Mark Bell's Power Project - Performance Enhancers & Hormone Optimization - Best Practices, Risks & Rewards - Vigorous Steve || MBPP Ep. 1010

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

In episode 1010, Vigorous Steve, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the best and most up to date information on cutting edge performance enhancers and Hormone optimization. Follow Vigorous Steve on IG: https://www.instagram.com/vigoroussteve/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! The Athletic/Casual Clothes we're wearing! 🕺 ➢ https://vuori.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   💤 The Best Cooling Mattress in the GAME! 🛌 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Best STYLISH Barefoot Casual/Training Shoes! 👟 ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel!   Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      You Need Greens in your Life 🥦 ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Receive a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs!   ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   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

At one point, when they decide to take steroids, they need to ramp up the dose to a gram. And then if they don't look like a freak, just throw in the towel. So you have two compounds that liberate fat, two that blunts appetite. So that means no more clean, no more ephedrine, no more crazy fat burners like DNP.

When it comes to something like growth hormone, how impactful is it? It depends on what you want to use it for. 100 to 400 milligrams ubiquinol pre-workout, game changer for your performance. And it's over the counter. Guys at the top have phenomenal genetics and phenomenal work ethic. The top amateurs might be running a boatload and then

when they do turn pro what are you going to do run seven grams of gear why did you feel it was important to deliver the information about the liver oh here we go he went on a podcast with you and lying straight to your face you've never taken steroids never taken steroids i've never done peds and at one point I just couldn't take it anymore. Power Project family, we've had some amazing guests on this podcast like Kurt Engel, Tom Segura, Andrew Hooperman. And we want to be able to have more amazing guests on this podcast. And you can help it grow by leaving us a quick rating and review on Spotify and iTunes. If you're listening to the podcast, just go ahead and give us a review.

Let us know how you dig it and help the podcast grow so we can keep growing with y'all and bring you amazing information. Enjoy the show. So LSD and MDMA at the same time. That's one way to start. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I realized I wanted to be a bodybuilder. No, actually, that's how I realized I wanted to leave Holland. Yeah.

So I did that. Man, I was like 21, 22, 23. Yeah. Holland is a good place for recreational drugs. Wow. Yeah. Is that some stuff that you did a deep dive into as well, like psychedelics and things like that? Quite a bit.

Yeah, quite a bit. It's unfortunately what my YouTube channel is about, so I rarely talk about it. And in Thailand, it's still illegal. Weed is legal. Kratom is not legal. But MDMA, LSD, that's all frowned upon. So I don't really talk about it much because I still like living in Thailand right for the next foreseeable future but yeah back in the day

coming from Holland being exposed to all that stuff I dabbled quite a bit yeah where's the name vigorous Steve come from so that's a long story let me compress it for you my real name is not Steve it's Stefan Stefan. Oh. Yeah. So, but when I came to Thailand, nobody could pronounce Stefan. They would say Satayfan, which of course, yeah, exactly. Right. So after two years, three years of hearing that and making my ears bleed, I was like, you know what?

I'm going to switch it to Steve. Named after the bodyguard Steve from the Jerry Springer show. Ah. You guys remember that? Yeah. The bald guy. Yeah. The bald guy. I saw everybody in the audience was always like the Jerry Springer show. You guys remember that? Yeah, the ball guy. Yeah, the ball guy. So everybody in the audience was always like, Steve, Steve, Steve.

And they would have a clip of him. Exactly. I mixed that in. So actually at that time when I was going to high school, we would do football, right? Like not American football, soccer. Yeah. So when I would have the ball, people would scream, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve.

So that kind of stuck, that nickname. Yeah. And then when I was in Thailand, Steve, Steve. So that kind of stuck, that nickname. And then when I was in Thailand, you train and you do that kind of stuff. And then one of the gym members said, you always train so vigorously. So I just changed my name to Steve for pronunciation reasons. And I was like, Vigor Steve, that sounds pretty good. Let's make a YouTube channel about that. Yeah, that was like 12, 13 years ago.

Here we go. There you go. The bald guy right there yeah he comes and like stands in the way this is such good at the gym this is like average for us average day at the gym fat people throwing food yeah good times so yeah that's that's where the name came from and it kind of stuck. And I promised my family after opening up about Stair. I said I was going to leave my last name out of it because there's business people in our family. And human relations, they go through social media and stuff before they hire people. So I was like if I'm going to talk about PEDs publicly, I better just keep the family name out of it.

And we had a long discussion. And now I'm very happy that I did that because there's some weird people on the internet. Oh, yeah. What led you to want to talk about it? Well, the education simply wasn't there. And, of course, Tony Huge, Boston Lloyds are opening up about it. And I figured, oh, finally, we have a place to do some proper education about steroids because there was none, not much. When I got started there, it became more popular.

I think I met him when he had like 20,000 subscribers. So he was going a little bit more into the deep dive side of that. And then I figured, you know, if they can talk about it, I can talk about it. I've had 10 years of bodybuilding experience and 25 years of bodybuilding experience or coaching experience or 10 years of coaching experience. And I think I had something to share. And now we're right here, basically, just sharing publicly what I learned over the last couple of years. The information in the beginning was really buried in, like, forms.

Yeah. And before that, you know, before the internet, it was just buried in, like, you know, people at the gym had some like information of like hey take this and then if you want to get really big take this and this together right there wasn't a ton of real information on it but those forums is where a lot of stuff went down and a lot of guys like Derek guys like yourself learned and then you guys got onto your own platforms getting on YouTube and explaining things more in depth to a much

larger audience. Right. So, you know, in the forums, it was a little bit difficult to kind of discriminate who actually knew what they were talking about because it was all private. So you never really knew who you were talking to, right? And what the accolades were in the background. Now, some guys were really smart simply by, you know, reading through what they posted. Like Scott Stevenson was on Professional Muscle

and John Meadows was on Professional Muscle. Professional Muscle was a pretty good forum for information. What year was this around for context? We're talking about 2006, 2010. Maybe around that time. And there were so many forums that are no longer around. Chad Nichols had a forum, Muscle Mayhem. That was pretty good.

We had the GH15 forum that's no longer around. Chad Nichols had a forum, Muscle Mayhem. That was pretty good. We had the GH15 forum that's no longer around. That was good the first year. I remember comparing some of the information I would see on there, some of the kind of nerdier stuff. And then I would go and try to run it by somebody that was at the gym that I was at at the time in Columbus, Ohio.

And they'd be like, nah, that's nerd shit. Like, don't worry about that. Just blast this stuff. And you're like, that doesn't sound right. Yeah. But that's always the difference between like gym knowledge and knowledge you can accumulate by yourself.

Some guys just stop learning. They take a couple drugs and they think they know it all, which is that issue is still out there nowadays. Let me put the link so people can follow us. Yeah, we're live. Yeah, we're live right now. Paste. All still out there nowadays. Let me put the link so people can follow us. We're live right now. Real quick. We got some shoulder pump going in there today. Thanks for allowing me to get

a shoulder pump so I look not so small on camera. That's a great shirt by the way. Thank you. That's nice. A lot of smiles. I saw this one off the corner of my eye. Luckily it was on discount. And I've been trying to find this brand ever since.

It's a Japanese brand, Elite Grips. It's a baseball brand. So I go to Japan. I look for all the stores. Nothing. So this is the only shirt in existence that apparently is purchasable. So I got it. By the way, dude, how many languages do you speak?

I feel like you're someone who speaks like three or four languages for some reason. Three. Three? Yeah. So I speak Dutch, English, way, dude, how many languages do you speak? I feel like you're someone who speaks like three or four languages for some reason. Three. Three? Yeah. So I speak Dutch, English, and a little bit of Thai. But honestly, my Thai has kind of weathered over the last couple of years because I used to coach a lot of Thai bodybuilders back in the day. But ever since I got away from Thai or coaching in general, my Thai has been slowly going

back. I got my wife off for here and she does all the translation and the in-betweening in Thailand for me right babe you know come in it's my wife hey there's nine one we saw nancy nancy we all got nick's names over there to make it easy to pronounce so she actually is the one who competed and because of her i got a lot of clients so she competed uh 17 times holy shit never out of the top 3 won the world championships how many times?

4 times in WBPF and then Asian championships 3 times and Southeast Asia won because I competed only 1 time yeah she did like 3 times the amount of work that we did when we were in the gym

she just zipped right through a bunch of exercises and we were all talking. Yeah, exactly. We were all both kicking ass, right? What are you guys doing? All talking, okay. Since she's from Thailand, we had to get her a big sweater because it's super cold over here. Yeah. Yeah, so because of her, I started coaching her back in the day.

And then she competed a lot and kept winning or kept placing high. And that's how I get a lot of clients. so we made a good team right off with all the information flying around now how do you communicate to a bodybuilder that is probably taking in a lot of other information is that hard to do as a coach or when you were coaching people not really because they would just see the results that i would get with clients and they would follow me blindly sometimes to their own detriment because they follow the information that was on YouTube. Hey, get out of here. We're going to talk for another minute. You want to get a video?

What's up? So they would follow the information on YouTube, which is then not personalized for them. And I would tell them, so guys, this is general information. You don't need to apply this yet. You know, talking about insulin growth hormone and talk about some guys that don't need it.

You know, so sometimes they would incorporate stuff that wasn't for them. And then later you find out, this is always a little bit of like coach client relationship that the communication might not always be good. So these guys would just do stuff to try it out

because they're interested in experimenting like I am. And then the whole protocol kind of falls apart or they make way more results than they should be making at the expense of their blood work results. So yeah, it's always a bit hard. But yeah, as long as you communicate with the coach, then it's good. But yeah.

It seems like a tough thing to do to help somebody compete, especially at a high level of bodybuilding. And they want to mix in some of these drugs, maybe mix in all of the drugs. Yeah. And then also try to keep the blood work intact, right? That's kind of the goal, right, is to let me maximize, optimize muscle growth, fat burning, all these various things, and to be as insulin sensitive as possible and stuff like that. It seems like it's kind of tricky to like nail all that down and then have all the blood work. You can't.

Look good. No, you can't. I mean people that say they have perfect blood work on the day of the competition, they're full of shit. It doesn't happen. I mean even as a natural bodybuilder, their markers will be off. Liver enzymes will be high. Testosterone levels will be low.

Estrogen kind of bottoms out because their body fat levels are low and their testosterone is low. So don't get it wrong. We discussed about this last time. Can we, you know, last time we had a podcast. Can you do competition healthfully?

No. At any level, I don't think you can do it healthy. But you can do it as healthy as possible, right? By making the correct choices and focusing on the nutrition and all the other stuff, the recovery aids that we have at our disposal, right? Hyperbaric chambers and ice baths and infrared saunas. There's so much other things we can explore besides hammering the androgen receptor with steroids, which makes it interesting, but it also means that if you want to be an athlete, you have to treat it like a full-time job,

which the best athletes do, obviously. So I think if you put everything together, you can be reasonably healthy. But if you want to win, you're going to have to sacrifice that part, unfortunately. I don't think you can do this. Bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, CrossFit, any sport, cycling. Yeah. I don't think you can do it healthily. On that note of winning, let me ask you this, because a lot of top IFBB pros love to talk

about how little stuff they're taking. Oh, yeah. And when some people hear that, they're like, what the fuck? That's a lie. Yeah. But at the same time. Comparatively little. Right.

But at the same time, you've worked with so many people that you've probably worked with individuals who they were on a smaller amount of whatever it was, and they've managed to gain a lot of size versus somebody else who's doing the same thing. So what are your thoughts on that? Because everybody wants to get super huge, but everyone's going to respond differently to these drugs. Exactly. Yeah, right. So for example, if you were ever to touch anything, I don't think you need to exceed two grams of steroids in total. Okay.

And that's competing at the highest level, right? Then you'd be the size of Andrew Jack. I'm sure of it. I'm sure of it. Other guys would need six grams of gear to get there and not even look that part because, you know, full with injection sites and marks because running six grams of gear means 18, 20 milliliters of steroids. You got to put it somewhere.

You start looking very unhealthy, all sweaty and red. Exactly. High blood pressure pressure that kind of stuff so i mean ultimately you got to work with your genetics and i think most people just at one point when they decided to take steroids need to ramp up the dose to a gram and then see what they can achieve on a gram of steroids and ideally it's just test gram a test with an aromatized inhibitor. And then if they don't look like a freak, just throw in the towel. Because otherwise, you're going to need five grams of gear or three grams of gear. What are you going to do with your organs? I mean, you can take astragalus root extract and citrus bergamot and azetamide, betelmastartan and embacliflozin, but you're still going to wreak havoc on your intestinal tract

and your organs in general. Yeah. You know, it's just not healthy to do it. I think you can run a gram of steroids safely, you know, if you limit it to bioidentical stuff, tests, and, you know, maybe some growth hormone insulin. But if you start diving into the stuff that's not really human approved, and you go to two grams, three grams, four grams,

I don't think there's in 10 years of that i mean i don't think it's sustainable how can we like hack our biology maybe without using like banned substances is there seems like right now there's you know um maybe not just like banned but i guess um taking stuff that is going to like overly augment your hormones. You know, like testosterone has like a lot of trade-off. It could have a lot of trade-off. So like is there like three to five things you can think of off the top of your head that could be really impactful for somebody that wants to maybe stay on more of the natural side or they're worried that they're going to get tested? Again, treat it

like a job so treat your body as a as a project that's never ending and that means you have to look into your sleep your nutrition your training and always keep learning and evolving and then just making sure you're staying up to date because the training scientific evidence keeps changing and the nutrition keeps changing and your overall physique changes. So you need to be adaptive. I think a lot of people need to be adapted. So whatever I did when in my twenties, it doesn't work anymore. I'm 40 years old now,

you know, my, my digestion has changed. I can't eat the same foods. And back then when I was 26, taking particular steroids, tremble on, I haven't touched,

you know, for eight, eight, nine years at this point, I don't want to take that anymore. You know? So I think you just have to be progressive in how you learn and how you treat your body as a project. And whatever you start with, it doesn't mean you have to get married to it.

You just have to evolve with your body and then just be ahead of the changes that you need to make. And I think at one point we all come to the same conclusion that doing crazy shit is not really worth it. And some understand this when we're 30 and some 40 some 50 some 75 um and then the basically the foundation is like a little bit exotic hormone replacement therapy with some anti-aging stuff mixed in and some functional work besides the hardcore lifting which we talked about in the gym and i think that all all roads kind of lead to that

because that seems to be the most sustainable longevity-wise. And the guys who don't do that, they just hammer everything, the food and the training and the drugs. I think they're just going to injure themselves physically, mentally, emotionally. So you just got to be on top of everything. And that's why I have my YouTube channel because I got to be on top of everything. And that's why I have my YouTube channel, because I like to be on top of all the new stuff

and then give people some insights on the alternatives, which also means you don't really get so much views because all the new stuff nobody ever heard about. Well, at least semi-glutide and liraglutide got adopted. Yeah. So that's been cool to see. Yeah. Actually, mention that because you said that you were at the Olympia and you saw a lot of people were actually utilizing that when it came to their cuts. Yeah. So that's been cool to see. Yeah, actually mention that because you said that you were at the Olympia

and you saw a lot of people were actually utilizing that when it came to their cuts. Yeah. Yeah, so I had some consultations with some competitors over the last couple of years and I talked with some of their coaches. And of course, I made videos about this. So I've been talking about this for the last couple of years. Derek has talked about it. Leah was talking about the liraglutide, dulaglutide, and the GLP-1 receptor agonist

way before it became popular. And then last year, I came to Las Vegas and it was on billboards. Whoa, I didn't expect that to happen. What do those drugs do? So, you have to differentiate between the traditional glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, that's liraglutide,

dulaglutide, and semaglutide. They have different half-lives, so the injection frequency might be a little bit different, even though I do feel that you should inject them every day or every other day so you don't get these weird side effects. Basically what it does, the natural pathway of GLP-1 and gastric inhibitory polypeptide, GIP, is that they're released when you eat.

So GLP-1 and GIP, they help with insulin secretion, but also slowing down digestion. Because in the beginning of the digestion, you want to absorb the nutrients. And as you get more food in the stomach, you want to slow that down. So you want to help with, or these hormones help with insulin secretion in combination with estrogen. So you can't crush that too low when you're taking these medications because otherwise your insulin secretion isn't correct. And then as your gastric emptying slows, the insulin release slows,

so it improves your overall insulin sensitivity, right? Similar to how metformin would do that or apple cider vinegar would do that. But in this context, it blunts your appetite so much, these medications, that you don't feel like eating more because instead of eating, getting this hormonal response, it blunts your appetite so much, these medications, that you don't feel like eating more. Because instead of eating, getting this hormonal response,

these hormones are already there through an injection. So you eat a low portion of food and you feel satisfied for four to six hours. And if you don't eat, you miss a couple meals, you don't really feel hungry because these hormones are there, thinking your body thinks that it just ate. Now the weird thing is you would think that you would get insulin secretion from the GLP-1 and the GAP, but it is only in the presence of carbohydrates. So you have a little bit of basal insulin secretion, right? That's normal.

When you fast, you have basal insulin secretion. When you have a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet or a variation thereof, you have basal insulin secretion that doesn't change. It could be 5 to 10 IUs per day if you compare that to exogenous use. But these don't really seem to exacerbate that without the presence of food and particularly carbohydrates. So something still needs to be present for your insulin to go really high. So I feel that they're very beneficial medications when it comes to appetite suppression and diet adherence. And of course, they have some side effects.

If you really do the research, you see that it's linked to thyroid issues or pancreas issues. But when you really dive into the scientific literature, you see that those thyroid and pancreas issues are on diabetics. I mean their lifestyle isn't the best. Type 2 diabetes is self-induced in many cases. So when it comes to healthy individuals, it's pretty minimal if you're taking diabetes? I would say it's minimal, but the longitudinal data isn't there, to be honest. So you have those traditional GLP-1s, and then you have combination medication, GLP-1 and GAP, that's drosepidide.

I use that quite extensively. We have that available through the compounding pharmacies in Thailand. That's even more beneficial because, again, if you read the scientific literature, you see that gastric inhibitory polypeptide, or the other word was glucose-dependent. The name alludes a bit. It has one abbreviation but two names. So when you activate the GIP receptor on adipose tissue, it might help with fat coming into the adipose site and exiting the adipose site. So that means if you're on a ketogenic diet or in a fat loss state, the GIP activation on fat cells might cause you to liberate more fat from body fat stores.

So you feel more satiated, right? And you improve fat loss quite a bit. So I noticed that terzapidide is way more potent than liraglutide, dulaglutide, or semaglutide because you get this enhanced fat burning out of it. Again, the scientific literature is a little bit thin for now, but I'm sure in five years it will be proven that this Juul medication is more beneficial. And now they have another one out there, retatrutide, not retartutide. I was like, what?

I know, I know. I made this mistake. When they were just coming out with this new medication, I'm like, is that retartutide? Retartutide. Yeah. So everybody's careful with that one. Yeah. Oh, I got demonetized.

You might have to take that. And we're fine. So this is a combination with GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon. And glucagon is the hormone that also liberates glucose from the liver and fat from adipose tissue. So you have two compounds that liberate fat and one, two, that blunts appetite. So a combination of that is probably the best fat loss aid out there right now,

if you can find it. Again, it's very expensive. So that means no more Clen, no more ephedrine, no more crazy fat burners like DNP or adipotite, the FTTP that literally destroys fat cells. And if it goes to stomach, it will destroy your kidneys also. So I think these are much healthier and safer alternatives than the traditionally used

fat burners that make people look old or give people heart attacks or, you know, you know. Those things would probably help with overall health too, if we're talking about a heavier person, right? So if you're sick, if you have diabetes and metabolic issues, then these will definitely help. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But if you're otherwise healthy, it will just blunch your appetite. Of course, make better food choices. So I think for fitness people and bodybuilders in general, I think there are much safer and healthier alternatives compared to the traditionally used fat burners that we've been using for years.

I haven't had to use Klen or any of these weird fat burners ever since these terzepidide and Richard Trutite have been out there. Yeah. So you use those currently, Michael? I experimented with Richard Trutite in the first three weeks that I was in the US because the sources here, they ship domestic so you can just order it right away.

So I wanted to try it. And I think for the first two or three weeks that I was here, the diet adherence was very, very good. And then I stopped taking it and I feel that I'm getting a little bit fatter with the same diet choices. But again, I'm eating freely. I'm eating the American diet as

modified as possible. So we eat somewhere, you know, don't take the butter, no added oil, no added cheese, but then... You're in America, bro. Yeah. Next time I come here I'm definitely going to do an Airbnb and cook all my own food. And In-N-Out burger? Yeah, I did Yeah. Next time I come here, I'm definitely going to do an Airbnb and cook all my own food. Yeah.

And In-N-Out Burger? Yeah. I did yesterday. I was disappointed. Yeah. I got to be honest. I can understand that, though, because it gets hyped up big time. It is a cheeseburger.

Yeah. It's just basically a burger. And then, of course, you take the cheese out, and then you just have two patties and a little bit of fries on the side. That's why Flying Dutchmen are great because there's just two patties and cheese, onion. Yeah. Let's get multiple of those. Yeah, to make it – remove the buns with the vegetables, right? Yeah, fuck that. And it's even better.

Yeah. TRT. It's a popular topic. A lot of guys are hopping on it. It's something that we've talked about a lot. And you might think you're a candidate, but how would you know if you haven't got your blood work done and you don't know where your markers are? That's why we've partnered with Merrick Health owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. And the cool thing about Merrick is you'll get your blood work done and you'll also have a patient care coordinator that can help you analyze your blood work, analyze your testosterone, all these other markers to help you actually figure out if you're someone who needs TRT.

you actually figure out if you're someone who needs TRT? Because there could be things that you could be doing nutritionally, with supplements, or even with your lifestyle that can boost your testosterone to the levels that they should actually be at. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the checkup panel, or any individual lab that you select. Again, that's at MerrickHealth.com slash Power Project, promo code PowerProject at checkout, links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes.

When it comes to something like growth hormone, what does growth hormone do and how impactful is it? Some people go crazy about it. They talk about how amazing it is. Yeah, so it depends on what you want to use it for, right? It's a very expensive fat loss aid because it does cause lipolysis, fat loss from adipose tissue through hormone-sensitive lipase. And it can help with skin rejuvenation. So people think it's an anti-aging drug. In reality, probably it's not because it also raises IGF-1 levels,

and they can actually age you faster. That being said, high IGF-1 levels, it's not going to make you look super old, but it's just based on the cell proliferation, the cell division. So the faster your cells divide, the more of the telomere shortening, the ends of the DNA you would get.

And if the telomeres on the end of the DNA are gone, you get senescent cells because every time a cell divides, oh, sorry, every time a cell divides, the DNA gets shorter. So you have these sides on the end of it that kind of protect the DNA itself. And as the cell divides, these get shorter and shorter and shorter. And then by the time your cell starts to divide without telomeres at the end of the DNA, it starts cutting into the DNA itself. And this is how you get senescent cells,

which could turn cancerous at one point or just not function correctly. This is how you age. So people say that if your IGF-1 levels are elevated through the use of growth hormone, for example, or growth hormone secreticogs, that you speed up this shortening of telomeres and thus you age faster.

But you have telomerase activity, which is the lengthening of telomeres. And you can do that you have telomerase activity which is the lengthening of telomeres and you can do that with an over-the-counter supplement called astragalus root extract or um what is it not fallis that and there's a drug out there that can actually promote uh the the lengthening of telomeres so and this is very popular in the anti-aging clinics then again if you look into that really deeply it can also accelerate cancer growth this is very popular in the anti-aging clinics. Then again, if you look into that really deeply, it can also accelerate cancer growth. It's the same with growth hormone and IGF-1. What specifically?

Are you talking about the Falastatin? No, not Falastatin. I'm sure in the comment section are already going well. Sometimes these names of the drugs elude me because there's so many drugs out there. So there's a drug out there that can activate telomerase and then your telomeres get lengthened again. This is very popular as

an anti-aging drug which is also if you have cancer forming which is very fast cell division it's uncontrolled cell division you're basically lengthening the telomeres of the cancer and thus it can divide even more frequently is it called resveratrol no resveratrol? No, resveratrol is – Okay, something else. It's been kind of debunked as an anti-aging drug. AGS-499 is another – No. No, okay. What's the name?

It's okay. I'm sure in the comment section will pop up. Yeah, my bad, guys. It's been a long week. Yeah, you've been everywhere. Yeah, so with the growth hormone, you get some topical anti-aging benefits because it fills in your wrinkles, makes you look more youthful, your nails grow better, your skin grows better, your hair grows better. But if you really look into it, it might actually age you faster through the increase in IGF-1. So, you know, it's a bit of a tradeoff.

It doesn't seem to have a huge performance enhancing benefit. Maybe through the liberation of fat stores. So if you follow a ketogenic diet and you take growth hormone pre-workout, then you have a little bit more fat available for fuel, and thus you should increase your performance. Now, you're taking a growth-promoting agent while your heart rate is elevated. Does that then also cause cardiac enlargement? Potentially.

Especially if you combine it with a traditional fat burner like ephedrine or clombitril, which stimulates your heart rate even more. And a lot of this data isn't there, so you can only speculate on the biology, which we understand. But I don't think there's going to be a scientific literature that shows, okay, we have two sample sizes.

One is going to take growth hormone pre-workout and train balls to the wall. And the other one is going to take growth hormone before bed to improve sleep quality. Which one of these groups get left ventricular hypertrophy or heart enlargement in general? So I don't think those studies will ever be performed. You can only go with the organ imaging that you do yourself. But in a sense, you've kind of done those studies by working with these individuals and having them get their blood work done. Right. What are some like critical things people should be looking out for if they are trying to push the envelope?

The whole thing. Honestly. Yeah, you got to do the whole blood work. Luckily, Merrick Health offers that. Yeah. Right? So Merrick Health has very comprehensive blood work analysis. And they can even write you referrals if you want to do the whole blood work. Luckily, Merrick Health offers that. Yeah. Right? So Merrick Health has very comprehensive blood work analysis. And they can even write you referrals if you want to do organ imaging.

So, you know, before we would say you have to do your blood work and you need to bench three plates, squat four plates, and deadlift five plates, right? Which I think that those numbers still apply. At least you should reach your natural strength limit. Do your blood work. But if you want to do yourself a favor, also do organ imaging. Check if your heart is functioning correctly. Like a friend of mine, Dave McConey, he's a doctor, he's a dentist. And he did an ultrasound or an MRI on his heart

and he started that his heart was impaired. Can't remember what it was. So he made that hard decision, I'm never going to take steroids because steroids are linked to heart enlargement. I already have a condition. I'm not going to make it was. So he made that hard decision. I'm never going to take steroids because steroids are linked to heart enlargement. I already have a condition. I'm not going to make it worse. Yeah.

Smart. Really smart. Extremely. Right. I didn't do the organ imaging back in the day. I just did my blood work. I tried to bench three plates. Didn't get there, but I was able to squat four plates for a double and a

double on the deadlift. So I felt like, okay, I was close enough after 10 years of natural lifting. So I started with some testosterone. Yeah. How old were you at that point? 26. 26. Okay.

But I didn't do organ imaging. I didn't check my liver. I didn't check my kidneys. I didn't check my heart. I didn't check my testicles, which I checked later on in life for fertility purposes. So at this point, I've imaged every organ that I have besides the thymus, which is probably gone by this point. And I think with all the growth hormone that I took in my years,

I don't think my thymus is regenerated. That's the hot topic nowadays, right? Yeah. They want to regenerate the thymus with growth hormone, but I don't think – otherwise all the bodybuilders would have giant thymuses, right? It would stick out of their chest like a little alien baby. So in that case, I think if you want to get started, you do the blood work a couple of times.

You reach your natural potential as best as you can. You give yourself a couple of years to really see how your body figures out. And then again, if there's a genetic predisposition of problems in your family, prostate cancer, heart enlargement, kidney problems, image those organs. You'll be happy that you did. I wish I had a time scene and did that. Not that my organs are problematic, but... How does someone go about getting some of these images done?

You have to go through a doctor. I think Merrick Health can write referrals for that. Of course, there are male health optimization clinics, so they would analyze your blood work. They have a boatload of comprehensive markers. They're very excellent patient care coordinators who can help you interpret those results and otherwise send them to me, albeit that I'm a little bit more expensive than those guys. And if you – there's always somebody out there who can help you interpret the results. And if you feel, you know what, I want to do a cycle but I want to do some organ imaging, you mention that america health uh people i'm sure they can help yeah i'm sure they can write you a referral and

otherwise if you come to thailand because in thailand you could just do it out of pocket you can there's several clinics that i work with you could just walk in no appointment required to say i want to do an ultrasound of my testicles my thyroid my upper and lower abdomen and then basically you got everything covered, right? Then if you do a little bit of an echo on your heart, you can go into a private hospital and do an ultrasound, an MRI or a CT angiogram. That's later on.

It's multiple steps and you still need to talk to a doctor. But you can get all of that done in a week. So you fly to Thailand, you pay everything out of pocket, you fly home, you get all the data. It's probably cheaper than doing it here. All those tests here because in Thailand, you pay everything out of pocket, you fly home, you get all the data, it's probably cheaper than doing it here. All those tests here, because in Thailand, the healthcare, even the private clinics are considerably cheaper than the Western world. Well, let me ask you this, because

we were just talking about growth hormone and some people in the anti-aging community are using that. What are you currently using when it comes to longevity or anti-aging? Because you do look very good for your age, by the way. Thank you. And you've been doing PEDs for years. Most guys look like they're like 50 by this point. Yeah.

So coming off steroids helped a lot. Okay. So I came off in January to get my beautiful wife pregnant. No good news so far, but it might take a little bit longer. After using steroids for like 12 years straight, plus cruising with the occasional time off, it takes some time to really recover your fertility parameters. So we've been actively trying for four months now, four rounds of, yeah, a lot of practice.

And so no good news so far, but it might take another eight months before she's pregnant. And in the meantime, man, I just lost your question going. Have you noticed a difference in like the way you look? Because he was asking you kind of about what do you take for anti-aging? And you said coming off has helped a lot. Have you noticed differences like in your skin or your eyes? No. So I think like we perceive each other through the face, right?

Of course. So you have bodybuilding is basically from the neck down. You can get jacked and big and muscular and maybe your skin goes a little bit off from the acne. But in most cases, bodybuilding is from the neck down, and then your face kind of compromises a little bit. You get a bigger jaw, right? You get a little bit more of a lower chin here, a little bit more muscular because the face has muscles too, and those respond to androgens and growth hormone. So the more androgens you take, the more steroids you take, the more growth hormone and insulin you take, the bigger your face is going to get. So coming off allowed my face to shrink a little bit.

Staying in shape helped. And then eating a good diet up until the point I came to the US helped also. Yeah. Yeah. And to be honest, most people in my family look pretty young for their age. Okay. Even the ones that drink and smoke and then do everything wrong, they still look young. So that helps.

But I think the biggest profound effect that I've had over the last two years was NAD plus and glutathione supplementation. So I've been taking NAD plus intravenously 200 milligrams per week. And then I take a nicotinamide mononucleotide about 500 to 875 milligrams per day to keep – to sustain the NAD plus levels. Because nicotinamide mononucleotide is basically the building block for NAD plus. So you basically do NAD plus replacement therapy through the IV route. And then you sustain that with nicotinamide mononucleotide. So it would be like a low dose of testosterone with HCG. Okay.

Right? To top off the testosterone. So let's say you do testosterone 100 milligrams one injection per week. And then you do HCG three times a week. You end up at a testosterone level that would be representative of taking 150 to 200 milligrams. Assuming your testicles are working. It's the same with NAD+. You take 100 to 200 milligrams IV once a week.

And you get levels that represent that at the end of the week by taking NMN, nicotinamide mononucleotide. That has been a game changer. Sleep quality has improved. So all the anti-aging effects that growth hormone said, people expected of growth hormone, NAD plus and nicotinamide mononucleotide actually has.

Sleep quality, skin texture, recovery, overall sense of well-being, energy levels. Any type of weird signs or no? My wallet is not... It's expensive as fuck. Yeah, it's really expensive. And I get it from a compounding pharmacy in Thailand where I order 100 vials of NAD+. So I get

like the influencer discount, basically. I get the wholesale price. Luckily, I've been there for such a long time. I have a very vast network of get like the the influencer discount basically how to get the wholesale price uh luckily i've been there for such a long time i have a very vast network of people in the medical community yeah so they order that for me i get a great discount i can't say how low it is because people will have a heart attack um so i order 100 vials at a time it comes frozen uh pre-mixed yeah and i just dethaw it when i need it and i have a private nurse that administers the entity plus uh two vials at a time.

And then three vials of glutathione, so that's 1,800 milligrams. Ten vials of vitamin C, 5,000 milligrams. And then B100 complex, yeah, to be vitamins. Once a week. Wow! It costs

a boatload of money, but that has been the biggest game changer now, being over 35. How long does that take? I go through pretty fast. So I do almost a free flow, so it's like 30 minutes. Yeah, but most people would need like an hour to get that in because NAD Plus makes you feel like you're on a roller coaster. And then any of the things that you, yeah, I know it can make you kind of feel ill afterwards. Yeah, you feel horrible.

Any of those things you mentioned, can you take those in like a capsule form? Can you just do rather than like an IV? Can you do an injectable? Or is there anything remotely close that somebody could take that's maybe more of like an easier access natural supplement? Take it by pill. Yeah, take a pill. So nicotinamide mononucleotide you can buy over the counter. It's available on Amazon, on iHerb, a couple other websites.

So you can just buy it over the counter. So that's a good place to start. The B vitamins you can buy, a B50 complex. You take one in the morning, one in the evening, which I do throughout the week. And then on Monday when I do my IV, I skip the B100 complex. I don't need it because I'm getting the injectable. And then the vitamin C you can also take.

It's just a lot of antioxidants, a lot of enzymatic upregulation, basically, from the B vitamins. So everything is upregulated. I think everybody should be on vitamin C and B100 complex.

Okay. Split B50 morning and evening. And the vitamin C, you can take 500 to 1,000 milligrams with meals. I know what they're going to say. Vitamin C blunts the post-exercise stress response,

and that's an excuse that bad bodybuilders use to not take antioxidants. Because I know they're all, yeah, but Steve, these three studies show that if you take vitamin C, you're not going to get as strong, you're not going to get as much hypertrophy. It's just, you're a shit bodybuilder if you use this.

I'm sorry. I don't want to hear this. You can't make that much of a difference pretty much. I've been taking vitamin C 5,000 milligrams per day for over a decade. And I even got big

without the steroids. You know, so not super big, not like enzima big. But I still got a respectable shape, you know. And I think the antioxidants

really help with skin texture and overall longevity because the oxidative stress that you get from strenuous workouts, especially on steroids, that's next-level oxidative stress. You know, steroids, worse than oxidative stress off training. Okay, let me ask you this then because there's a lot of things you mentioned, but as far as just supplements that you think everyone should be taking, just like general supplements they can buy on Amazon,

you mentioned vitamin B, vitamin C, the nicodemidamide mononucleotide. After a thousand times of mispronunciation, NMN, NMN. NMN, yeah. What else? What else is there? What else? Ubiquinol for the heart. It's an antioxidant that helps with cardiac function. So I would recommend everybody to take 100 milligrams in the morning, 100 milligrams in the evening,

and between 100 to 400 milligrams pre-workout. That's like a CoQ10 or something. Yeah. So that's the more active version of Coenzyme Q10. You have ubiquinone and ubiquinol, and ubiquinol seems to have more of the cardiac protective and performance-enhancing benefits. So if you go to PubMed, you can do that right now. You type in ubiquinol in performance or ubiquinol exercise or ubiquinol training.

So much scientific literature that you can research and most of them have a positive outcome. So 100 to 400 milligrams ubiquinol pre-workout. Again, it's expensive. Ubiquinol ain't cheap, so wait for discounts. Or use my discount code for iHerb, which I do have. You get 5% off. Helps.

So you run between 300 to 600 milligrams per day game changer for your performance and it's over to go through really what what does it specifically do for the heart when you're so it's a it's an electron donor in the electron ion exchange for the mitochondria to produce atp okay so you have adenosine triphosphate which is basically the the the energy currency I'm quoting studies again, the energy foundation of everything that works, right? And the mitochondria

produce that, that's a foreign life form that inhibits your body that gives you energy. So if you treat your mitochondria right, they give you a lot of ATP energy in return. So if you give it ubiquinol, the ATP synthesis is optimized. If you give it vitamin C,

an electron donor, and an antioxidant, it gives you more ATP. Creatine gives you more ATP, right? So if you optimize ATP synthesis within the mitochondria, and your antioxidant status is high enough, because every time you produce ATP,

your antioxidant, or your reactive oxygen species go up. So if you keep those low low and your mitochondria healthy, energy for days, energy for days. Yeah. This is the most profound thing that I've learned over the last couple of years that steroids fun growth hormone fun.

But if you really take care of your mitochondria, the impact that you make on your overall health is so substantial that you feel like you took 10, 15 years off your life. Wow. Yeah. So people ask me about steroids. that you make on your overall health is so substantial that you feel like you took 10 15 years off your life wow yeah people ask me about steroids and i said take some nicotine mononucleotide will really change your life yeah but the evidence is thin i said wait 10 years you know or take nicotinamide riboside which has you know more scientific evidence and it might be more beneficial if you really care about the scientific evidence that much you know another powerful thing you do is get some sunlight that helps also yeah i i

should be doing that obviously i work i work way too much i'm always you know behind the computer and doing consultations and research but yeah getting some proper sunlight you know for vitamin d synthesis helps a lot and just getting out there. And I mean, you've been very prominent about doing your walks and getting some, you've got a great skin tan. So, yeah, I should be doing that. Glutathione doesn't help though. Okay.

Yeah, glutathione reduces your skin pigmentation. Yeah, so you get this Casper white skin. I have very high sex appeal in Asia. Yeah, they like the white skin. It helps, it helps. Yeah, they like the white skin. It helps. It helps. Yeah, they love it. It helps.

Yeah. It helps. What are some other ways people can kind of hack their biology maybe without just drugs? Like what does like a cold plunge do? What does like a sauna do? So if you read the articles online online you see that cold plunges and saunas are basically the cure to cancer yeah all right it's very hyped it's very nuanced um usually on websites where they also sell cold plunges and infrared saunas um that being said

if i build a house in thailand over the next couple of years i will have an infrared sauna and a cold plunge so i can do my daily fasted cardio and then jump into the sauna and do a cold plunge, get that all done within an hour and then get my day started. I mean, it lowers inflammation, helps with overall recovery. And I think the evidence is a little bit thin, but I do enjoy doing them. And if I had them in my house, I would do it every day. Of course, the reduction of the inflammation from the cold plunge might inhibit, again, the inflammatory response you get from training. So you can't do it too close. It needs to be four hours away, but you can activate the brown fat

so you get increased metabolic rate and increased fat loss potentially, which you can obviously overeat because increased metabolic rate also makes you hungry. So a lot of people... The sauna can be like a mimicker of exercise a little bit, in a way, like a zone two cardio. I realize it's not as intensive, but... My heart rate goes up.

It might be like a prolonged, you know, so if you just fasted cardio, like you're mentioning, and then went into the sauna afterwards... I'm sure that has a benefit. You can make an argument that you get like a little prolonged exercise. I'm sure it has a benefit. I wanted to do a deep dive on this

at one point so I started collecting material but I didn't get to the point yet so I was doing a deep dive about sleep which I just finished and then optimizing endurance

whether that's with supplements or drugs and now I'm working on an entrepreneur deep dive so the cold plunge and the infrared sauna is next and then I'll know a lot more

but I haven't looked into it that much but honestly I enjoy doing them. And I think there's a benefit. It's good for your skin. Yeah. That's for sure. Especially infrared sauna, good for your skin.

Sweat a lot, get all those toxins out. And then the cold plunge is just basically just a measure of masculinity. How long can you sit in there? Yeah, three minutes, pussy. Five minutes, we're getting there. Seven minutes, now we're talking. But what degree was it at? Yeah, no, it has to be like two, four Celsius.

I'm not sure what that is in Fahrenheit. But yeah, it has to be cold AF. Yeah, and then you move your arms. And you don't sit in there and you bundle up like a little girl and keep all that body temperature on you. No, no, you got to move around. And then last five to seven minutes. Put it in a thermal layer.

Yeah. Let me go to the bathroom real quick. I've been drinking a lot of water. Yes, sir. Yeah, sorry about that. Take your time to go for it. You are asleep for one third of your entire lifespan. You might be doing everything while you're working out, your nutrition,

everything during the day to optimize things, but your sleep might not be where it could be. So that's why we partnered with Eight Sleep Mattresses, because the temperature of which you sleep at makes a big difference on your sleep quality. And Eight Sleep has all the metrics to make sure that your HRV, your bed temperature, all these things are moving you in the right direction.

Eight Sleep has totally changed the way that we approach and the way we sleep for the past three years now. Andrew, how can they check it out? Yes, that's over at eightsleep.com slash powerproject and when you guys go there, you'll automatically save $150 off this amazing technology and the best sleep of your life. Again, 8sleep.com slash

powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Can you start gluing with mine? Yeah, so you did. You did a... Oh, go ahead. Oh, no. I was going to say you said you did a deep dive into sleep. Give us some juicy stuff on sleep. Anything new?

Please, let's hear this. I mean there's like this delta sleep-inducing peptide that works really well for some people. I have a question. Yeah. Whenever a peptide is mentioned, do they always have to be injected or can these be pills? Or are they just pure injectables? Most of them are injectables, but only BPC-157 is oral. You can take that orally.

And then some nasal sprays are coming to the market for the people who don't want to inject. But I've heard mixed results. Like you have an NAD plus nasal spray, but ideally you intravenous that with the nerves or through a clinic. You can do subcutaneous administrations. But since there's such potent antioxidants, the NAD plus and the glutathione, it might cause some pro-oxidant effect. So you raise your antioxidant profile so much that it might actually act as an oxidant or reactive oxygen species. Again, limited scientific evidence.

So this is why many of these are administered intravenously, diluted tremendously in normal saline solution, whether that's 500 milliliters or even a liter of NSS. So yeah, everything has their preferred administration route. And most of the peptides, including insulin and growth hormone, is all sub-Q, subcutaneous. And then, of course, the bodybuilders would say, I'd rather do growth hormone intramuscular to get a localized IGF-1 release out of that.

They get more bang for your buck and get some side enhancement, which remains to be debated. So yeah, unfortunately, most of the peptides you just got to inject. So if you don't want to inject and then look into basic melatonin, you take three milligrams up to 100 milligrams before bed. It's such a potent antioxidant that the more you take, the more of an antioxidant effect it has. And every time it metabolizes into something else, that is also a potent antioxidant.

Yeah. So you've said three milligrams to a hundred milligrams? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So some people go up to a hundred milligrams of melatonin per day and they get neurogenesis out of it. And of course, a lot of brain health over prolonged periods of time that might drop it down to a maintenance dose of 25 milligrams or 10 milligrams. You're taking a lot of pills because they usually only come in like 3 milligram. Yeah, so you have 10 milligram tablets and I think

on Amazon I saw 25 milligrams for the biohackers out there. Then of course if you live in Sweden or Australia where they can only go up to half a milligram or 3 milligram per serving a year, taking a whole handful, basically the whole accidentally the whole bottle of melatonin. I think melatonin is going to make a comeback.

Yeah. I think people preached against it for a long time. But I think you'll see more people talking about it in 2020. That's funny. The first search that comes on Amazon when you just type in high dose is melatonin. Yeah. That's crazy. Oh, really?

What's a milligram dose in that? So I found 60 milligrams to be the highest one so far yeah they've upped their game chris uh kadowski that we had on the show he was recommending pretty high dosages of it um dante tridell yeah i think he's like almost more than 300 milligram range really 300 recommending to some people it's it's interesting thing i mean i know that there's a relationship between that and your circadian rhythm and so forth. And so some people say not to fuck with it. I went up to 30 milligrams and then I felt like an old man.

I felt depressed. Yeah. I guess I didn't metabolize by the time I was awake. So maybe some of the metabolites were still active and I would just go to the gym and I could barely train. I think you got to take it away before you go to bed, I think. Yeah, that's what I did. I slowly ramped up the dose from 3 milligrams to 10, 15 to 20, and then 25, 30.

Just slowly ramping up the dose over weeks. And then by the time I was on 30, at one point, I just started feeling off. I felt like an old man. This can't be happening. Going to the gym is not enjoyable. I felt literally depressed. And I go through my notes. It's like, oh, yeah, 30 milligrams of melatonin.

Let's take that out first. It's pretty high. And then within 24 hours, I felt like my old self again. Wow. Yeah, all the anti-aging stuff that I was doing finally started working again. So for me, a high dose of melatonin was potent enough to make me feel like all the anti-aging stuff that I was doing. And the TRT that I was on at the time was ineffective. What time did you take it at night?

What time did you go to bed? Usually about nine. I take my last dose of supplements with my dinner. And then I go to bed about 11. But to be honest, over the last two years, I've been going to bed at four. So, you know, when I say 11. Yeah, 4 p.m. Or 4 a.m., sorry.

4 a.m. 4 a.m. So, because I'm in Thailand 4 p.m.? Yeah, 4 p.m. Or 4 a.m., sorry. 4 a.m. 4 a.m. So, because I'm in Thailand, so the time zones is a lot different. And I schedule all of my consultations around 12 o'clock at midnight, my time, which is afternoon daytime for most of the people in Europe and the U.S. Or early morning or late night for the people in Australia. So, that seems to work best for me. to people in Australia. So that seems to work best for me.

So when I say, you know, taking supplements at 9, I actually mean 1 a.m., three hours before going to bed or two hours before going to bed. Yeah, that's been the schedule that I've been following recently. So not much sunlight for me. But you get used to the schedule also. Yeah. Let me ask you real quick about melatonin because I was going through my Amazon orders

because there was, and I still have it on my counter, I was taking 300 micrograms of melatonin just because I didn't want to become super dependent on it, but I wanted to see if I could get some benefit of it. And I did notice that. But what do you think, do you think that there can be a dependence effect? Like once someone starts using melatonin a lot,

then they stop, then they feel like they need it? Or is it so beneficial that three milligrams, five milligrams is nothing and it's just good to take each night? Yeah. So anecdotally, I took 30 milligrams and the next day I stopped and I slept fine. Fine. Okay.

You know, I felt better. But of course, some people, their neurotransmitter production is not optimal. So melatonin is produced from serotonin. And if your serotonin levels are not high enough, then you cannot produce enough melatonin. And then maybe taking exogenous melatonin in the form of a supplement, whether that's three micrograms, three milligrams or 300 milligrams, maybe that's enough to kind of offset the pathway and now you're wide awake. But if that's the case, maybe your intestinal health is shit, which is where most of the serotonin is produced. is shit, which is where most of the serotonin is produced. So maybe fix your intestinal health first

or take a serotonin supplement with vitamin B6, B5, P, which helps with the conversion, the enzymatic reaction of serotonin into melatonin. That's why every intelligent sleep formula out there has vitamin B6, B5, P. Some of them have serotonin for the people who are not on

SSRIs. You said vitamin B6, B5, P? Yeah, vitamin B6, P5P. P5P, okay. Yeah, peroxidone, whatever. Peroxidone 5, peroxidine, yeah, something like that. So that's the active version that helps with the enzymatic reactions, converting serotonin into melatonin with melatonin production. So if your serotonin levels are low and your vitamin B6 levels are low,

then maybe exogenous melatonin is more So if your serotonin levels are low and your vitamin B6 levels are low, then maybe exogenous melatonin is more than enough to kind of offset that melatonin production that you had naturally that was already bad to begin with. So again,

if you're healthy, a lot of these side effects that people are talking about, I don't think they play out. You know, the bottom line is get healthy. Of course. Which you have to,

again, treat your body like a project, focus on nutrition and training and sleep and it sounds like a broken record. But every. Which you have to, again, treat your body like a project, focus on nutrition and training and sleep. And it sounds like a broken record. But every time, you know, people have an open ear when you talk about supplements, but when you tell them about the total picture, they're like, fuck that. I'd rather inject something, you know?

Yeah. You told Andrew he's got to fast for five days and do a carnivore diet. Yeah. Well, basically, if you want to. Yeah. I already had checked out by then. So I would. So the LL37 is what you're going to have to pin.

Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Yeah, but of course there's always – I'd rather do like the hard approach because you gain so much more knowledge through the hard approach. So yeah, if I want to – if people come to me with digestive issues through consultations, stop eating. Like, wow, they can't do that. So the consultation is expensive. You need to go on a budget now and stop eating food and then maybe you break even for after a week.

Yeah, so if you don't eat for five and a half days, you clean out your intestinal tract, your inflammation, gut inflammation goes away. You build some perseverance in character by not eating. Life is not only about food. It's a lot of – I like that. It's like a financial fat guy math.

Yeah. Well, I mean how much money can you save if you don't eat for a week? You can save at least 100 bucks and most people spend way more than that. Way more than that. And then you slowly start reintroducing food. And if your elimination diet has to be so extreme that it turns into a carnivore diet, traditional carnivore diet, then so be it. So be it. So be it.

I think it can be highly beneficial for people who are chronically infested. If you eat the American diet – I did it for a month and I got myocarditis at some point. I'm like, what the hell is going on? You're talking about the American diet. Yeah. No, it's horrible. It's horrible. This is me modifying every time I go out.

No cheese, no butter, no oil, no this, no that. It basically turns into a you know just bro food yeah uh and even then i feel off you know my digestion is horrible since i came here so again next time airbnbs because i can't deal with this another time you know so so yeah if you're in a very poor state of health um following uh the regular diet of your country yeah stop eating for a while. You feel better. You feel hungry, obviously.

But we got terzepidide for that nowadays, the liraglutide. Probably spend less on the terzepidide than you do on the food. So again, you save some money that way. Yeah. And then you slowly start reintroducing food that your body agrees with.

And for most people, that's a carnivore diet. Unless you're a vegan and you want to reintroduce i don't know soy beans and i don't believe in vegan stuff terrible i've seen a lot of blood work of vegans and it's horrible every time yeah they're so micronutrient deficient it's despicable and over the counter multivitamin is not going to fix them anyway that aside so you do the carnivore diet you did it for a while then you start reintroducing the foods that you like for athletic performance, like rice or quinoa or kale or vegetables.

I don't think the carnivore diet is very sustainable in the long run because I do think you need a little bit of vegetables and you're missing out on vitamin C and some other essential micronutrients. But if you can have a balanced diet that your intestinal tract agrees with, you can pull vacuums at the end of the day, no matter how much food you eat. And you feel nice. And you go to the bathroom, you only have to wipe a couple of times.

With this being said, you have to mention your carnivore diet. Oh, yeah. You have to mention what happened there. So when I was 23, 24, I did a raw food diet. It was before I ever took steroids. And it's honestly the best diet I've ever done.

My intestinal health was great. I was eating like 5,000 calories at the end of the off-season. Everything raw, right? I could pull vacuums. The bathroom experience was great. 5,000 calories. Yeah, 5,000 calories raw food. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you do the overnight oats, right? And maybe at that time I still cooked my rice, but then I would eat it right after cooking. So you don't have those resistant starches that it would form. A good amount of fats, just all sprouted nuts, the almonds. So you sprout those over the next couple of days. And then the digestion is so amazing until I had that one-off with raw chicken that I gave myself salmonella poisoning. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Yeah. So I slowly – I think I went with raw fish first and then raw vegetables and I added some raw steak and then overnight oats and sprouted stuff. And at one point, I got a lot of confidence. Like after three months, I'm like, oh, this is going so well. I feel very anabolic, you know, comparatively. Later you take steroids and you realize it doesn't work. But I felt very anabolic.

I felt very healthy. And then I got some confidence to add in the raw eggs. That went well. You boil the outside because technically they say that the salmonella and the food poisoning comes from the outside of the egg. So you kind of dip it in a pot of boiling water, let that sit for a second, and then you crack them open and you slam them whole. And then later on I started doing that with the chicken.

I think after a month or two, maybe three even, so a couple months into this raw food diet, then I got salmonella poisoning. That was the most shredded I've ever been. I bet it was. Yeah, both ends. Yeah, at the same time. Yeah. So I think

back to the sleep stuff if someone is trying to sleep with different supplements and stuff my suggestion, something that's helped me is to take them much earlier than you would think so like around, depending on the time of year

but most of the time around 5pm is when I just start to kind of shut stuff down at my house. I put the lights are down. It's like darker. I'll put my stupid red light glasses on and I just try to kind of chill at that point. But if you're going to take like melatonin or something like that, I think the key would be to do it way before you go to bed because I've had the experience before where you take it right before bed or other sleep agents and then you wake up and you're kind of groggy. You're still kind of feeling it. So try it earlier. It might be helpful. But you were mentioning a peptide for sleep. That might be helpful. Yes. It's Delta sleep-inducing peptide. It didn't do anything for me. I tried

several brands. So I know that at least one of them should have been legit. You never know with gray area peptide websites. And I got it through the compounding pharmacies as well but some people report very good response of that now these are also the people that use sleep aids like xanax or or this is such a laundry list of sleep aids out there that um you know the ambient that kind of stuff they say that they can switch off the medications and go with the peptide but for me it never really did anything sleep is never really an issue for me i just work all day do stuff go around get my stuff done and then about two hours before i want to go to bed i shut it down close off all electronic devices maybe read a little bit play with my well six cats eight cats that i have oh

wow two outside six in the house and uh and then i kind of unwind that way. But I haven't really taken much sleep aids recently, only when I feel that I need it. So I do a vigorous Q&A every Saturday, unless I'm traveling. And then I go until about 2.30, 3 a.m. in the morning. And, yeah, that's pretty close to bedtime. So that's the only time I would take maybe 10 milligrams of melatonin and some serotonin and 5-HTP, that is, and vitamin B6, B5, B and valerian root, right?

All these herbal extracts. Gorilla Mind has a great one, Gorilla Dream. So I take that and some extra melatonin, extra serotonin because he took that out because otherwise people with SSRIs can't use them, obviously, because then you get serotonin syndrome. So I top it off with a couple goodies, And then two hours later, I fall wide asleep. But most of the time, my sleep hygiene is pretty good. Buying a very expensive mattress was probably the best thing I did for my sleep.

Which one did you get? It's something that I found locally in Thailand. The mattresses there are like twice the price because they're all imported. So it's like a couple grand that I spend on a mattress. And, of course, then traveling for a month, you sleep worse because you sleep on these hotel mattresses. So that kind of sucks. The mattress I slept with Scott McNally when I went to Detroit.

He's also a podcaster. Think Big Bodybuilding Media. Shout out to you, Scott. His mattress was the best out of all the places I slept in. But of course, this is a home mattress. Yeah. But the hotel mattress is horrible. Yeah.

So again, you have to tell people, buy an expensive mattress that is ergonomically designed that maybe has some climate control in it or climate control in the room. Those are the best things that I can say for sleep, especially if you're on cycle because your body temperature just goes up throughout the night. Yeah, you wouldn't know. No, I used to sweat too when I was sleeping. A lot. Yeah.

So I've used them. I have an eight sleep. We all have an eight sleep. Right. So if you can climate control the mattress or the room, right, and you have this beautiful mattress that you can sleep on that really forms depending on how you lay and you have a nice quality blanket and a quality pillow and a body pillow potentially so you can kind of hug it so your arms don't go numb.

You don't feel lonely. Yeah, you don't feel lonely. Yeah, exactly. And then you sleep beautifully. And then the sleep aid comes later. But of course, people don't want to hear that. They want to know what they can inject. Yeah. So I have like a four-part sleep deep dive. First I went over the supplements, then

the drugs, and then best practices. Which one do you think got the least and the most views? The drugs got the most views and the best practices got the least because I talked about blinding curtains and expensive mattresses and climate control, and they're like, ah, too much work. No. This is how I improve my sleep. Okay.

My room is pitch dark even during the day. I do need to get some of those blinds though. That's something that makes a big difference. I just use an eye mask. But I mean that's the cheap man's blind. Right. But it helps a lot also. Yeah.

I mean people in the plane have been doing that for years when they fly. So I think ideally if you have those blinded curtains and you can set them on the schedule that when your alarm goes off, your blind air curtains just open instead of the alarm going off. Then you wake up with natural sunlight right over the course of 30 minutes. And I think that's the best way to wake up. And then otherwise you have these lamps that Philips or a couple of other producers make. They give some nice sounds of the beach or, I don't know,

some grassy fields or the forest. And then slowly the light starts coming up over 30 minutes. I had one of those back in the day. At one point I smashed it though. It was a tremble on. Wait, seriously? Yeah. How angry did it make you?

Horrible, horrible drug. Well, you did a gram a week, right? Yeah. So as smart as I sound now now back then i was a dummy yeah that's the gh15 forum for you though everybody was egging each other on to kind of do more and more and more and i have 700 works maybe a thousand will work better which it didn't yeah so we all go through that phase i guess where you think more is better yeah and nowadays i'm more about optimizing everything else and then

using a little bit here and there to get the most out of the optimization that already took place. But it takes a lot of extra work and effort, unfortunately. What you got going on over there, Andrew? Yeah, earlier when you were talking about like a gram of steroids could really take somebody kind of

a... take them far, right? Like they can get a lot out of just a gram. Anytime you talk to anybody that's in the gym that is potentially on stuff, or they're really on like three to five grams, like you had said, they're, they will always say like, yeah, I may, or maybe they won't admit it beyond a lot of stuff. But the guys at the top, they're on way more than me like that's what that's kind of like it gives them an excuse to be like no i'm actually going to take a little bit more because the guys at the top i mean they're on like 10 times as much as me

i've heard that so many times so most guys at the top are on a gram gram and a half two grams so that was the question is that really what the guys at the quote no but the guys at the top have phenomenal genetics and phenomenal work ethic. They don't have a life besides bodybuilding or strongman or strength sports. That's all they do. They live it.

They breathe it. And you ask them, which countries have you been to? My hometown. I haven't seen anything because they've been focused on winning. You ask them,

which movie did they watch? They did cardio when you were watching Inception. And so this kind of stuff, they have a very one-dimensional life. And that's what's required to really win at the top. And if you want to experience a little bit more life, then it's going to detract from you being the best version of yourself

in this particular sport. So I think most guys at the top are smart enough not to do much. I think the guys that are taking a lot, they burn themselves out and they never get there because it takes five, 10, 20 years to get to the top. So, so most of the guys that the top amateurs might be running a boat load to

turn pro. And then when they do turn pro and then they're like, they have to start at the bottom again, what are you going to do? Run seven grams of gear. I don't think that's why a lot of these guys, they turn pro and then they're like they have to start at the bottom again what are you going to do run seven grams of gear I don't think that's why a lot of these guys they turn pro

and then they throw in the towel because it took them five grams of gear to get there and a couple organs unfortunately yeah it's crazy and then the guys

who just come out of nowhere and just do their first show they go to you know the regionals and then do another show they turn pro so the three shows

they turn pro two shows they go to the Manchester Olympia and then do another show. They turn pro. So the three shows they turn pro. Two shows they go to the Manchester Olympia and then they play top 10. I mean, Justin Schaer, for example,

he's done like, I asked him, how many shows have you done? It's my fifth show. It's already the Olympia. Yeah. Andrew Jack.

Yeah, no, Andrew Jack has done like seven shows, but Justin Schaer is, yeah, also some of these guys at the Olympia

have done like less than 10 shows yeah you know I think I think this is the 10th show of Derek Lunsford

already Mr. Olympia really it's just his 10th show 10th or 12th show yeah yeah no he did the regionals then he went to Mr. USA

won that turned pro did a pro show won that went to the 2012 Olympia he was 4th or 5th show he was at the Olympia

that's insane and these guys are probably not taking as much as the top amateurs top amateurs that stay at the amateur level for 10 years they're blasting hard yeah and i see their work all the time it's not good it's not good unfortunately yeah i would have to do six grams a year to to just become a top average was that ever your goal to try to get to the olympia stage no okay as we discussed this earlier right i met jay cutler in 2006 after he won the mr olympia so i was like large and in charge that was his first olympia win he came to holland we had a seminar at sports and fitness and close to amsterdam i met jay cutler i his hand. His hand made my hand disappear.

And then as soon as our handshake released, all my aspirations to become a pro bodybuilder fell to the floor. No, because I realized I could never be that big. And in the back of my head, like how much drugs and things I have to sacrifice to be that big. And Jay has got great genetics, right? And he lived like a bodybuilder since 18 up until the point he won so when i we didn't have classic physique so i didn't feel

inspired to really keep going and that was in i was how old was i i think he was 34 i was 24 so it took two years before i started taking something and then later on i on my first cycle, I thought I blew up. I made good gains. Yeah. And then you see somebody that I coached with good genetics blow up on their first cycle, and they start winning world championships, you know? So there's a huge difference between genetic response and what you can accomplish.

You know, there's a video that I'm having that I sent to Andrew. Yeah. And it's like Kai Greene's first show. I don't know if you've seen this before, but this is like an 18 or 19-year-old Kai Greene. And look at that. Yeah. First off, he can pose really well. But then at that age, most people would be like, oh, he's on a boatload of stuff.

No, he's not on nothing yet. No. That's why he made such a big jump from stuff. No, he's not on nothing yet. No. That's why he made such a big jump from the Dirty Diana routine because he turned pro-natural. And I think his first show, he just did a low cycle. And then when he started getting some success with the Dirty Diana routine that he did in New York, then he started taking something. And then you see Kai Greene on stuff. And he's probably not running much now, but he's just got the size he's huge yeah he's he's huge it's insane that's crazy that's a child right there yeah my goodness so there's uh yeah

unfortunately everybody wants to say drugs but you know you have to work with what you were given and some people were born for this shit and most of us were not so we uh we just gotta do with you know what we got, basically. Look into my eyes. Now, I know that you want to be looking better. You want to be going walking the streets being like, damn, I look and feel good. Because then everyone's going to be looking at you. That's why we've partnered with Viore Clothing.

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Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Got anything else over there, Andrew? Yeah, sure. Anything new with SARMs? He's just like, all right, I'm out. Well, I guess what's your favoritest new thing? Favorite new thing? Oh, it's definitely not SARMs.

I think SARMs are for quitters. Yeah. You said SARMs are for quitters? Yeah. Why? Real men use steroids. Steroids are for closers and SARMs are for quitters? Yeah. Why? Real men use steroids. Steroids are for closers and SARMs are for quitters. All righty.

Yeah, no, I think SARMs, I don't know. They were not FDA approved. All of the clinical trials have already been discontinued. The dosages that were investigated were milligram dosages, single milligram dosages. We're talking about two, three, six milligrams. And people were running 30 milligrams or 50 milligrams. Oh, yeah, it's the best thing ever. Try 50 milligrams of Anovar, pharmaceutical compounded Anovar, which unfortunately nowadays is no longer available through the compounding pharmacy.

You guys need to change, vote a little bit better. Yeah, you guys need to change, vote a little bit better. But the way that things are going in the United States with things being banned, the peptides and the ANIVAR and the HCG, yeah, it's not good. That being said, so the SARMs are everywhere. I don't see how that's still being sold. And people getting introduced to them because it's easy to buy and it's oral, right? Yeah.

And at one point they start trying some actual steroids, and they sure will realize that it's way better. And we had pro-hormones back in the day, right, which people thought were natural because they were not banned. So, you know, then there was a drug test for, you know, pro-hormone XYZ, and then people started to retire. Oh, that's, you know, such xyz and then people started to retire oh that's that's you know such a coincidence yeah so i think you know there are gateway drugs into doing actual steroids and actual performance enhancing drugs yeah and a lot of people mess themselves up with this stuff

because they don't understand basic endocrinology or basic biology so they take austereine they shut themselves down they don't do a pT because they think it's a natural supplement. And then their testosterone levels simply don't come back. Yikes. Yeah. And so Tanner Tatterts is one of those influencers on TikTok, educators on TikTok that takes my content and a lot of other educators' content and kind of digests it down.

TikTokifies it. Yeah, TikToks it. Yeah, digests it down to a younger generation. And so he's actively trying to promote, like, the Serms is not really the solution. He's got a huge Q&A where people just, all the commonly asked questions by people that age are answered. Yeah. And that's a godsend because they won't listen to me or you or you because we're too old. And I'm a liar.

Yeah, yeah, of course. You're a dirty liar. Clearly untrimmed on a sandwich. Year round. Yeah, and in a good mood, nonetheless. Yeah, amazing. Do bodybuilders use SARMs, though? Like, in addition?

You know? They might use... The way he laughs. Dude, I've been backstage at over 100 shows, right? Whether I was coaching or as a fan, and nobody ever came to me backstage or said backstage, you know, that I heard through the gate, dude, this Austrian made me turn pro. Dude, this MK677 made me gain 20 pounds in the off-season.

That has never, ever happened at any bodybuilding show ever from up until now, up until the next 100 years. This is only being used by gateway people who want to use something easy that's online with a discount code. They just want to try something anabolic. They don't care about their blood work. They don't understand that their testosterone levels are going to be shut down.

Bodybuilders might use GW1516, carterine, to enhance fat loss, which again is now obsolete with liraglutide, dulaglutide, the appetite suppressant, drosepidide particularly. So I don't think they're being used. Maybe MK-677 when you're young. Yeah.

Even though it can downregulate the HPTA. So there's some scientific evidence that MK-677 lowers testosterone levels. Then again, that's not really a controlled environment where people are eating more or eating better. So it's probably some kid taking MK-677 that was probably not pure. Maybe some Austrian in there, like they're mixing a little bit of Austrian so you get an anabolic effect.

And that's why their testosterone levels are going down. So you don't really know. The best advice I could give people is that there's scientific evidence on all these traditionally used steroids. Testosterone, anivoreore oxymethylone halotestin the animal primobolin mastron tremble on equipoise but it's only on animals right and tremble on there's a little bit of scientific evidence on humans but mostly on animals a couple steroids do the research you can do research on it with with sarums you can't that this if you if you type in Osteo in YK11, RAD140,

there's less than 50 studies on it. And it's mostly in the context of drug testing, so it's not really a study you can learn from. So no, SARMs are for quitters. Why do you think something like testosterone is used in TRT? Because you mentioned when you came off of it, you looked younger. And steroids seem to have an effect

on making people look older. Yeah. So what do you think is at play there? Is it just to keep the testosterone levels high so we can hold on to some muscle mass? I think a lot of TRT clinics are just to try and sell you drugs. They're just glorified drug dealers.

Yep. So we had a couple of them at the Mr. Olympia with a lot of influencers and going around, literally going around recruiting people like, fuck, I want you on TRT. Basically like that. That's why people call them TRT clinics. Some of these things. That's literally what some of them are. That's what they do. They put you on testosterone and arimedics.

Job done. Next. So if you really want to improve somebody's health, analyze your health first, lifestyle changes second, supplementation and diet third. And then if they need something, why don't we start with HCG monotherapy? Doesn't sound sexy. And the problem is nowadays, HCG got banned because it's biological. What kind of therapy is that?

HCG monotherapy HCG monotherapy Yeah HCG HCG monotherapy Yeah I know I mispronounced it wrong My bad I said HCG

No H H CG Human chorionic gonadotropin Okay Okay So this stimulates

The combined LHCG receptor On the testicles. So that's luteinizing hormone and human chorionic gonadotropin. They can both activate this receptor and start testosterone production in the testicles. And indirectly, the testosterone in your testicles can then activate spermatogenesis in the sertoli cells. So we'll get back to that. There's a little bridge there. So you take the HCG complementing your natural LH production.

Let's say your LH is middle of the range, luteinizing hormone, and your HCG now gets super physiological. Through this combined receptor, your testosterone levels can go up, assuming you don't have a varicose cell. A varicose cell is impaired blood flow to the testicles. So you can diagnose this with an ultrasound. a lot of guys that have low testosterone levels maybe they're healthy maybe they're training right they're sleeping right they're doing everything right testosterone still low do an ultrasound on your

testicles see if the blood flow to the testicles is actually good we're impaired if you want to get that fixed to a surgery then maybe your testosterone levels can double or triple. Yeah. And if you were to take, if you have a varical cell and you take HCG monotherapy, this increased amount of HCG in your bloodstream will never come to the testicles. So your testosterone levels might come up marginally.

So all these things, again, you need to properly diagnose. And then if you're doing everything right and you want to raise your testosterone levels, HCG monotherapy, some people get 1,500 nanograms per deciliter. Yeah. Wow. But HCG is banned now. Okay.

So some of the compounding pharmacies and health clinics still have it, but it's very expensive. So from a cost perspective, if you have to spend, let's say a hundred dollars per week on hcg for example but you can get a script for testosterone for 25 dollars why are you not going testosterone right it's more cost effective yeah and and i'll be honest most guys on hcg monotherapy eventually go to testosterone anything anyway so i'm on hcg monitor therapy myself to get my wife pregnant because I don't expect my LH and FSH levels to come back after blasting steroids for 12 years, 15 years. So I just replaced part of that signal with HCG and FSH, follicle-simulating hormone. My sperm production is stellar.

My testosterone levels are 700 nanograms per deciliter. But I know what steroids feel like. So when my wife is pregnant, I will go back on hormone replacement therapy. Okay. Okay. Yeah. There's a few questions from the track. I'm curious.

A lot of people, and you talked to us, that you work with entrepreneurs, and a lot of people are curious about, like, nootropics. Right. So what are some, like, I guess, nootropics that people can get their hands on that are really simple? Many of them are out there. I mean, you can increase your dopamine levels with L-tyrosine. It's already a big game changer. I have a very lengthy entrepreneur deep dive video series which is coming up.

I just did part one. We're just optimizing like routine. That's on your channel right now? Yeah, that's on my channel right now. There we go. It's like three or four more parts. It will be a five-part series. So basically I think for entrepreneurship,

I think hormone replacement therapy, if medically needed, is very beneficial because higher testosterone levels means higher dopamine levels and higher dopamine means more motivation. And it doesn't matter how much L-tyrosine you take with vitamin B6, B5, B to help with the conversion of L-tyrosine into dopamine.

It will never feel as good as a little bit of L-tyrosine and testosterone, exogenously. Okay. Yeah. So that's just a hard reality. So most entrepreneurs

that I know, they're on some sort of HRT protocol, test, ATG, DHEA, pregnenolone, growth hormone,

the whole shebang. Okay. Just low dosages. And then you can look into neurogenesis, right, to optimize brain function. By the way,

when you said low dosages, what does low dosages mean? So low dosages where you're actually still within the reference range. Okay. Yes, we're talking about 125 to 200 milligrams a test. Okay. Yeah. And then, of course, if you're a bodybuilder, you use some of your dosage for anabolism, and then part of the dosage is for cognitive function.

Okay. Yeah. So how much are you on right now, TRT? I am on, I do three half cc's a week three half cc's whatever that is uh so you're 50 per no i'm sorry 100 100 milligrams per shot so 300 milligrams so that's generous trt for athletes okay yeah yeah so so you let's say you use 200 milligrams for entrepreneurship and 100 milligrams for training. I like that.

Yeah, or 100 milligrams for entrepreneurship and 200 milligrams for training, right? Because it goes, I mean, when you have more muscle. And I'm running, so let's throw another 100 in there. So we're up to, what, 400? Yeah, 100 milligrams of Nandrolone on top. Yeah, a little bit of Prima Bolin. You can throw that in there. Sounds good.

Yeah, sounds good. Sounds like we've got a stack going. Yeah, a little bit. And the prima ball in. You can throw that in there. Sounds good. Yeah, sounds good. Sounds like we've got a stack going. Yeah, a little bit of Anovar. I still have a stock of Anovar when it was still legally prescribed, so I'm just spacing that out. All right, guys, we got off the nootropic bit. Yeah, sorry. So don't take this as a suggestion, please. I love this stuff.

So basically, I think hormone replacement therapy is very beneficial for entrepreneurs when they're over 35. Yeah. hormone replacement therapy is very beneficial for entrepreneurs when they're uh over 35 yeah many of my entrepreneur clients are on hormone replacement therapy or a little bit more right because they're also in the gym and training hard so they might be on 250 to 300 milligrams of testosterone plus primo testosterone plus anivar and then uh neurogenic aids very beneficial something like cerebral isin which is an an injectable brain-derived neurotropic factor from pig brains. Someone did ask about like Solank and something else too. So it's basically step by step, right?

There's a lot of things that can enhance neurogenesis. Melatonin can do that. Nupep, one of the nootropics, but it's banned. So you have to get that from a gray area website. Very beneficial, 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams per day for cognitive function, especially memory formation, absorbing knowledge. Nootropic is very good. So if you want to analyze scientific evidence, you take 10 milligrams

Nupept, you sit down for four hours, yeah, it will be there forever. Wow. You trapped in there. Yeah, you trapped it in there. Yeah, it's like you have your peak E-meter in one of those ghost trappers and then you suck it in there and it'll stay there. And you can recall it then with other nootropics.

So if other nootropics are specific for recalling memory, and other are for memory formation. That's why I have the DHEA and pregnenolone in there because they help with cognitive benefits as well. They're neurosteroids. Yeah. So they help with brain function. Have you personally felt these things at work or is it not something like that that you don't feel? Oh, you feel it. Yeah. So they help with brain function. Have you personally felt these things at work or is it not something like that?

You don't feel it. Oh, you feel it. Okay. Yeah, you feel it. When you take 2,500 milligrams of L-tyrosine, you're just time to work. And then four hours later, you're like, oh, man, I got a lot of work done. Yeah. Yeah.

Normally it would take me six to eight hours. Do you have any experience with Kratom? No. No. Even though I'm from Holland and I've dabbled with all of the recreational drugs, I've never tried kratom. And it's available in Thailand now. It's legal. But I know I was always more of the stimulant kind of guy.

But kratom can have some nootropic benefits as well. Some people kind of calms them so you can learn a little bit better. And of course, like wheat, you have so many strains. So there's strains that make you feel more sleepy or maybe a little bit more sedating or pain removal. Or others are a little bit more stimulating and can help you with cognition. Yeah. But I haven't really looked at it. I should look into that for the entrepreneur.

I'll give you something to try. I don't think anything even comes close to it in terms of motivation. I'm okay. I can't bring that into Thailand. Well, I'll give you something that you can take here if you'd like. Let's run it past the line. Let me ask you this, Steve.

It's right here, actually. Mind bullet. Oh, mind bullet. Oh, it is a single serving? Yeah, come on, man. You did MDMA and fucking LSD and you're worried about that? At the end of the show. What would be the ABCs in terms of like,

because any drawbacks to the amount of L-tyrosine you mentioned, and then obviously you mentioned youth peps. So where would somebody like start with some of this? And then what is like the...

I mean, Gorilla Mind is great formulas for this. I mean, Gorilla Mind is the energy drink and the Respawn. So if you live

in the United States, you can buy those energy drinks at the vitamin shop. And those were a lifesaver. I didn't bring it, obviously, because it's heavy, right? So I go to the Olympia three days, and then I keep stocking up on the Gorilla Mind energy drinks because they have L-tyrosine and, man, I should know this.

Alpha-GPC. Alpha-GPC. I should know this stuff. And, man, what is that? Derek, I'm sorry. He made a good combination though. You feel that when you drink that. It feels different than just a caffeinated drink.

Right. So you have some nootropics in there, some stuff that makes you feel good, some canna. What was the other one? Saffron root extract, I think that's in the Respawn. So it makes you feel good, energetic, and also very cognitively enhanced. Yeah, I wish I had one of those. I'm sure if I had a Respawn right now, I would recollect all of those ingredients.

So he has a very good entry formulas, right? They're all over the counter, nothing in there is banned. You can basically, he ships worldwide. So if you live internationally, you buy a tub of Respawn, you take a scoop, give that a try. And otherwise, if you live in the United States, you can get the energy drinks because, again, shipping is very expensive.

If you buy a case on energy drinks, I have to pay $200 on shipping to Thailand on a case of energy drinks. So I told him, I said, I can't justify doing this because, of course, it gets reimbursed being a sponsored athlete. But $200 for 12 energy drinks? Yeah, that's a bit much.

So I just use the Respawn. And that basically contains everything that I would normally endorse people to get started with. You do maybe a can or a half a scoop of Respawn or a full scoop of Respawn. Get started with that. And then if you notice a benefit out of that, then you can look into something like Nupept

or CMAX, CELANC. It's re-reliased in the long term. And even SSRIs, like fluvoxamine or vortioxetine, again, comment section is going wild now because I'm talking about SSRIs. They can potentiate neurogenesis

continuously. And I was on fluvoxamine for a year or nine months, give or take, and then I had to taper it off and stop cold turkey because it's not good for fertility purposes. So I stopped cold turkey. Don't do that. Taper it off also. It's horrible.

But that enhances neurogenesis so much that the productivity that comes out of that is so much better. So I felt that, you know, blunting the emotions a little bit, the negative emotions that you would have on fluvoxamine, for example, where you don't want to do something or something seems like a big roadblock

or too much of a project, I would just sit down and do it. And even now that I stopped fluvoxamine for close to a year, I still notice that the neurogenic effects that took place are still there. So my sleep quality is better. My cognition is better.

Again, sometimes words elude me, but there's so many compounds to memorize. Yeah. So, but it's, I think that was very beneficial. And I would like to try vortioxetine, which even induces more neurogenesis. And the next time I try an SSRI, or it's not really an SSRI, but it's a, what is it called? It's a serotonin modulator. Serotonin receptor modulator, something along those lines. Yeah, and you have continuous neurogenesis.

So instead of taking some Axolank or Cerebral Isin every single day, you just take this tablet and go about your business. Yeah, I think that's very beneficial. But that's like late stage, like end stage neurogenesis management. Same as Accutane is end stage acne management or testosterone is end stage low testosterone management. Yeah. How do you eat? Like you mentioned that you're just kind of like winging it over here. And you mentioned you're on kind of like almost like you're getting leaner probably to come over here and be on some of the shows and stuff like that.

But just kind of typically, like what does normal food look like for you? What do you prescribe? So I do a ketogenic diet. I don't think that's very good for athletic performance, but I think it's very good for cognition. I mean, you know, I have so much work to do every day. So most of the stuff that I do nowadays mostly revolves around cognition. But I've been doing a ketogenic diet since I think 16,

17, 18 years old, over two decades. Yeah. Very long time. So being in a ketogenic state just allows me to be more productive the entire day. But of course,

when you go to the gym, no, the pump is diminished compared to having a diet with carbohydrates and the endurance is diminished compared to having a diet with carbohydrates, and the endurance is diminished compared to having a diet with carbohydrates. And I think the overall athletic performance is just less. That's why something like the vertical diet, for example, exists, which is a good amount of carbohydrates.

And when I did the vertical diet during the off-season, great improvements, but I would be a little bit brain fogged during the day. And as an entrepreneur, business owner, I, you know, I have to look into all aspects for, I can optimize this one hour, two hours in the gym completely, but it will come as a sacrifice for everything else. So I do a ketogenic diet purely to be cognitive.

And then I still can get away with a good workout in the gym, maybe with some carbs around to work out, uh, depending on, you know, dietary restrictions, what I want to accomplish. But yeah, I've been mostly doing a ketogenic diet.

So that's eggs, steak, salmon, a little bit of chicken here and there, some pork here and there, some, you know, some shrimp here and there. I try to keep it varied. And then some healthy fat sources in the form of nuts, avocado, olive oil, macadamia nut oil,

and a buttload of vegetables. Yeah, and when I say a buttload of vegetables, it's like over a kilo per day. Wow. Yeah of vegetables. Yeah, I'm going to say a buttload of vegetables, like over a kilo per day. Wow. Yeah. Nice. Yeah, I love vegetables. Good.

Yeah, it helps you keep clean and it's just, I don't know, the nutritional benefits are not that high. I'm sure people are going crazy about oxalates. Yeah, I guess. I look horrible. I know I'm going to die. And I think a balanced diet is good, man. I mean, it grows in nature we've our bodies are accustomed to that yeah and even though all the food that we eat is basically genetically modified

or or um grown cultivated in a way that it is now i mean how many people eat boar and bear and you know real live animals and deer and elk and We eat cows. Cows are domesticated. We eat chickens domesticated. And all the grains, well, it's not domesticated, but it's grown over, cultivated, right? So I think the food that we eat is as good as we can have it. It's certainly better than processed foods. So that's what I've been eating the last couple of weeks.

My digestion is not great. Gotcha. You've got a question about peptides. Are they nearly as effective as steroids? No. No? No. Ain't no story.

Peptides are a good add-on. Let me ask you this instead because going off of his question, if somebody doesn't want to take steroids and they'd rather go the peptide route, they might not get steroid-like results, but they would get results with less side effects? You get results, obviously, yeah. Would they have less side effects or it just depends on the peptide? So here's a secretagogue peptide protocol for you guys.

Look into HCG, human chorionic gonadotropin to secrete more testosterone. You will shut down your HPTA because testosterone goes up. Your estrogen goes up. So natural luteinizing hormone and follicle-stimulating hormone You will shut down your HPTA because testosterone goes up, your estrogen goes up, so natural luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone levels will go down. But testicular function sustains. So if you do stop with the HCG, I don't think you even need to do a

post-cycle therapy unless you did it for like two or three years because your testicles will still be active. And LH and FSH levels will come back within a couple weeks and of course you can speed that up with clomiphene right so that's a tablet so you take the hcg uh to boost your testosterone now you can take a growth hormone secretagogue to boost your growth hormone levels hypermorelin the samarillian right ghrp6 ghrp2 i mean there's a boatload of them out there

i think i recently made a video about how to combine those also in relation to MK677 so that's also a growth hormone secretogon yeah so you can basically

upregulate your endogenous hormone production with these medications I've been and Tess Morel actually suggested to me by Merrick but like

I don't like injections so I'm gonna stay away from it so I mean but looking the way you look, you don't need to do anything. Well, I mean, it was based off of my blood work. So I think it was, I could look at it, but it was based off of something. Maybe they want to get the IGF-1 up or something. Yeah.

Maybe. It was something. So what was wrong on your blood work? Let me look. Let me look. I would, just to kind of fill in a little bit here i think that question is always a tough one to answer and we do try to get you know an answer for people that are listening that maybe don't want to inject something don't want a steroid but the real answer the real story is this

is that there's no reason to worry about the side effects of steroids because there's not many you take them responsibly. Right. So you may as well just take steroids. And if you're thinking of injecting this and injecting that and using this peptide and that peptide, you and I know the story. Gateway. You're there, man. You already wrote the check.

You already wrote the check. You signed it. You put it in the mail already. It's gone. So you're more than likely going to make the decision. Later on, yeah. So first you go to SARMs, right? So you're saying just make it now?

Yeah, just pull the trigger. I'm just saying there's a lot of give and take with every single move that you make. And the give and take for taking moderate and modest amounts of performance enhancing drugs is pretty low. I think it's fine. So the peptides are less researched. They're less well-known. Testosterone is very well-known. What testosterone will do for a man is unbelievable.

Tell me about it. That's the first thing I want to take again when my wife is pregnant. You're all like itching and everything. Oh, my God. Yeah. I got my cycle ready. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. I got my cycle ready. It's in the cabinet. As he's looking this up, I got a deep question for you.

All right. Why did you feel it was important to deliver the information about the liver cancer? Oh, here we go. Okay. So. I don't know if people know that you were kind of behind a lot of that. Well, I guess they know now. So I tried to help the guy, honestly. but he didn't really want to be helped.

He just wanted to blow up on social media, which kudos on him. He did accomplish through, I don't know, not so honest routes in my opinion. But I saw as he went on a podcast with you where you did a collaboration and lying straight to your face, which is despicable to me. Yes, you did. And then he did the same thing to Joe Stittix, lying to his face, proclaiming to be natural, and did the same thing to Mark Harley and basically every other podcast that he went on. And at one point, I just couldn't take it anymore. So Derek had some emails. I had some emails.

We shared those. And then he decided, you know what? This is too big not to release, so let's make a documentary about it. So that took a couple months to produce. They used Zack Thielander to piece it all together. Very well done. Yeah, they did a great job.

Yeah, that could have been on Netflix, that documentary. You did a good job. And then, of course, my emails were in there, which I didn't really want to be known because it's basically career suicide, right? When you release a client's emails, even though I only coached him for three weeks and then I threw in the towel. I was like, I can't do this. Because he was very unhealthy and he didn't want to get healthy, right?

He didn't want to focus on that. I think he's even unhealthier now. I'm surprised the guy is even alive by the way he's doing his things. So anyway, so i gave those information to derek right they pieced together that documentary that was released and within five days reddit figured out based on the time zones and when i had my cardiac mri that it was my intake form yeah so so i had to i waited there until uh you know liver king King made his explanatory video and then I was even like, man, this guy's either reading from a teleprompter

or he's just patching one lie with another lie. And then I made my release. Yes, I was the guy to release it. And I released it because he's a lying piece of shit. And he's fooling everybody. And if you just claim TRt fine right it's fine just divert i get it i'm on trt medically supervised trt for legal purposes uh you can't look like this naturally but he said that steroids are for subprimals subprimals and he said that steroids

were um you know the worst thing ever indeed you never need to do your blood work and then lying like to guys that I highly respect. So I was just done with it because I know how bad his blood work was and I know how stupid his cycle was and I completely don't understand how he was prescribed all that stuff. So even the TRT clinic that he was working with at the time

is complicit to the bullshit. Yeah. And whoever he's working with right now, because he's not smart enough to piece this shit together himself, is complicit in the bullshit. And whoever he's working with right now, because he's not smart enough to piece this shit together himself, is complicit in the lie. So I should have released this way earlier. So you wouldn't have been lied to straight to your face.

And Joe Seddix and everybody else. So yeah, sorry it took so long. Gave everyone a lot of views. My IGF-1 was... And I think now looking back on it, me and Derek just did free publicity for the guy because he did get more popular.

Even though now I think he's declining a little bit. Was that a... But honestly, I hope the guy gets healthy because he looks unhealthy as hell. Yeah. And this was my main concern why I had to let him go because, you know,

you come to me for health and then under pretense of health, we try to use some steroids but not to the point that you fuck yourself you know to the point you die which i think based on how it looks now i think it's kind of close to death was that i'm not the only one who thinks of this was that stressful that time for you and that was released because uh derrick derrick was here around that time and he would just seem like he was just in a different place. Yeah, it was a bit annoying because you never know what's going to happen, right? And I didn't want

to be known as the guy that, you know, was a whistleblower, basically. Because again, it could be career suicide, even though I was one of the last guys that actually coached because I just got sick of the bullshit, you know? But guys like Livermore, there's more guys like that that I had to refund and just throw it away. Yeah, because they're abusive.

I mean, the guys... You say guys like that, you mean guys that are like in the limelight? No, no, just competitive bodybuilders or athletes in general or guys that are also in the limelight. And you realize that they're just a mental case. Like I let go of him before he was ever popular, right? So I already saw the red flags after my 10 years, 12 years of coaching. And I'm like, you know what? This is not going to work.

This is going to be a nightmare, which it turned into everybody's nightmare. Yeah. So I've had to do that a couple times where you just know it's not going to work out. Yeah. And just let people go. And, yeah, it's a good thing for me. I've worked with a lot of people that did listen and did want to improve. And that's very rewarding as a coach

because you take people from the beginning all the way to the end and then they win shows or they improve their quality of life. That's what I want to do. And if you use a little bit of performance sensing drugs along the way, fine. As long as you can stay somewhat healthy.

But if you come to me in a poor state of health and I shove it under your nose, like your diet is shit, your blood work is shit, your cycle is shit, let's fix that. I don't want to be popular. Not under my guidance then.

Mm-hmm. You know? Good. And I had no idea I was going to blow up that much though. Mm-hmm. Well, it goes to show

that everybody needs to be entertained, right? Yeah. Shit was entertaining. Yeah. To be real. Is that what he said when you told him

that he probably had to change his cycle? Did he just say, I want to be famous is that what he said when you told him like that he probably had to change his cycle did he just say i want to be famous and i want to keep taking something along those lines i mean it's been two years right so just everything about him was just focused on on just blowing up yeah that's why they had a marketing team and then kudos on him for reaching that goal of a million subscribers and even more uh but i think, you know, the ambition is higher than the care of health. And in my opinion, when you're a father and you're a husband, health should come way before your selfish aspirations to be famous because you made a commitment to your wife and your kids.

So, you know, that's one of the reasons why I just came completely off and a complete to reassess what I'm doing when, when my wife is pregnant, because, you know, I would like to do a full blown steroid cycle again, but yeah, of course,

like 260 pounds, but you know, I honestly trust me, dude, I can be there in like four months. I can be there in four months with everything I know. And my body is so fresh right now. I'm in a beautiful state of health.

And you've been that big before though. Yeah. So it's like a muscle memory. Yeah. And it could blow right past that. I mean, a good friend of mine, Chase Irons, just did that. He got his wife pregnant. It took about a year.

And then he went on the famous Chase Irons cycle, which is quite a lot of steroids and quite a lot of growth hormone. Yeah. Google it. Chase Irons. Chase Irons cycle. Chase Irons. We just did a collaboration in chicago yes that private gym um so he's on like between three to five grams gear it's quite a lot okay and then trt dose yeah trt for a whole football team and then some and the and the and the mascots and stuff. Oh, my God.

That is a lot. Yeah. So that's quite a bit. So this is his home gym. Is that per week? That's per week, yeah. So he got very excited. And, of course, he built up to those dosages. And his blood work actually looks quite good.

Wow. Because he's very preventative. He does the organ imaging. He does the preventative screening. Yeah. So he's very in tune with what he's organ imaging. He does the preventative screening. So he's very in tune with what he's doing, even though it's quite a high dose. And everybody's just amazed by him doing this. And I always fantasize about doing something similar after my wife is pregnant.

But my wife's already frowning. No way. You're crazy. I'll get on TRT and then see what the workload is of having a baby because I'm in unwatered territories. Yeah, it's going to be something. Yeah, it's going to be something new. So from my perspective, if I'm going to put another life on this planet, I got to make sure that I see it all the way through. And that means not dying somewhere midway.

Yeah. That's kind of dumb if you do that to yourself, dying midway when you have a kid, you know, so you have to be a little bit more careful who you associate yourself with and more careful what drugs you're running and, you know, buckle up when you're on the backseat of a car and all these things you start to think about. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so I don't know. Let's, let's see what happens. All right. Let's see what happens. Power Project Family.

We talk about barefoot health on the podcast all the time with different professionals and strength starts from the ground up. All right. Let's see what happens. Power Project Family, we talk about barefoot health on the podcast all the time with different professionals. And strength starts from the ground up. So you can upgrade the shoes that you're wearing in the shoes with Vivo Barefoot. They have shoes like the Motus, which is their strength shoe. They have the Novus, which is one of their casual shoes. And then they have these amazing Gobi boots. And it's wintertime, so if you want to get some boots on hand and in your wardrobe, you can get some wide toe box, flat and flexible boots in your wardrobe. All these shoes have the same fundamental benefits.

They have a wide toe box. They are flat. They are flexible so that your foot can move and do what it needs to do in the shoe. Options for everything. So Andrew, how can they get their hands on these shoes? Yes. From now to November 20th, we have an awesome exclusive deal for our listeners. the shoe options for everything so andrew how can they get their hands on these shoes yes from now to november 20th we have an awesome exclusive deal for our listeners head over to vivo barefoot.com slash power project to save 20 off of your order again that's exclusively for you guys from now till november 20th so make sure you guys hit that link down in the description as well as the podcast show notes well one of the things things, back to the peptides, the epimrelin and tesmirelin were suggested because my IGF-1 was at 162, whereas the referential range is 175 to 400.

That was the only place in my labs where that was suggested. But I don't know how necessary that would be. So looking at you from across the table, I think your IGF-1 is not in the blood. I think it's in your muscle. Okay. So you check IGF-1 in serum, but what does it have to do with the IGF-1 in the muscle? We don't know. Same with the testosterone.

You measure testosterone in the blood. My free test was a little low. Yeah, free test was a little low. Your SSBG is probably like 50 or 60. My SSBG was 39. 39. That's not too bad little low. Yeah, free test was a little low. Your SSBG is probably like 50 or 60. My SSBG was 39. 39, that's not too bad. 39, yeah. Yeah, we talked in the gym a little bit about how someone's testosterone levels could register low with blood work, but it could be in the antigen receptor.

Yeah, so my free test is 11.15 nanograms per deciliter. And what's the total? Total was? 701. 701. 701. Yeah. So I need to blast HCG for that now being 40 years old and you have 700 natural. But my natural testosterone levels was 700 also.

But how you respond to the testosterone is different from me, from Mark, Andrew, my wife. Where'd she go? Disappeared. Disappeared into the bathroom. So she might get locked out again. Yeah, you might have to unlock the door. So how you respond to the testosterone that's coming from your blood into your muscle is different from everybody. You have the androgen receptor, which has GAC repeaters.

And there's like an ideal range of GAC repeaters that allows for high androgen binding. So whether that's testosterone, mastroen, primo, etc. You have an ideal amount of androgen or GAC repeaters on the androgen receptor. And if that's ideal, which is more prominent with men of African descent compared to men of Caucasian European descent, then the testosterone that you have

might pump out more messenger RNA and gene transcription compared to a guy that has normal GAC repeaters or low GAC repeaters or too many. So it has to bind to the androgen receptor first, and the stronger it binds, the more protein it can express. And, of course, when you get a lot of protein expression, you get more anabolism downstream.

When you're doing that, your shirt's going to explode. You have to flexes. Calm down a little bit. Be nice. Yeah. So thanks for the arm pump. Not so small though. So yeah.

So how you respond to the testosterone, whether you produce it yourself or you take it from outside sources, that ultimately determines how big you're going to get. So when you do everything right, because you still need to put in the work, but it sounds so boring to repeat it every time. So your

700 test in the bloodstream obviously makes you look more jacked than my 700 test, which is being stimulated with HCG. If I don't take HCG, I'd be 400. And I would not fill out this shirt, that's for sure. So that's basically a genetic response.

And you've got to work with it. What were you mentioning in the gym about the competition of the Olympia? You went to Olympia. Yeah. And what were you saying about Bumstead versus – what's the guy's name? Ramon Dino. Ramon. Yeah.

So I felt that Bumstead was a little bit off at prejudgingjudging. A little bit watery, not as round as much of a pop. But Hany Ramboud is a genius, so he fixed him right up for finals. Wow. And then he looked like the Bumstead of old. But it looks like he didn't make much improvements since last year, not conditioning-wise, not shape-wise. His bicep was not injured like it was last year. And he said he tore his lat, which I couldn't see at all on stage.

Posing was flawless. His conditioning was flawless. But for pre-judging, he didn't nail it. And for finals, he did. Now, Ramon Dino nailed it pre-judging and finals. He looked amazing. Ramon Dino did improve from last year. But Ramon Dino doesn't speak English.

Doesn't help. That's why Rami didn't win. That's why Heidi might have been moved out. It's an opinion sport. I mean, you can measure everybody's biceps and body fat percentages and waist ratio. And I mean, speaking English and having a lot of mileage left, I can think Derek Lunsford and Chris Bumstead have a lot of shelf life left back in them.

And of course here, Heidi's walking off stage. Keep in mind guys that Heidi was the first one to congratulate Derek Lunsford, give him a big hug. Uh, but that's never shown in this. And I have the pictures. Yeah.

Um, because I was right there in one of the closest rows. And I was taking picture after picture because I was very happy for Derek Lunsford to win. And Hadi Choupan went up to congratulate him, gave him a big hug, had a bit of a talk. So hard to judge. Everybody looks so crazy. So you think Hadi should have won?

Based on finals, yes. But Hadi was a little bit off on prejudging. So this is weird. Hardy was off on prejudging. And Chris Bumstead was off at prejudging. Yeah. But Chris still won and Hardy didn't. Again, it's an opinion-based sport.

It is. It's left up to the judges. And trust me, I love Derek Lunsford. I mean, he's a family man. He's married. He looks good. He has a crazy front double bicep. I mean, he's a family man. He's married. He looks good. He has a crazy front double bicep. I mean, he's in shape.

I mean, look at this back double bicep. Freaking insane. All three of these guys look nuts. I stood up and gave him a standing ovation when this happened. And I feel that here Heidi is a little bit off. This is probably finals. So this is a little bit off um and this is probably finals so this is Saturday show but he was a little bit off in prejudging especially later in prejudging where he started to fade especially his back his glutes were still in him but his back was just soft

you know and and I mean but usually the Olympia champions get one pass so Ronnie was off a couple times still got a pass still one pass. So Ronnie was off a couple times, still got a pass, still won. Jay Cutler was off twice. And then the second time he was off, he lost. Dexter Jackson won. And then he came back in 2009,

he looked like a fucking freak. And then he was off in 2010. And then he lost again in 2011 when he was off also with the torn bicep. So yeah, it's an opinion about sports, and this is what you sign up for. I mean, look at Ramon Dino, man. I mean, his abs are more edged. Well, he's not flexing.

Like, Chris isn't flexing here. But when I was watching some of the stuff from this guy, I didn't watch it live. I was like, damn, Ramon looked fucking good. Yeah, and the weight increase did him a lot of good. Especially Breon Ansley. Breon Ansley improved the most out of all these guys, simply because he didn't have to suck down, and I congratulated

Chris Cormier when I saw him at the Mr. Olympia. One thing that... Oh, go ahead. Yeah, because I feel that Breon improved the most out of all these guys. Urs looked a little bit the same, a little bit bigger. Ramon improved, but not as much as Breon did, and then Chris looked pretty much the same, if not worse, at prejudging.

They need to stop allowing Brian Shaw on the stage. That's not okay. Everybody looks like a little kid. He looks like he didn't pick them up by the back of their scruff. You're so cute. One thing that I think is that with classic physique, it really does seem that height is a factor.

With bodybuilding, it doesn't necessarily seem that height is a factor. It does help. Yeah. Like, because like with bodybuilding, it doesn't necessarily seem that way, but with classic physique, it's like the taller you are. And if you can still hold that symmetry, you're gonna, you could do very well. Look,

look at Chris Bumstead. I mean, how much of a, of an ambassador he is. He's got 20 million followers. He's engaged. He's handsome AF. I mean,

Ramon, you know, it's also kind of tall, maybe six feet tall, right? This is six, two, I think very, handsome AF. I mean, Ramon Dino is also kind of – I feel like about six feet tall maybe. Six feet tall, right? Chris is 6'2", I think. Very popular. I mean, he has a good social media presence. And Ramon Dino is also very popular, but mostly in Brazil.

I think if he starts learning English and he makes an English-based YouTube channel so we can see his personality, then I think he would fare better. But I don't think he'll win until Chris retires or he shows up with more torn muscles, which Chris is turning a lot of muscles recently. He tore his bicep, he tore his lat, something going on in his quad and his hamstring. So, I mean, I love Chris, but he still needs to show up,

dice to the socks at pre-judging and finals for him to keep closing the door. And last year it was lights out. He walked out, it was game over. But this year it wasn't the case. You were mentioning you might start to have some projects available to people, some normally YouTube content is totally 100% free. You might have some stuff that people will be able to pay for if they want to

get extra information from you. Right. So I wanted to kind of revamp the entire steroid knowledge that's out there because it's a little bit outdated. You know, the steroid handbooks are out there. And so I just wanted to start from scratch behind the membership side. So once I reach 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, I want to do a little membership section. And it will take a couple months to kind of build because I don't want you to sign up

and there's only two videos. It's kind of fucked up. Yeah. So I have to build that membership section first. And when I feel that there's enough content, I'll open that up. And it will be basically you know how to design your own cycle with all the information that is out there that i have and then all the scientific literature but that's going to take months yeah and then you have

basically um you know like a seminar or or some sort of you know guidebook on what to do when and then how to interpret your blood work results. Basically everything I know will be there, right? And stuff that I haven't talked about on YouTube yet because it shouldn't be public. But then I'll just do deep dives. There will probably be two membership sections. So one is just steroids and blood work, and then the other one will be the more exotic stuff,

like how to use insulin safely because that should be more expensive. Like my insulin e-book is $100. Because people are, why is it so expensive? So if you can't spend $100 on an e-book, you're not ready to use insulin. It's that simple. That's a good point. There has to be some sort of paywall, like barrier of entry.

Because if you want to use insulin, you need to have a glucometer, a blood pressure monitor. You need to understand how your blood work looks. And if you can't spend $100 on an e-book, then it's very simple. You're not ready for insulin. So, yeah. So it's the same with the paywall and the membership site.

There'll be two kinds of memberships. And first I'll build out the cheap one, maybe $20. It'll be like 100 videos on very in-depth content. And then the second one will be less videos, but the membership will be maybe $100. If you really want to know about this and this and this, then yeah, it's a little bit more. But people will probably sign up for a month

and then stop that. You did mention some things that might benefit endurance. What did you stumble upon? Oh man, a lot. Yeah, a lot. In Russia, they have all kinds of weird metabolic modulators, hypoxin and Mildronate. Mildronate

has been coming to the forefront because at one point they added that to the wider prohibited list and then all the Russian athletes started failing for it. Yeah, it's produced in Russia. So basically what Mildronate does is it inhibits carnitine synthesis. So carnitineildronid does is it inhibits carnitine synthesis.

So carnitine helps with fatty acid oxidation, absorption into the mitochondria and then oxidation. So when you inhibit that, fat can't enter the mitochondria and it shifts mostly to glucose. And since we know that glucose is better for endurance and performance, you get less metabolic waste products and less oxygen requirement. For the amount of energy that you produce, you need less oxygen and products and less oxygen requirement for the amount of energy that you produce you need less oxygen and thus your stamina increases because you can only transport and absorb that much oxygen right that's why they use erythropoietin epo or uh blood doping right

they take the red blood cells out and reintroduce that um so mildronate kind of you know fulfills one of those pathways. And then you have hypoxin, which is an anti-hypoxia medication. So you get more bang for your buck for the oxygen that you take in and cause, produce less oxygen, reactive oxygen species. Then you have amoxipine and all these weird drugs are out there and I made videos about them. Didn't get so many views because people never heard about them. Wow.

Yeah. Well, they will soon. Yeah, they will soon yeah they will soon yeah and a lot of athletes are actually using these but it's mostly in endurance sports those guys are getting popped left and right especially uh even a lot of the marathon runners yeah which is pretty interesting yeah i mean water is is pretty strict and i just updated the new water approved doping stack so everything that's not on the list, I made a, yeah. That's sick.

It's like a WADA approved doping stack. You figured those guys would tune in, right? Yeah, so it's like a half 90 WADA approved of 2024 doping stack. So it's already out because WADA releases their prohibited list of the next year in September usually, or beginning of October.

And I just put everything that's not on the list in there, which is maybe 50 to 60 compounds that I talked about. You could technically call yourself a natty because it's not prohibited by water. So how to optimize your testosterone, how to manipulate your estrogen and DHT levels, how to blunt your appetite, how to increase your growth hormone levels,

how to improve your stamina. And then say, okay, this drug was traditionally used. Now it's included. So now you can't use it anymore. So look into these five alternatives. Yeah, you got to be ahead, man. It's an IQ test. Yeah, it's an IQ.

Beating taxes and beating the wider prohibited list, it's like some of my passions. Anything new? Got to talk to this guy. Yeah, you got gotta move to thailand if you're american you gotta buy a new passport first anything new under the sun with uh sexual health oh um not much honestly honestly there's i mean all the stuff i recommend rubbing your prostate three times a day no you have prostate massages in Thailand there we go

another reason to move there yeah I heard it's very interesting so sexual health I think you just got to be in a good state of health and a good mental state because there's all these drugs out there Viagra, PT141 oxytocin right

and they're not going to work if you're not in a good spot so I think if your hormones are balanced and you eat healthy and you sleep right and they're not going to work if you're not in a good spot so i think if your hormones are balanced and you eat healthy and you sleep right and you have a hot partner i think your libido is going to be fine but if you lose respect for your partner or you have stress at work or stress at school or they're not hot like you're not hot so you settled for a five when you should be you shouldn't do that you know or maybe you settled for an eight but you turn into a five i saw a video yeah when you went to disney world and you ate all the popcorn there it's like yeah i saw a video where a guy's like leaving the house and the wife goes what are you doing running to the store to

get some dick pills he goes yep and he comes back and he throws her a bag she goes wait a second these are diet pills exactly exactly yeah i mean listen if like my wife is still in good shape right so so you know you get married and you see a lot of these couples they just they kind of get slouched and lazy and the guy gets fat a girl gets fat or one of them gets fat and if you lose respect for your partner or your partner gets ugly yeah i mean it happens. You're getting kind of ugly. Yeah.

You got to talk about that. Communication is important. So when I'm getting out of shape, like my wife was very strict on me. She's like, you're going to go to the US soon and without me, so you can't get fat. And it's said in the back of my head. So I just – I kept – I was pretty strict on the food. Good for you. I did a lot of steps.

Good for you. She's like, I don't want to be walking around yeah you know so so i went to the swiss symposium and i lost like i think five to ten pounds being so active wow you know and then my face was completely emaciated i'm like i'm still gonna keep going for another 10 days before i see my wife so by the time i we met in las Vegas, right, I lost like 10 pounds. And you're like, okay, now you can eat. This is actually interesting. What is fat to her? Like what she says you can't get fat.

It's a lot of abs. So now I'm not. I love it. She's got standards. So your six-pack goes away. It's like this much. But when I came here, it was this much. And then it came down to this.

Wow. I mean, you're in the fitness industry. You've got mental issues, you know. came down to this. Wow. I mean, you're in the fitness industry. You got mental issues, you know? You got all these mental disorders and eating disorders that come along with that.

And you got to look a certain way on camera because otherwise nobody would take me seriously if I just turned to a pudge. You're right about that. Yeah. That would not take my advice, you know? So when I had to come off for the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

from overeating food to get big, man, I had to fast it off. So I lost a lot of size and muscle. But you have to show that you're, you know, practice what you preach. So if I want to get healthy, I need to do this route first, and then I can get big. And if I want to get my wife pregnant, I need to do this route first. And just because you come off steroids doesn't mean you have an excuse to get fat. If you want to stay strong, you probably have to get fat.

But I don't care about strength anymore. And I got some injuries, so I shouldn't be training too heavy anymore anyway. So I'd rather stay lean to look somewhat presentable on social media. And when I go to the Olympia, I mean, you're taking a lot of pictures. So as long as I got the compliments, I'm happy. And now I'm relaxing a little bit because it's been like months of dieting without any testosterone in my system it does take a toll i'll tell you that yeah so it's yeah it's just you know you gotta you know practice what you preach chase iron says what's up he's in the chat oh big chase what's up bro yeah we're talking about the chase iron cycle yeah we were

yeah it's so crazy he's a good guy to get on the podcast. Yeah. He's, he's a very open and transparent guy. Yeah. Yeah. He's funny. Well,

thank you so much for your time today. Where can people find you? We can, you can guys find me on any platform where you Google for, or search for Vigorous Steve. So that's on YouTube, Vigorous Steve, Instagram,

Vigorous Steve, TikTok, even Vigorous Steve. And then a website, Vigorous Steve.com. If you want to get ahold of me for some personalized advice, I'm always available. I no longer offer coaching.

I retired from that. But if you want to do consultations or some advice by email, I'm still available. I've got a couple e-books. They're available, and all my sponsors and affiliates are there as well, including Merrick Health. You guys were one of the first. Congratulations on that.

Appreciate it. And then I came after that, successful rollout I feel great those guys are the best they are yeah those guys are the best I love America health I met them at Swiss symposium a lot of the team they had a booth yeah and then I met a couple of the guys that I mr. Olympia so I think next year they will have a booth and then maybe we can fly all fly us out and talk about health optimization and testosterone maybe later. Strength is never weakness.

Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.