Mark Bell's Power Project - Everything You Need To Know About Optimizing Testosterone

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

In this Podcast Supercut, Andrew Huberman, Clark Bartram, Mike O'Hearn, Nathan French, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about testosterone, how to optimize it, and if you should go on TRT or not.    Check out the original episodes:   https://youtu.be/OG-MYGVDuHY   https://youtu.be/xyCKKeNcmVo   https://youtu.be/2RA17t3XckM   https://youtu.be/jynTBo3nHoA   https://youtu.be/6FV-XsKgozc   Everything You Need To Know About Optimizing Testosterone   0:00 Trailer 0:48 Mike’s Myth About Testosterone 4:22 What Does Testosterone Do? 8:23 What Foods Cause Low Testosterone? 10:52 Benefits of Sunlight 12:22 Training Boosts Testosterone 15:32 Can Pr0n Affect Testosterone? 25:18 Food And Supplements To Boost Testosterone 34:02 How Low Testosterone Affects Mental Health 38:00 Are Too Many Men Going On TRT? 42:47 Why Nathan Decided To Go On TRT And How He Monitors It   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements!   ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off!   ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order!   ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en    Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Subcaloric low-fat diet. It's a form of nutritional castration. You've actually been on testosterone your whole life, even when you're a fetus. Not everybody's even slightly the same. Mark Marcham is at over 740 and he's 60. Yeah. I know some 20-year-olds that are 200.

Too many men hear their buddy say, oh yeah, I got on this and I, 20 pounds just dropped off and I feel great. See, that's their experience. That's not going to be your experience. The two things that have made a big difference have been these two compounds. I've seen people get 400, 500 nanogram per deciliter increases. It's hard to be excited every day when the hormones in your body aren't all facing in the right direction.

Oh, yeah. These are powerful hormones that can do good and done wrong. They can do harm. There's no question about that will you tell me this what why does why does everybody say no matter what you turn 35 your testosterone goes down when you're 40 it turns down dude and so now you got people going on my page going oh i'm not going to take any advice that says the scientists and stuff. It's like, wait a minute.

Hold on for a second. Not everybody's even slightly the same. Clark Bartram is at over 740 and he's 60. I know some 20-year-olds that are 200. How do you guys, when it comes to testosterone in the health and fitness world, it's just automatic. No matter what, you drop, you get worse, that's life. Yes. There's no paper that says that.

There's a paper that says they did studies and men, average men, drop. The average American. What about the guy that's sleeping, that didn't sleep in his 20s, that's eating right now for the first time, that's doing fasting for the first time, that's maybe controlling his temper when he's dieting and fasting? There's such – so explain this to me because I'm confused when society said – when I said that to them because I wanted to call it the – I call them the tabloid YouTubers. They're not really into weightlifting, but they're in it because they talk about famous guys like you. Drama.

Drama, yeah. But society loved the excuse of saying, no matter what, you're going to get worse, so it's okay, when that's not true. Can you guys explain that to me? Why I was trying to say something to help them. Right. And they went against it. No, don't tell us that we can be good. I hate you for that. I was going to say, what did people say when you were younger?

They still just accused you of shit, right? 14, 15 years old. I'm gassed out of my mind, they said. How much did you weigh at those points, by the way? 275. 16 or? 15. 15.

I'm going to send you the football picture where I'm in the Seattle Times and I'm holding my helmet and I put up the picture by itself and they're like, dude, you're 20 years old there. You're playing college ball. Dude, I'm 15. And it even says, you know, six

something, 255 pounds, 260 during football season. So I came down from 275. Get that football speed. And it's like, I look like I just walked off stage as a bodybuilder. But I'm curious on that picture you're talking about, right? There you go. Yeah.

Yeah. That's 260 pounds. Yeah. People. That's going to be tightened a little bit bigger. People definitely. Look at me here. I'm the middle one.

Play that one right here. No, no. Go up. Go up right there. Oh, fine. That's going to be tightened. A little bit bigger. Look at me here. I'm the middle one. Play that one. No, no. Go up. Go up. Right there. Oh, that's you? Yeah, that's me. That's him.

Wild. I see. We're the rebels. I'm 15, 16 there. Oh, that's 13 down below. Yeah. Click on the one. Go to the right.

I'll do it. I guess your left. No, that'd be your right. No, no. Go all the way to the right of the screen where it shows my face. Over here? Oh, right here. Now go down there.

That, right there. How old were you then? I'm 13. Peach fuzz is starting to come in. And I put chapstick on it to make it come in. I wanted to be a man. Okay. Look at the chest.

Now go look at Titan's pictures at three years old and look at his lower chest development. It's amazing. Yeah. That's amazing. Arnold saw the photo. He goes, Mike, why do you Photoshop your child? And Mona goes, Mona goes and shows him a video. Then he goes, okay, only with Eastern block woman, you have childlike.

I had to show the video. Yeah. Because I'm Eastern block woman. First of all, you've actually been on testosterone your whole life, even when you were a fetus. There we go. Right? So it was being injected into you by your organs when you were young and being made by other tissues. So I just want to be clear.

There's endogenous made by our own body and exogenous when you, in your case, injected or took in pill form, or we could talk about the various forms. First disclaimer is simple. I'm not a medical doctor, meaning I don't prescribe anything. I'm a professor, so I profess things. And I'm happy to talk about this topic. I do want to make sure that at some point we have the important conversation, which is I do think that many people start too young. And I even

think there's some people who are older, meaning in their thirties and forties and fifties and sixties who don't need testosterone augmentation. They don't. There's evidence that people well into their eighties and nineties can maintain high testosterone output. There are a lot of factors. Okay. So I just want to frame it up that way also, so that as we wade into this topic, I'm clear on my stance, which is, I think these are powerful hormones that can do good and done wrong, they can do harm.

There's no question about that. So, and I'm not saying this to be super diplomatic. I'm saying this because for the 15 year old or 17 year old out there, they might look at the SEMA and think, oh, you know, I bet you, you know, he's augmented or, but, or if it's all genetic and endogenous, then it's in the extreme. And I think the key thing to remember as we walk into this is that it's not just about testosterone levels. It's about the balance between testosterone and the other hormones.

But with that said, okay, all the caveats aside, with that said, testosterone has many effects throughout the body. The definition of a hormone is a substance that's released at one location and the body has locations multiple places. It has slow and fast effects. It can actually even change gene expression

because of the structure of the testosterone molecule or other steroid hormones like estrogen, it can pass through cell membranes and you've got an outside of the cell membrane it can go through, and then it can actually access the nuclear envelope, meaning it can go into the part of the cell that makes DNA and change which genes are expressed.

This is often not discussed. We normally just think about receptors and binding to receptors, also gene expression. However, at a psychological level, the predominant effect of testosterone is to make effort feel good. It's to make the organism, let's just stick with humans for now,

more willing to lean into challenges of any kinds. Those challenges can be physical, like weight training, can be running, like running long distances, could be sprinting, could be school, could be a challenging relationship. It could be even being the kindest person in the room if that takes effort, all right? So from a kind of a 10,000 mile up view,

at any point, regardless of what's driving it, our mind, our psychology, can we can either be back on our heels, so to speak, feeling unmotivated or like life is bearing down on us. Like we're a victim. Life is hard. We can be flat footed kind of in a place where we're okay. Or we can be center of mass forward. Like you want to get after it, right?

You really want to put in effort. You want to study for the exam, or you're willing to get back into an arena where you got an F or you failed, or you came in last or third, if that's, you know, devastating for you. So testosterone is this universal currency of effort. And the way that it does that is by suppressing circuits in the brain that trigger anxiety and fear, and by activating circuits in the brain

that trigger effort and goal seeking. So it's two things. It's, you know, driving fast in a car isn't just about hitting the accelerator. It's also about not having your foot on the brake. In this case, the fear would be the brake, right? So everything in the brain and nervous system is a push and a pull.

And testosterone has this amazing effect of quieting the circuits in the brain that are responsible for fear and timidity and amplifying the circuits that are there for leaning in and being kind of center of mass forward. So let me ask you this, because I think this is going to be a good place for us to start.

Everyone's like, I want more testosterone. I want to take stuff for more testosterone. What are habits that people have these days that are super common that are that probably lower your testosterone? I mean, things like maybe not getting outside, et cetera. Just what are some simple things that people are probably doing a lot that aren't good for testosterone and activity? or testosterone and activity? Yeah, I'm really glad that you asked that question first because I can attest from my own experience, but also from working with a number of friends

and other individuals and consulting that you can achieve a really decent to high testosterone level for you, an efficient one, one that serves you well, doing a lot of the right things correctly. And then, and only then if there's a clinical need or there's a particular lifestyle or performance need, then does it make sense to go down the route of prescription sources? So first things first, one bad night's sleep, no big deal.

Two bad night's sleep, eh, not so great. Too bad night's sleep, eh, not so great. But when you are chronically sleep deprived, meaning not enough quality or duration of sleep on a regular basis, or if your sleep patterns are irregular, your testosterone will suffer, mostly because the molecule cortisol is synthesized from cholesterol, and testosterone is also synthesized from cholesterol

and they compete. So if your cortisol is going up, your testosterone is generally going down, more or less. So if you're sleep deprived, cortisol is up and testosterone starts going down. One, again, one great night out, no big deal. But so get good at sleeping. What does that mean?

Everyone has different sleep needs. Some people are night owls. Some people are morning people. Some people need six hours of sleep to feel great. Some people need nine. It varies by age. It varies by circumstance. Just really quick. This podcast isn't about sleep. I've talked a lot about this on my podcast and elsewhere, but there are two or three things that you can do daily to make sure that you're pushing yourself toward the right patterns of sleep. First of all, get some sunlight in your eyes first thing in the morning.

I cannot emphasize this enough. Ideally do that while walking or being in motion. You want to run, run, but sunglasses off, corrective lenses like eyeglasses or contacts are fine. How much light, et cetera, well, it depends on where you live, time of year, a lot of factors, but 10 to 30 minutes. Get outside, even if you're checking your phone lot of factors, but 10 to 30 minutes. Get outside.

Even if you're checking your phone, get outside, get sunlight in your eyes. It's going to set you up to fall asleep about 16 hours later. It's going to cause the cortisol release, which happens every 24 hours and is non-negotiable to come early in the day, which is going to prime you for energy and output. It's really, really good to do.

Don't do it through a window. Don't do it through a car windshield. That's the number one thing. That far and away is the number one thing. Also sunlight exposure to the eyes and to the face and to the body, the upper part of the body. People are always discouraged that it's not the entire body but has been shown in a recent study

that was just published in Cell Reports. There's a really nice study in humans that it increases testosterone in men and in women to get that couple hours of sunlight a day. Now, a couple hours is a lot, and during the year you often don't have the opportunity, but get as much sun as you can in the morning and throughout the day.

The other one is avoid bright lights in your eyes between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. A little bit of light, fine. You wear blue blockers, fine, but it suppresses dopamine. And as we'll talk about later, dopamine and testosterone are close cousins. They hang out a lot, right?

They're like Nesima and Mark. They're hanging out a lot. I don't know who's testosterone and who's dopamine, but I think you're both high testosterone. But we'll talk about that relationship. Not your relationship, but we'll talk about, maybe we will. We'll talk about that relationship, not your relationship, but we'll talk about, maybe we will, we'll talk about that relationship

between dopamine and testosterone, but try and avoid being on the phone in the middle of the night. I have trouble with this, just in full disclosure, I'll wake up at three in the morning, and sometimes the best way for me to fall back asleep is to do something kind of mindless on the phone, but try and really dim the lights, dim the screen.

That's a big one because it suppresses dopamine through this pathway from the eye to a structure called the habenula. This leads to learning issues. It doesn't necessarily hit the next day, but it causes problems. And then there is the training factor, right? So regular training of,

we can talk about the different kinds that will stimulate testosterone, but Duncan French, director of the UFC Performance Center, Right? So regular training of, we can talk about the different kinds that will stimulate testosterone, but Duncan French, director of the UFC Performance Center, he's actually going to be coming on my podcast. We've already recorded and he's amazing. Duncan, when he was a PhD student at University of Connecticut Storrs,

did the science on this, actually measured serum testosterone from different types of training. And these 10 sets of 10 protocols or six sets of 10 with two minutes rest in between and adjusting the weight so that you always hit that 10 reps for the full six sets or 10 sets. So that's a powerful protocol.

Has to be big whole body movements like squats and deadlifts and bench presses and this kind of thing. You see a rise in testosterone from a program like that? Oh yeah, and it's significant. German volume training. The German's new. Well, and the reason is interesting. So as a neuroscientist, I heard that

and I pushed Duncan a little bit harder and I said, great, that's a really interesting result, but why is it that doing that raises testosterone? Like what's the signal to the pituitary or the testes? What is happening to do that? Turns out that anytime that you engage the motor neurons along this chain of neurons in the middle of your spine, that you subject them to heavy loads,

there's a signal that's sent from the brain to the testes to trigger the release of testosterone, right? We don't often ask the mechanistic thing because people are like, I don't care, just tell me how to do it. But then when you start thinking about how it's actually accomplished in the body, the brain and body need to coordinate effort care, don't just tell me how to do it. But then when you start thinking about how it's actually accomplished in the body, you know,

the brain and body need to coordinate effort and hormone. In this case, the hormone testosterone being the hormone that lends itself to doing more effort makes effort feel good. It needs to know when to be secreted, right? It doesn't just happen. And so this is a stimulus where when you put yourself under heavy work, the body responds by saying, okay, I'm going to activate the systems of the body to do more work in the future. Now, it was really key that these workouts be done about two or three times a week, but not more often. And Duncan tells me you can do other workouts separate from those workouts.

But these workouts were just the six sets of 10 with two minutes rest in between after a warmup, of course. What was the exercise? In this case, it was squats. And they were working in the, starting off at about the 85% of one rep maximum range. There's some information that they think squats in particular might, but is that true? Yes.

Squats can raise testosterone. Squats and deadlifts. Any, because what you need is the signal to the brain to then signal to the testes. Does it have to do with thrusting the hips? It probably has to do with hip hinging and using the entire upper torso. Do you know what your testosterone levels are at? How about your estrogen?

How about your prolactin? How about your cholesterol? If the answer is, I don't know what they're at. Well, we've been talking about blood work for a long time now. That's why we've partnered with Merrick Health, a company owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. Now, with Merrick, you can get yourself something called the Power Project Panel, which will give you 26 different labs that will help you understand what's going on underneath the hood. After that, you'll be able to be partnered with one of their patient care coordinators, which will give you interventions that range from lifestyle supplements to potential hormonal health treatments that can help move you in the right direction. But it all starts with knowing on what's going on down here.

So get your blood work done. And Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, we have two options for you guys. Head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. That's M-A-R-R-E-K Health.com slash PowerProject. There you guys will see the PowerProject panel that Nsema was just talking about. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProECT to save $101 off of that panel. Now, if you want to custom select your own panel, you guys can use promo code POWERPROJECT10 to save 10% off all labs. Again, that's at merrickhealth.com slash POWERPROJECT.

Links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. From what you were talking about, as far as dopamine and testosterone, this made me really curious. And you're the guy who would really know about this now the internet you know started getting all while I think mark you know I'm gonna be going with this they're gonna start going wild around like 2005 2006 or whatever but I think Millennials are the first generation that we could really test what would happen when young kids got their hands on internet porn right and it makes me curious because like it's dopamine like these young young individuals are chasing dopamine

to be perfectly blunt i was addicted to porn from the age of 11 to 24 that was the first time i got on it and i was like trying for a long time to get off of that because i noticed how it was affecting me and then i was also reading some stuff on how porn affects the male brain and all this and i was like oh god this is bad but it took me a long time to get off of that because it was affecting me. And then I was also reading some stuff on how porn affects the male brain and all this. And I was like, Oh God, this is bad. But it took me a long time to get off of that because it was quite literally, I was addicted to that and I could see how it was negatively affecting me. Now I'm curious,

do you know if there's any, like how that affects individuals, men, as far as testosterone, if there's a negative thing, a positive thing. Cause I think I heard you talk about like, like first for people that were viewing, I think the act of sex, there's like a 10 percent increase.

But I think there's like long term disadvantages to that. Correct. Absolutely. And I think this conversation is now finally starting to emerge in the scientific and academic literature. I mean, with no judgment whatsoever. Right. I again, I'm not here to, it's not a moral thing. I'm just talking about what I do is I look at things through the lens

of biology and in particular through neuroscience, but some other fields as well. We have to take a step back and now knowing what we know about testosterone and dopamine and all these things and, and ask, you know, what, what is pornography doing to the brain? Well, first of all, it's triggering the release of dopamine and in the short term testosterone by the observation of sex, not actually engaging in human contact. So think about the young brain being significantly

more plastic and willing to rewire than the adult brain. Absolutely, there's no question about it. It's hyperplastic. And of course it can wire rewire again, but you think about somebody who engages in a lot of, um, porn watching, right. Watching porn. And that person is getting dopamine and testosterone increases by observing sex and not actually by engaging in human contact. Okay. So that's concerning. Right. And there, and obviously that people vary, but that should come as no surprise that a lot of these people have trouble with romantic interactions when they do happen.

Right. Because they, their brain isn't conditioned to respond to those, right? And there's variation there, I'm sure. And these are private matters, so there aren't good data because there aren't laboratory experiments that you could do on this sort of thing that someone will probably do those experiments eventually.

But also dopamine seeking is what triggers the increase in testosterone. But as we just talked about it with repeated dopamine seeking or triggering of dopamine release, it starts getting diminished, diminished, diminished. So pretty soon that behavior is not causing the release of testosterone. Now people are just doing it compulsively to try and get some little droplet of dopamine out of their, out of their brain. I personally think that porn and the availability of porn is, is a real, is a real detriment to the developing brain, especially to the developing brain. Yeah.

Now it sounds like you rescued the behavior and it takes some discipline. Right. I imagine. So anxiety-less compared to dating and relationships where people are vulnerable on both sides and have to negotiate things like consent and timing and communication and all the things that are really hard to do but are essential to do, that's key. So I think pornography is a serious issue. And because of the way that it taps into these very primitive systems. It's as serious in my mind as some of the other drugs of abuse, like the opioid crisis, and talked about cell phones. You ever notice that when you get on a phone

and you're scrolling Instagram, it's like, it's a lot of fun, like this stuff is cool, you're seeing people, and then sometimes you're on there and like, this doesn't feel good, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm just doing it. That's exactly how people talk about their drug use. That's exactly how people talk about alcohol use. That's exactly how people talk about gambling. You imagine this high, but the high doesn't show up and that's your dopamine depleted. You need to take some time away from it and then come back and then you can enjoy it

again. Now with pornography, it's a slippery slope, right? There's also a whole aspect of pornography, which is that if people are pursuing pornography and they're not pursuing relationships, there is the potential that they reach their 20s and 30s and they are truly dysfunctional in terms of, look, every species has two major goals, protect the young and make more of itself. You know, whether or not you decide to have children or not

is a personal issue. I personally don't have children. I may someday, but every species protects its young. The maternal aggression is amazing, right? A mother protecting its young, there's nothing like it in the animal kingdom. Actually, that's not triggered by testosterone. That's triggered by estrogen, which is interesting.

But the parents of every species try and protect the young and they try and make more young. This is, every species is driven to do that. And you think about what porn and masturbation, these things really are. I'm not calling them sinful. What I'm saying is they are potentially addictive, especially with the availability of pornography.

So, you know, beware, you know, just everyone's different and, and people have to have to be careful about these circuitries. You really need to protect them. They are, they're super valuable. And so I would say, in keeping with our theme of, you know, what are the other things to do to support testosterone would be, uh, don't engage. I would avoid pornography frankly i really would i would you know maybe everyone's got their threshold for what's too much for some people that might be the number might be zero for other people it might be something different then it's going to vary yeah it would be different maybe using your imagination versus uh seeing images or like

you know is there a difference if you know any of this, is there a difference between video versus, you know, old school way of like having magazines and things like that? Well, it's because it's like more fantasy and maybe, I don't know, maybe you thinking it through about this thing is different than you just watching or even remembering past experiences. Yeah. So we can speculate there a bit.

Um, you know, a picture is worth a thousand words and a movie is worth a billion pictures um when it comes to that the impact that it has on your nervous system that's a bar you know exactly and so um you know i'm i think it's fair to say that whatever problems exist in society today almost certainly existed 100 years ago but in a different form. Okay. We always think, oh,

you know, stress was only there for the saber tooth tiger. And now there are no tigers. And we got this thing that's really unfortunate called stress. Look, let's imagine this was a hundred years ago. Spouses still cheated. People still died.

You had, you know, physical challenges. There was a question of how, you know, all that stuff is, is baked into us at a deep level right none of those circuits have changed it's just the circumstances that trigger them change so i think that 100 years ago it wasn't cell phones it might but you can bet that there was

there were forms of pornography they they were probably more uh cloistered away they weren't you know as out there um certain parts of the world it's still very very uh cloistered away. They weren't, you know, as out there in certain parts of the world, it's still very, very cloistered away despite the internet. So I think that what's healthy in this domain has never really been defined. This is one of the challenges. We know what an eating disorder is, but what's healthy eating, right? Where do you draw the line? I think given this general theme that relationships are healthy, friendships are healthy, romantic relationships are healthy, and anything that inhibits the pursuit and functioning of healthy relationships

is where you have to start saying, wait a second, is this behavior getting in the way? So look, it's unlikely to be an all or none, I think. And I don't know what the line is, but we just have to be careful. Anytime we are overwhelmed with powerful images of increasing intensity, that's where you start getting into the dopamine depletion.

That's where you start getting into the hormone depletion that we're talking about here. You need enough food. You do need enough amino acids and essential fatty acids. If you're not getting enough fat, forget having decent testosterone. The mid-90s were a really good example of this, right? If you went on a low-fat diet, subcaloric low-fat diet,

it's a form of nutritional castration basically, right? And some people require more fat than others, but that is absolutely deadly to the reproductive system. And if you increase your fat in particular, saturated fats, the vegan community is pretty angry with me right now because I said, sin of all sins. I said that I, I eat butter. I like grass fed butter, not, I don't eat chunks of it. I eat a little bit of it. And there's a video on the internet saying, you know, he's bad advice. My blood lipids are great. Thank you.

And, um, and sometimes I put it on a vegetable. Um, but, but, you know, I'd never said to consume butter in large amounts, but if you dietary cholesterol is, is vital for hormone production. And for me, butter, red meat from good sources is wonderful. Uh, other people, they don't want to ingest those, and eggs are really good. People are big on fish and omega-3s, but some amount of saturated fat is good. If you put your saturated fat to zero, your testosterone will drop.

There's no question about it. And I'd be happy to share my blood lipid profiles and show I've done the experiment. So you need ample calories, you need ample fats and you need ample amino acids. And then there's the supplementation realm. And then it's really starts going to, okay, like zinc. Do you need? Yes. Okay, fine. Sufficient zinc. Do you need to supplement zinc? Maybe, probably not. Magnesium is important for these pathways, but it's indirect. The two things that at least in my observation and in my hands and in the helping some people

with this over the years that have made a big difference. And again, this is different for everybody, but have been these two compounds, Tonga Ali, which is Indonesian ginseng, reduces sex hormone binding globulin. Sex hormone binding globulin and albumin are what bind the testosterone molecule and deliver it to your different tissues.

Now, sex hormone binding globulin has been demonized. People like SHBG is bad because you free tea is what counts true, but sex hormone binding globulin is also time release on your testosterone. You don't want a ton of testosterone than it plummeting either. So having some sex hormone binding globulin around is good. In fact, on your testosterone. You don't want a ton of testosterone then it plummeting either. So having some sex hormone binding globulin around is good. In fact, low SHBG levels are what women see

in polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS. And that's an issue. So Tonga Ali can lower sex hormone binding globulin and free up some testosterone. And it is true that free testosterone ideally is in the whatever 10 to 15 range or something. Typically this is going to be nanograms per deciliter just for people out there.

But dihydrotestosterone, DHT, is the most dominant androgen in humans. And we'll get back to that. But Tonga Ali, 400 milligrams a day taken in the morning will increase free testosterone i know that people there's some folks out there uh again you have to check with your doctor if this is right for you but there's some folks out there that said i didn't see the full 200 point increase that you referred to okay well let's talk about that in a second i've seen people get 400 500 nanogram per deciliter increases but they started off low

okay and then fedogia agrestis 600 milligrams i've seen people recommend a lot more i don't think that's a good idea fedogia tends to increase luteinizing hormone luteinizing hormone is the signal for the testes to make more testosterone it It actually, Fidojia in many people will actually increase testes size. It's a tangible increase in testes size. Now, there are some reports out there about toxicity of Fidojia. Those were rat studies. They may have merits.

I do think everyone should get their blood work done and they should before and after trying any of these kinds of things. And I think that people should be careful to get their liver enzymes included in those profiles. Okay. So again, 400 milligrams of Tonga Ali,

600 milligrams of Fidojio will work to increase testosterone by way of luteinizing hormone and freeing up testosterone. Taken early in the day because they can stimulate energy and so forth why am i mentioning this well first of all i want to be very clear i don't have any financial relationship to any companies that manufacture those things zero zilch but you know and some people ask well how much should i take maybe the answer is zero maybe you shouldn't take it at all i don't know so if you're going to explore testosterone augmentation, I think those are decent places

to start, but you do need to do your blood work. You need to monitor your liver enzymes. You need to think, you need to be smart about your health. It's also not, most likely not going to make you look like somebody that abuses steroids that's on Instagram. Right. It absolutely won't. Right.

What it will do is, is increase some of the, it will mildly increase some of the parameters that we've talked about related to testosterone. Willingness to effort for one. Some people get big libido increases. Some people they're more subtle. It's a subtle increase of 100 to 200 points, right? And some, there are the extreme cases of 400 or 500, but I've seen, you know,

and someone wrote to me and said, my testosterone went up 50 points or something. Okay, you know, first of all, the sourcing is going to be key. There's a lot of garbage out there. There's a big problem with the supplement industry. And this is also relevant to where we're probably going, which is things like TRT. The quality control provided from a doctor in a clinic is quite hot, quite high compared to the supplement industry. I can mention names of, for Tonga Ali and Fidojia. The only ones that I'm aware of that are what they say they are. Well, there may be other companies too, is Solarae makes the Tonga Ali and Barlow's herbal elixirs makes the Fidojia. I put links to those in the show notes for the Tim Ferriss podcast. Yeah. So these folks,

and again, I have no financial relationship to them. Now on the bottle, I think they recommend three per day, up to three per day. I think personally, I think that's too high. Sorry, Barlow's Herbal Elixirs. Most I've ever taken was 600 milligrams per day. And I'm happy to share my experience with these. I did a lot of experimentation with blood work on myself, trying to find something that was mild. And then Solarae, Tonga Ali, both are relatively inexpensive.

There are a couple of brands out there now that are, that since I've talked about this on a few podcasts that are using my face to advertise. If you see my face on anything, it's at the a human lab podcast or Mark's Instagram. I didn't approve it. Um, or my Stanford webpage. So, and again, everybody's different and you also have to check the sources of the naysayers, right? There, uh, people are often selling things so that those will help, uh, some people, um, and men and women have taken those. And I feel comfortable just saying, yeah, check with your doctor.

Now, then there's TRT, then there's high TRT, and then there's full-blown blast and cruise, right? And if you want to go there, we can. But in terms of, I'm just trying to think if there are any other supplements that are relevant here. or any other supplements that are relevant here. You know, there's some reports that boron, you know, two milligrams of boron per day can reduce sex hormone binding globulin, nettles and things like that. The problem with nettles

is it can give you weird prostate effects. Always check your PSA, your prostate specific antigen, if you're male. And then if you want, we could talk about peptides too, but I want to make sure. We could cure insomnia if i stay here right i'll just cure all the insomnia i'm going to mention this because after you uh after you talk to us more about the fedosia agrestis and tonka um i'm gonna i'm gonna get another blood work panel done because i've done a blood work panel with our company that sponsors our podcast americ health um you guys

by the way if you do want to get a blood work panel they our company that sponsors our podcast, Merrick Health. You guys, by the way, if you do want to get a blood work panel, they have a panel. It's called the Power Project Panel. It's 26 different panels for men and women that can pretty much show you everything you guys need. But I'm going to get a panel done soon before I start taking Tone Cotton and Fidojia. Because I'm very curious what it's going to do to my testosterone. Because people expected me to have a really high free and total test. Oh, yeah. This is super important that people hear this.

Yeah. I think my free testosterone is the higher number, right? Or is it the lower number? I'm not sure. It's the lower. Yeah. Your free testosterone is lower. Yeah. So my free test was 16.5. That's okay. So I will say just to pause. So 15 and above is a great free testosterone level. That's a wonderful place to be. Yeah. If your levels are low, if you get your blood work done and your levels are low and you're not very motivated and you have a laundry list of habits that aren't great, that'd be another candidate for someone

to probably go on that, probably listen to your doctor and see what the TRT clinic says and it'd probably be a good idea to follow their advice because once you get your testosterone boosted, now you're at least in a healthy range where you can be encouraged by the things that you're doing, be excited about the things that you're doing. It's hard to be excited every day about stuff when the hormones in your body aren't all facing in the right direction. Oh, yeah.

And, I mean, we see this happen with people time and time again, they get depressed or they get kind of run down or life beats them down. Things kind of get in the way. But for the people that have the habits, things don't really get in the way. You know, they could have really crazy tragedies happen within their family and they still find ways of getting in what they think they need to get in, because if they don't exercise, if they don't eat properly, they know what that does for their mental health. And I think that's one thing about testosterone that's not talked about enough. I actually would love to get a few people on here talking about this more, but testosterone can impact mental health tremendously.

It really, really can. I think it, to some degree, could be like a psychiatric medication. It's so powerful. Maybe there's still more that needs to be like known about that or whatever. But a lot of men that I've talked to that take testosterone, they say they used to be kind of like bummed out. They used to be a little like melancholy, like just kind of down and they don't feel that way anymore because they got their testosterone levels up. So again, you have to realize that, you know, low testosterone levels, it's something to not fuck around with. It's not even healthy in a lot of ways. So from your mental health perspective, taking some testosterone can really be beneficial.

Yeah. Again, this is another one of those things where it's a multi-factor thing. Uh, the biggest one in my opinion is like kind of, uh, not kind of, but it's getting out of my back pain. Like that always held me down. But also before TRT, I didn't have such a positive outlook. Like I wasn't, you know, I was one of those people that would just kind of like a little, not doom andom but like the sky wasn't as you know vibrant you know like it's kind of gray all the time with a little bit of pokes of sunlight here and there where the pokes testosterone and the pokes were right right in the glute um right yeah but i mean again like i can't say like oh as soon as i got on i was like you know depression's gone blah blah

like it's just multi-factorial but it was definitely one of them getting the hormones in check. And, you know, I'm not blasting a ton of stuff. Like my levels are right at the tippity top of normal range. You know, they have been way higher and it's like, whoa, like it's been up over like 2000. Did you necessarily feel better being over 2000 when you were there? Yes and no no because that was right at the very beginning so it was like such a huge contrast from being super low to being fucking through the roof but i knew that that's like sorry it's not that i knew that that was

unhealthy i just figured like well wait why does it have to be that high like let's just try to get it down to the normal range which is what i was working on and that's where i'm at now it's like 11 or 1200 i forgot what it actually is at but that's where I'm at now. It's like 11 or 1200. I forgot what it actually is at, but that's where I'm sitting and I've been feeling good and I don't see any reason to go any higher. Although we've had multiple guests talk about like the benefits of some of the other compounds that are whatever you want to call them that will actually bring estrogen down. Because that's something that, you know, everything went through the roof.

So did the estrogen. So trying to control that with, uh, I forgot which one, I don't know if Deco or whatever, whichever one can like lower the estrogen. Um, that, that definitely seems interesting, but like, I don't have a need for it right now. So like, I'm just going to keep riding with it as is. Hi Project Family, how's it going? Now we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health and fitness, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, everything. That's why we've partnered with Eight Sleep for such a long time now because the technology behind the mattress allows you to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart

rate variability. It changes its temperature through the night based off how you sleep, but not only yourself, but maybe your partner on the other side of the bed. It is an amazing mattress. Andrew, how can they learn more? Yes, head over to 8sleep.com slash powerproject. That's 8 spelled out, E-I-G-H-T, sleep.com slash powerproject. Along with more information, you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire order automatically. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes.

order automatically. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. And here's the problem that I have is too many men hear their buddy say, oh yeah, I got on this and I 20 pounds just dropped off and I feel great. See, that's their experience. That's not going to be your experience. And if until you adopt lifestyle principles that will aid in that, you know, people think that TRT is some sort of magic pill. It isn't. Here's what I'm thinking should happen. You know when you go to a bariatric physician to do the thing, they say, oh no, you got to lose 50 pounds before we do this surgery. You're not healthy enough. You're not healthy enough. I think every man, like I just thought of this on the way up here

because I knew we were going to talk about it. Every man who's overweight that is expecting for TRT to help him lose weight should be required by their physician to lose 30 pounds first, 20 pounds first. Come back to me after you lose 30 pounds. Then we'll put you on. Lose 10% of your body

weight. Yes. Get it off because they think that's the problem. They think that's going to knock it off without changing their lifestyle. Not only will it not help you lose weight, it's probably pretty likely if you don't have good habits that you're going to gain weight. Yes. If you increase your testosterone, you're probably just going to be more bloaty looking than anything else. Yeah. So I'm pro TRT and I will do it when I go to my physician and they say, okay. And it's not even what they tell me my levels are.

It's how I feel. Yeah. Like if I don't wake up in the morning with a boner, if I don't wake up in the morning with a zeal and excitement for life, if I don't feel like I'm like, whoa, man, she looked good or whatever, like just being a man, that's part of what we are and that's the testosterone in us. The minute that starts to decline, I'm going to go find out what's going on. And then I'm going to take actions that are appropriate. It's a tough thing though, because many men haven't felt that in years.

Yeah. And that's their normal already. Yeah. Well, and again, if they haven't yet changed their lifestyle, if they're not eating right, if they're not exercising consistently, then they have no business, in my opinion, doing anything. And I've had doctors argue with me before and say, Clark, we've helped so many men and they don't exercise and they don't eat right. I'm like, you are an idiot. If you allow one of your patients to not exercise and eat right and you're giving them an exogenous form of a hormone, I think you're in malpractice, in my opinion. Yeah, I mean, food, their sleep, just having better, healthier habits.

Stress management, all of it, man. Right, and then from there, if somebody still wants to make the decision because they, let's say, they lost some weight, and they're like, I want to look a little bit more jacked. It's like, well, then maybe that maybe then maybe you do go that route. But also, maybe in the process of building these habits and maybe having you could still have the TRT clinic assist you and help you. But maybe it's not that they're just prescribing you testosterone right off the bat. Maybe they're giving you suggestions on what you can do with your diet and what you

can do with your sleep. Maybe you can do with your sleep. Maybe they do look at your blood and they say, wow, your magnesium is really low. Let's figure out what's the reason why your magnesium is low. What's the reason why your cholesterol is off? What's the reason why your blood glucose markers are off? Those are all things that could be negotiated and worked on without the use of any pharmaceutical drugs at all. So every man that comes to me, we suggest and will even pay for a blood test with Merrick. So say you signed up with me today.

We would say, OK, Mark, we're going to have – when was your last blood test done? Because we're not just throwing stuff at a wall hoping it's going to stick by saying do cardio and eat white fish and asparagus. We want to know what your body is going through. And the only way to tell that is through blood. That's why we partnered up with Merrick. And that's why this opportunity I have with Russell Brunson, we're going to be doing the same thing but prescribing supplements as opposed to hormones. So there's two different things here. This is recent. I think you said you've been on for maybe like six weeks. Yeah. I mean, if we go back and look at some of your Instagram from weeks and months ago,

you looked incredible. You already did all these like running accomplishments and some of these things was there some other reason why you felt the need to take some of this because like I don't really know build wise like what you would do other than just like way more I guess like you know get up to like 240 or something I don't know what else you would do

with your physique because you look great so what was the reason was there something that you were trying to fix yeah it was more of of just like um i was having trouble just like recovering after what i did i just kept digging myself in a hole i couldn't really like i felt awful like getting out of bed i was like uh sweating in my sheets because my body was so stressed out um i I couldn't sleep at all. And yeah, just, it was more of just like all the factors of just like living kind of like, like I hadn't like low libido. Like I just, you know, I just didn't feel good. I didn't feel myself. And I think, you know, if that happens to anybody, like go get checked, See how you feel.

See what's wrong under the hood, and that's the thing. Tier 2 is not going to make you a bodybuilder. I don't look any different. I haven't changed my physique. I'm pretty much the same, but it helps with all the little things in life. I just want to mention real briefly that that's about how long it takes. It takes a couple weeks weeks if not a few months for to it'll accumulate and the small things that it's doing for you over time will

compound a little bit and then you'll start to get the results will start to hit like now ish so has it solved some of those problems for you has it has it helped your mood and other things yeah I feel great I actually haven't felt you know better i feel healthy mentally i have more confidence um and i have better i have better um resilience of feelings i think like i'm very i think it just makes you like just like it sounds weird but like i enjoy like hard work and stuff like i just feel more resilient and if that makes sense like more so you you enjoy it more now because like obviously you enjoyed it to an extent before you've done some amazing shit yeah no i know i i think you know it makes me even more hungry yeah it's interesting because like we had our boy kenny

on the podcast and you and kenny man i hope i hope you guys are able to meet before you leave because you two are very fucking similar human beings um he's like i think he's 21 but he just recently did a bodybuilding show he was big before he chose to do trt or anything he was fucking huge you were also very big before you chose to take that path um and it's it's it's a decision you chose to take that path um and it's it's it's a decision you chose to make it's not like it's not like it's it's some magic pill for you like it's just something you chose to do to boost you to another position potentially yeah that's like when i started lifting right there how old are you there i think uh when was that what i think well at least it was posted 2019 not sure when the picture was. Yeah, I was 19.

The Labrador comment pops up right there. You always had shoulders, like who you are, you're always going to be, right? I mean, you already had the makings of a good physique. Yeah, like it was all there. Even though I guess around then is when you started lifting, you've been an athlete. You had that type of physique for years before doing anything. So guys, like especially younger people, look at guys now and they're like, oh, maybe I need to take TRT if I want to do this or do that. But you put in a lot of work before you made that decision.

Yeah, it was a tough decision too. It wasn't something that I just woke up and decided to do. It was something that I wasn't recovering. I just, you know, woke up and decided to do. It was something that like I wasn't recovering. I felt like shit. And obviously I think I kind of put myself in that situation to be honest. Yeah. I just being like, you know, I was just overtraining being straight up. I do have a question for you though.

Do you feel, because like TRT is something that's becoming really normal with like guys in fitness. becoming really normal with like guys in fitness do you think because it was pretty normal like it was just an easier decision to make because you like there's a lot of fitness influencers are like okay i've done this for a while i'm gonna get on trt and see what else i can do did that make it easier yeah no it did 100 because it's like anything i mean you talk about something it seems like less of an entry like uh if say, you know, TRT wasn't a thing. Like, I don't even know if I would have thought about it. I would have just been like, man, I'm overtrained. I got to chill.

Yeah. But at the same time, I didn't chill because I knew I had shit I had to accomplish. Mm-hmm. So, no, I think for sure right now being normalized normalized i don't i'm not against it i don't think it is bad people some people are very against it i think if i'm against it if you're doing it for the wrong reason like if you're just doing it to get jacked you're gonna be very upset you're not gonna get like freaking huge um definitely need to have your diet on point yeah anyone that's gonna try to take it to like get lean uh if you're if you don to have your diet on point. Yeah. Anyone that's going to try to take it to like get lean, if you don't have your nutrition intact, like it's not for you.

I think it makes it worse because you hold water. Yeah, you'll just get like puffy as fuck. Yeah. But yeah, it's just crazy. Like I said, I think because so many people lie about it, the perspective of what it is and what it does is so off. perspective of what it is and what it does is so off if you know like anybody that even thinks about it unless like you really need it it's not not even worth it um but it does like as far as lifestyle it'll help your life so you got your you got your blood work done i assume yeah and then did you did you have a like follow-up consultation of some sort with somebody and

yeah did they kind of or was it just or were you just more like looking for trt straight up um no i got my blood work done and i wasn't like super super low like i wasn't like like you know qualified necessarily um yeah but your blood work came back plus you have symptoms yeah right and it was low don't get me wrong but it wasn't anything of uh like i think someone there was a kid that like had like 20 nanograms for dyslexia but uh like some people are like legit can't yeah but it was for me it was like i said i don't it was something that um it i knew that they were treating it on symptoms. Um, so, you know, it just made sense.

But honestly, like I'm on it, but it's like, kind of like, you know, I could come off anytime and feel, you know, like, I think I will too. It's not something that I want to continue forever, to be honest. Unless like, I'd say the only ever reason that I would ever decide to you know really pursue like like pharmacology is if I wanted to be a IFBB pro and honestly I don't know like I don't know I have good symmetry I think I have a good future for it but I don't know if I don't know if I'm willing to do that because like I even taking this like I'm very conscious of like I don't know I'm not like that's why I said I'm still naive to a lot of it like I don't know also I wonder if you'd enjoy becoming an IFBB pro because that would kind of take you like

you mean you don't see IFBB pros doing triathlons or running marathons right because that's size you could be the first you could be the first. You could be the first, honestly. You could be the guy. Part of me wants to say fuck it and it, but it's like one of those things where it's like, I don't know, just the whole process of it all and like how complicated I think it would get with like having all those variables

and just I like to be healthy. I like to be, I don't know.