every time like well where's your fat and i'm like dude leave me alone yeah yeah so yeah getting the right amount of fat or getting not eating enough fat really messes me up has there been anything uh anything alarming from either one of you guys with your blood work? Or just

that you were like, oh, I think I can maybe work on bringing that up more or I'm going to make this change and see if this would help with whatever thing showed up in your blood? I was surprised since we had the dentist, vitamin D. Yeah, Joel. Yeah. Dr. Gold. Dr. Gold.

There you go. He heard how much vitamin D I was taking and was like, dude, you're taking way too much. You need to cut back. You know, he basically told me to get off of it completely for like two weeks, get back on to only like 10,000 IUs per day. I went off completely. I did the 10,000 for like a couple days and I just, just one of those things, you know, you don't really feel the difference.

So you don't take it. So I haven't been taking it at all. And in my labs, it showed that my vitamin D was actually still very high. So this isn't like what you had asked, but it's just something that really caught my attention. I was just like, whoa, wait a second. I expected that to be very low.

So that surprised me that my vitamin D level was still very high. I don't know about you and Seema. Do you get some decent sun? I mean, I try to. I don't think I do, though. I feel like- You get like 20 minutes a day,? 10 minutes a day? Yeah. I mean I'll go for a walk here at work and then try to get another walk

before we go to sleep. But I haven't been going out of my way to get extra sun. Right. And I feel like if you were to ask me before I got my labs in I'd be like oh I'm going to be deficient in vitamin D because I'm not taking enough or I'm not taking any and I'm not getting enough throughout the day. Consume dairy? All the time. Well, there you go. See, that's shit I didn't even think about.

Yeah. Greek yogurt. Yeah. I don't know if there's like almond milk. Yeah. I don't know if there's like profound uh amounts of uh vitamin d like left intact and dairy but from my understanding is that there's some in there and then um i think there's like uh i think you know you eat a variety of food so i just think for most people that eat like a

variety of of healthy foods a variety of whole foods there's not a ton to worry about when it comes to uh kind of their vitamins and stuff. Yeah. But that's another thing, you know, it's like we talk about the importance of vitamin D and I, you know, walk the walk and I felt almost like, like, oh, dude, I'm not taking care of myself. I'm not getting enough vitamin D. Or, you know, the other side of it could have been like I could have been taking something

and gone to the extreme and, you know, kind of been wasting money at that point. They can even tell like in your sleep. They can even kind of they'll have an idea whether you have sleep apnea and all kinds of things because you'll see a red blood cell count be higher. So they I mean, thanks for bringing that up. That's actually my number one thing right there. Well, there you go. Yeah. Is the my hematocrit.

It was high before I took anything and it's was really high when I started taking stuff. Right. So, um, that could be due to like sleep apnea, of course. Right. You know, so that it's funny because, um, you know, it's kind of like what cyclists try to do. They try to get their the hermetic rate high so they can do more but i'm like fuck where's it at like it's not kicking

in for me like get me on a rower the assault bike and i'm like crashing within five seconds it's tough so i'm curious like uh what what epo actually does you know because i mean if that's the goal it's like well dude I should be Lance Armstrong right now yeah you're like mine time one ball and all one ball yeah but so a few things that I was surprised with nothing was nothing was crazy out I was expecting my testosterone to be higher but my total testosterone ended up being 650

639 and then my free testosterone ended up being six 50, no six, six 39. And then my free testosterone was 16.5 nanograms per deciliter. And the optimum range was 20 to 25 nanograms per deciliter. Now, by the way, like apparently your levels are higher in the morning and they go down during the day.

I'm pretty sure I got my blood drawn around like 1 PM. By the way, anybody that wants to take this clip, please do so and make a nat or not video on him you won't but literally everything like everything was good he did suggest that i supplement boron um because of my shbg so like he mentioned that they're like borons and raisins and dates but then i can also take a boron supplement and one thing that we laughed about was the prolactin. Yes.

Okay. My prolactin, the optimum range is apparently less than 10 nanograms per milliliter. And I was far above range. Apparently at the time I was at 20.4. Right. And he said that there are a few things that may cause like high prolactin. And one of those things was obviously smoking a bit, right? So I do smoke a bit.

Not a crazy amount of smoke a bit. But then he was like, they didn't know. But they're like, are you aware of something called kratom? And both Andrew and I started laughing because we were like, yeah, we love kratom. Anyway, there's nothing dangerous about having high prolactin, especially if I wasn't like excessively high. But he was like, it might just be something just to understand but i even asked so do you think i should what should i smoke less take less creative he's like no not really um if you find that it's not affecting you at all and you're fine it will have no negative effects but this is just

the gen the levels that we see people at loves where you're currently at so that was really it everything else that was good i should Everything else, though, was good. I should be mentioning, too, there's other things that you can take that aren't even in the steroid realm. There's many, many compounds that you can be. So, again, an advantage, this is a half an hour plug of Merrick Health, I guess, right? plug of Merrick Health, I guess, right? But another advantage of being teamed up with people like this is that if you had prolactin levels that were causing you some sort of issue, sometimes gynecomastia can come from that. I do think that sometimes there can be sexual issues with having high prolactin levels. But there's things that can be prescribed to you that can assist with even just

that. Maybe you don't really care to be on like testosterone. Maybe you don't care to get like, you know, big and jacked, but maybe you just want some of your levels of some other things to be optimized and you want things to just be heading in the right direction. I mean, they can prescribe all kinds of stuff. I know that we kind of are mainly talking about TRT, hormone replacement therapy, trying to keep those levels optimal. But if you need the statin, if you needed, it's my understanding that they can prescribe just about anything

that's needed in accordance to how your blood work turns out. They're not going to prescribe you stuff that you don't need. They're not going to give suggestions and say, hey, let's just start taking all these different pharmaceuticals and see what happens. They're doing it based off of what is actually going on in your blood. And like you pointed out, like Andrew pointed out, you can't really hide. You can try to not tell the doctor. You can give them as little information as you want. But when they see your blood, they're going gonna be able to tell a lot about you and i think one thing that you

mentioned that's so key right there is this like you might get go get blood work done somewhere and if you don't have somebody to actually analyze it the right way there might be something that you see like oh like there might be some doom and gloom especially if somebody doesn't understand contextually what you are so like certain levels um on my on my thing like if they were somewhere they could tell okay so you you are an athlete you do a lot of work maybe that's why this this this isn't as high but maybe on weeks that you're you know you're feeling good or whatever this might be high they could they could contextualize everything based off of i'm an i'm an athlete that does a lot of work so maybe this is where it is or i take kratom right and i smoke every now and then so they could say so that's not something to worry about um but in

other situations like there was a cancer screening on there and i'm good right but these are things that you don't want to find out later by accident i think a an interesting and like an interesting thing is you heard of what happened mark lobeliner recently um he had like a uh it was benign tumor tumor but they had to like cut it out and remove it right and like a freckle that he got like looked at more or something like that right and it turned out it was cancerous cancerous yeah so you had to get that shit removed the only reason i'm mentioning that is because like if he didn didn't see that, that may have turned into something else. And when I saw, I didn't even realize that this had a cancer screening until I got my results.

When I saw that, I'm like, number one, I'm happy. I'm good. But number two, this is something important that it could literally save a lot of people's lives. Cause some, like they've had situations. They said that they've, they've had to have that talk with somebody like hey this is here let's not be too alarmed this is how we're going to deal with it and you want to know that you don't want to find that surprisingly one day and it's too far gone so interesting the internet just died out of nowhere so anyways but um one

thing also about like again kind of going back to sarm again but like it's it's hard to tell somebody like hey if everything's going well right now get your blood work and then if you're gonna hop on something get your blood work you know to tell somebody like you're gonna have to keep doing this over and over and over and over now it's a lot more affordable but what i was gonna say is like in sema like you're you are totally healthy right now and you still got pretty excited to get your blood work done um so i don't know how you guys feel about this but like when my son turns 18 i kind of want to get his blood work done like i don't know if that's a weird like if i don't want like you know cps

coming down on me or something. You know, like, you took how many vials of blood out of him? But, I don't know. What do you guys think? No, I think it'd be great for people to get their blood work done kind of regularly. You know, we mentioned this before on the show where, you know, you go to the dentist, you know, twice a year. It's pretty common for most people. At least here in the United States, people that

have the healthcare that they need. But for some reason, when it comes to the doctor, you never see the doctor. You never, like, I don't even know, like, for example, with me, I barely even know who my primary doctor is. I currently don't have one. Yeah. And it's just, it doesn't really make any sense. But, you know, I'm investigating my health, at least on my own. And at least I'm, you know, have, um, I'm looking at my blood and I'm looking at some of these things, but most people are just going, uh, through day by day, just kind of sweeping their health underneath the rug. Oh, I'll get to training some other time.

I'll get to, oh, I'll make my diet, you know, better, you know, next week or next month or next year, who knows how long, uh, they, uh, I'll make my diet, you know, better, you know, next week or next month or next year, who knows how long they prolong it for. But, you know, it's something that will catch up to you over a period of time. And I think getting your blood work done is a great place for people to start. And you mentioning, you know, getting it done for your son, it's like, that's actually really cool because when he's like 30 or 40, you know, or however old he is, when he figures out that he wants to maybe do it again,

he could have record of what it was like when he was young. Yeah. None of us have that. No. I wish. I mean, you're fairly young, but, you know, most people are like, oh, I, you know, I wish, I wish I felt the way I did when I was in my twenties. Well, imagine having that record of, but, you know, people are like, oh, I, you know, I wish, I wish I felt the way I did when I was in my twenties.

Well, imagine having that record of, oh, that was kind of like the reason why I felt that way is right here on this paper. Yeah. So that's a good, a great thing to do. And you know exactly what you need to change. This is like, this is actually very big because again, when you change dietary protocols, that could very well change how you feel. When you change dietary protocols, that could very well change how you feel.

And then if you can understand what change you made, you can be like, oh, so I chose to remove red meat out of my diet, got my blood work done. I'm actually deficient in this. Maybe I should bring a little bit of that back in, or maybe I should supplement something so I could feel that way because now I don't feel as good. Right. You can actually pinpoint what it is because a lot of people kind of just, I wouldn't necessarily call the game Russian roulette, but they kind of just, yeah, darts. They played darts with what's going on with them.

Like, oh, let me increase my vitamin D. OK, I don't feel different. Let me maybe start taking some iron supplements. I don't feel different. You don't know. Right. But with this, like you, they give you ideas of what you can add in nutritionally first supplementation next. And then if you want to get into pharmaceuticals that's the third thing but that's the thing they're like nutritionally

add this into your diet you should be good to go with this or take this out of your diet you should be good to go with this that makes things so easy yeah and when you say pharmaceuticals you don't necessarily mean hopping hopping on a needle or something like they they give you like over the counter type medicines or whatever you want to call them yeah um i guess so my question to you guys again going back to the fat i i like going low fat because i feel like i can get more volume of food i get hold on stay there that's how i feel that's how i feel the change of the camera oh i mean how can you it's tough because when you see the caloric uh i guess the number right next to a gram of fat you know being nine versus four on a carb i mean i i track calories. I understand protein is going to come first for me.

When you account how expensive fat is on a diet, I mean, how can I stay in a deficit and still remain full? Can you get in 70 grams of fat without sacrificing your carbs? Yeah. 70. Yeah, I can get 70 70 but i mean that that's the that's a legitimate question i have for you right now can you at least get in 70 grams of fat each day while still not sacrificing your carbs too much yeah yeah i can and you're good like you don't need 100 you don't need 120 you don't need 130 130. Like for you, a man your size, if you can get in 70 grams of fat per day, I can probably

guarantee you're going to feel pretty good. Like you will always feel pretty good. You know, if you could do that, you're going to be fine. And then obviously like get in a good amount of protein, getting some red meat ideally. Yeah, absolutely. Right. protein um getting some red meat ideally yeah absolutely right in piedmontese we have cuts that are lower fat but meet that 70 minimum for yourself and then with your carbohydrates get involved voluminous carbohydrates or whatever you're gonna be fine yeah but just at least get

that minimum fat in for your size because once you start trying to only eat 50, 60, for a guy that's lifting like you, that's working out, you will suffer. You will suffer. All right. Well, I mean, because, again, my lab work didn't show anything abnormal in that department. But I just, I know the way I feel, and I should feel more energetic. I should be on top of my game. I know a lot of guys who say, like, oh, I would love to do some steroids. I would love to do some testosterone, but my wife won't let me.

And I always think that's super cute. I'm like, how the fuck did you get yourself involved in that mess? Anyway, that's another topic for another day. Like she can't be that good in bed. right i mean come on you must have gotten a better blow job somewhere at some point i mean come on let's just be honest and she would be down for steroids yeah she would take them with you she would inject them into your butt for you that's what i'm talking about anyway we got we got we got sidetracked again that's that's what happens'm talking about. Anyway. We got sidetracked again here.

That's what happens. Nah, it's fine. It's fine. Anyway, what I was going to say is, a lot of times it is a discussion that you have to, you don't want to hide shit from your spouse, male or female. You don't want to be hiding shit. You wouldn't feel great if you found out that your wife or girlfriend has been

smoking pot for 30 years and they never told you about it you just you wouldn't care probably like i wouldn't care but like you would just be like that's odd like why didn't i just would have been nice to know like why are you hiding it from me makes it more weird right so i know a lot of people have had this kind of hurdle and when you take into consideration that you have doctors and pharmacists and you're getting stuff from that's pharmaceutical grade you're not getting some shit from some bro that he made in his bathtub yeah you know you're and you're also getting it in accordance to having uh you're getting your blood work and seeing that you could make your hormones more optimal with an intervention of some pharmaceuticals or from some hormones.

So I think this would be an easier way to get your lady on board with you potentially going that route someday. Yeah, it's way better than being like, nah, babe, for sure this is the right amount. You don't understand, the guy at the gym is huge. He's gigantic. This is the same protocols in SEMA. You don't understand, guys. The gym is huge. It's gigantic. This is the same protocols in SEMA. It's going to be fine.

SEMA is going to take care of everything that I'm on. I promise he's not going to steer me wrong. He's got so much experience. I hate you. I love you, but I hate you from the bottom of my heart. Talking about the fat intake. That's all I'm talking about. That is it. Promise.

Wink, wink. Oh, God. But hey, there have been a lot of stories. 50-year-old dudes, sometimes their test is low. They get on some HRT stuff and bam, they're back. More ways than one. So sometimes your wife probably might want you to definitely

do this what do you mean what do you mean by that they're back what are you talking about BAM with the fist in the air well the Whitmers talked about it right when we had the Whitmers on the podcast he was like yeah some of these guys get on and their wife just like loves it yeah she wants them to stay on you know like yeah because

well and then you started to go a little bit too into it right yeah well it brings up another another topic of like why women should also get their levels checked and everything because like what carl lenore said he's like if you're gonna get on like hrt or something you might want to go on as a couple because you're gonna have one you know a guy that's just like, hey, let's go all day long. And then the lady might not be like, whoa, slow down. Yeah, I always thought those Viagra commercials were bullshit where they show the woman's

real happy too. I'm like, I don't know about that. I think they'd just be like, get away. They'd be running the other way every time they see you pitching a tent. That's real shit though man that's real stuff right the commercial shows i'm all happy i think there's like that one where like in there they're like a bathtub yeah what the okay what what's the deal with the bathtub like next to like a fucking lake or something i don't know this one it's just out in the middle of nowhere there's just a bathtub and two old people just kind of hanging out in there wait the best dad is when the guy is and two old people just kind of hanging out in there. Wait.

The best ad is when the guy is Santa Claus. You remember that one? Oh, no. The guy's. I wish I could pull it up. The guy's in a. The internet's down. Oh, the internet's down?

Yeah, it's fucking awesome. The guy's in a. The guy's. It's like. It's like a. I mean, I don't even know if they would run something like this nowadays. Was it a dick in a box? No, but.

It was clearly like a work party. and the guy's dress is like santa and it's like a viagra salas commercial and all the ladies are like lined up and they're super happy they're like they're like dancing they're all waiting to sit on his lap i don't remember but i saw where you're going when the ad like santa. Oh, my God. Wow. No, that commercial, they would get canceled. Viagra would get canceled nowadays for that commercial. Can we recreate that commercial for like, I don't know, Steak Shake or something? Yeah, that was great. Oh, my God.

So many things would work. You guys remember the Carl's Jr. ads back in like mid-2000s where the girls were like eating and they were making out with each other? Those are so good as i was like as a kid i love those but those wouldn't those wouldn't air now yeah it just keeps like landing all over their tips oh my god like the barbecue sauce that was good stuff i loved carl's jr because of that i still think carl's jr if talking about trash fast food from mcdonald's you know wendy's carl's jr carl's jr is the about trash fast food from mcdonald's you know wendy's carl's jr carl's

jr is the best it's probably because of those ads i don't know jack in the box better carl's better than jack in the box dude you are because i'm telling you that the ads got your labs again because i think something's wrong the ads got me those carl's junior ads work really good they were great jack in a box has funny shit though too dude you can go get a hamburger a chicken sandwich a taco a fucking egg roll and a cheese uh cheesecake if you want on top of like coffee and all kinds of other shit all right in a future episode we need to get all these foods out of the way we need to eat all these things like on air yeah our favorite cereal you know pizza like we need to eat some some of our favorite cereal but then share our favorite cereal with each other and then get a bunch of fast food and get chinese food we need to get that off the table we've been

talking about that so much not Not all in one show. We have to spread it out for multiple shows. I was telling Jesse Burdick how I used to eat back in the day. He's just like, you guys need to do something where all three of you eat the way you used to back in the day. We'd have to eat whatever Nseema's mom makes.

Whatever exotic Nigerian food you can think of we'd have to eat that and then you'd have to eat like me where you'd have like kit cats and coffee for breakfast and then we'd have to try to eat like bench bagels like mark oh yeah well we can't go to the healthy things i need to like go we need to go back to the times where we were eating the most unhealthy i feel like that's the most fun because my mom fed me for breakfast yeah that's not good i don't want i don't want to bring the healthy food my mom made i want to bring some granola bars some cereal right and um just whatever else i can remember that i was just bad you know and then we need to tell people you shouldn't do this

but we're just doing this but we're gonna do it yeah we're doing it to show you what not to do. Do as we say, not as we do. As we enjoy the fuck out of it on air. I'm down. I'm down too, actually. Let's do it right now. I think you guys would absolutely hate to try to eat the way I did back in the day. Kit Kats and what? So this is a secret, but yeah, Kit Kat and coffee. So you break off a piece of Kit Kat, drop it in your coffee so it tastes like chocolate

on top of putting the chocolate creamer inside of it with whatever the fuck else sugar I wanted. I would fall asleep so quick, bro. I think so too. Oh my God. Coco. Yeah. Yeah.

It's so good. But then because this is at a.m. P.m. So when everyone else was eating breakfast, I was like halfway through my workday already. So I would go in and get like the three hot dogs for three bucks. And that's what I would eat like kind of for breakfast hour. And then fast forward a couple hours down the road and I would get like a grilled cheese sandwich at Jack in the Box with fries, no meat.

Just eat that. Well, you have transformed. Oh, I know. You are a different human. But I'm saying like we would probably die if we ate that just for one day now you'd be fine probably take us on out of here andrew i will thank you everybody for checking out today's episode sorry to everyone that was on damn wow dude that straight rim job

sorry about the uh the live feed dying on us but uh anyway again thank you everybody for checking out today's episode um please make sure you guys hit the links down in the description below merrickhealth.com slash power project promo code power project at checkout to save a ton of money on the most comprehensive panel that you guys can get. Again, something that we customized amongst ourselves, amongst our smartest friends, and again, amongst Merrick Health themselves. Again, you guys know Derek more plates, more dates. He's vetted all these people, so you know it's legit. Again, merrickhealth.com slash power project, promo code power project for $101 off, making the whole panel $399 with a one-on-one with a doctor and a written report. I know some people that they may not be comfortable talking about some of this stuff with somebody.

It does come with a written report that you can decipher everything on your own if you choose to do so. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram at MB Power Project on TikTok and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? I am Seema Enning on Instagram and YouTube. I am Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark.

At Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.