Mark Bell's Power Project - TRT, Peptides, GLP-1s & Ibogaine | The Future of Health Optimization Ft. Mike Stratton

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Mike Stratton from Marek Health joins Mark Bell’s Power Project to break down the modern world of health optimization, including TRT, peptides, GLP-1s, blood work, diagnostics, performance medicine, fertility, risk mitigation, and why the best results usually come from a personalized plan instead of blindly chasing the next drug.Mike also shares his personal experience with Ibogaine, how it changed his life, and why true optimization is not just about hormones or medications, but movement, mindset, nervous system regulation, and becoming harder to kill.Follow Mike Stratton:Instagram: @mstratton13Follow Marek Health:Instagram: @marekhealthWebsite: https://marekhealth.com/Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject

But there are men, especially nowadays, in their early 20s, that are truly having erectile dysfunction. They don't have drive. They're just in this depressed state. I think everyone has to keep in mind, like, these are all drugs? How safe are they? If your car is not performing well, maybe go get it assessed, maybe see what that check engine light is first before you just go modding it.

Would somebody be able to have children? I don't know if there's research or evidence that shows that you can take testosterone and come off it and then have kids. There are cases where it could lead to infertility or a struggle to get pregnant. You're going to be inspired to train harder and you're going to see results faster. I've used Ibegain seven times now. It's the most powerful medicine that I've ever interacted with. It just gives you this incredible sense of clarity, incredible sense of peace.

Welcome to show, Mike Stratton. Good to be here, guys. And let's just get ready to it. How did you start Merrick Health? Like, what was the, what's the origin story of this? The origin story. So I'd been in this field for over 13 years now. So this was back before telemedicine was really a thing.

It was super obscure. These were in-person clinics, right? And over that time, I had moved into regentine medicine, launching hormone optimization divisions, being an employee for these companies. And then I took a leap of faith and started my first telemedicine organization. Met Derek.

This was actually through, we followed a lot of the same blogs, a lot of the same forums. We kind of grew up at similar times and similar interests, and I just connected with them. We hit it off at the time. The way that our clinic practice medicine and our beliefs were very much in line with Derek's, it was about harm reduction, risk mitigation, and just walking that fine line for optimal performance. So we linked up. We started Merrick in the end of 2020 and launched in 2021.

So it's our sixth year. Was there anything like that made you want to start it? Like did you see, you recognized kind of a hole in the, in the sphere of HRT? Yeah, absolutely. So if I'm being honest with you, when I started as a team member back in the day, and I was a health coach myself and I'm working with clientele.

So what I recognized is that a lot of clientele were coming in for performance-based means and needs. They were in athletics. They were in bodybuilding. Maybe they were police or military. So they already knew about. that right it was very obscure as far as the general marketplace or the zeitgeist or the awareness it was scary baseball Jose conseco this is bad so it was a small amount of people that were coming through and

we're aware of this what we recognize with them is that most of them were on risky medications for a very long period of time that's what they had perceived value for but what we notice is that they're spending a lot of money they're taking medications and drugs that do have risk and they do have harm, but their physiology isn't changing. They're just on this maintenance program for a year and they're using potentially dangerous substances. Everyone's individual, right? Some people can tolerate, some can't.

But really, we found an intervention as if we could talk to them, we could actually do thorough diagnostics and we could get them to take a step back, focus on a maintenance phase or just focus on their general health or longevity or improve markers. When they did earn the right to add back in some of those dosages, is or some of those meds, they finally saw progress again. So it was taking a step back to take a couple steps forward. Yeah. So really, I think the prime reason is just, you know, for, for Derek and myself, we created a company we wished existed for us, right? It was just an online community of people trying to figure out what is the best past path to performance, the best path to optimization.

What are the risks? Are there really risks with this stuff? So that's why we created Merrick. Do you think that Merrick has, I guess, this is not the right way to phrase this, but I think that like companies like Merrick have an image problem where some people that hear Ameri Health think, oh, this is just a TRT or this is just for hormone replacement or and they don't understand the breadth of like the things that this company helps people provide. Because like, you know, you mentioned people are on risky medications, not that they were on like just some test and trend and deck like. on risky medications. Right. Right. So what do you think is a misconception when people hear about

Merrick Health that you wish people would understand about the company? Yeah, it's a great question. You know, what I'm really excited about is especially over the last two years. So when we started in the beginning of 2021, telemedicine was a thing. It was established. It was known. And especially in our industry. So even if you say like we focus on hormone optimization, really we do have a deep dive into preventative, performance health, cognition, all the above. Yeah. But in the last two years, especially the zeitgeist, just for America and other countries, this is a household item now.

There's men and women in their 50s and 60s that have never, maybe even stepped into a gym, but playing pickleball, they injured their elbow. And now they're learning about peptides and it's accepted and they're exploring it. Yeah. And they're seeing great value, right? So I think what's happened in the last two years is so beneficial because the awareness and the acceptance is higher, right? So they're getting these unique treatment options

that can solve problems, right? They can really improve your life. The problem with it is this industry. It's a massive umbrella. There's companies that are, I would say, more commoditized, right? We advertise a drug on purpose. You see us, you come to us for that drug.

If you're approved, you get this drug, right? The thing with Merrick Health is the reason we built it and why I think we're different is when you come out as a client, The first thing you're going to do is you're going to meet with a health coach. And what our health coach does is a deep-thied needs analysis on your case. So you guys just had filled the room on the show. And he's talking about doing a two-hour assessment of somebody just to understand who they are. He's looking at them leaving the car coming in the gym.

He's already understanding their gate. Then he's understanding the individual. So for us, it really comes down to the person and helping them clarify their goals. A lot of individuals, they have goals or a vision for what they want. for optimization or for health or for their vanity or for their performance. But even themselves, even though they carry that vision, they struggle to articulate it. If you struggle to articulate, it's hard to make that manifest and become real. So I think one of the most important things we do is that needs assessment process,

helping the client or the member just truly articulate and understand what is their goal, what does that mean to them, and where are we going to start? Right. So we're in the business of goal attainment. Okay. And then when you are helping these people, I mean, the average person, that's maybe, an average person has probably negative health outcomes or maybe they're not feeling great, normally due to like lifestyle issues, right, of just not having enough energy. Maybe they're not getting proper sleep. Maybe they don't have good sleep hygiene, like, you know, things around

their sleep. And then maybe they're not exercising or don't, or don't feel like they have time to exercise. or manage these things. But by getting your hormones shifted in the right direction, I think maybe people don't always understand that that's not a small change. That's a big change. Like you could be stuck on the couch for a long time. You could be coming off an injury or whatever the different things are they're happening. And your mind is in this frame of mind of like,

I don't have time. You feel stressed. You come home later from work than you'd like and you're eating stuff that you promised yourself you wouldn't eat. But with the assistance of somebody going through your blood work, checking it over and saying, hey, you know, there's these X, Y, and Z things that we can work on, which you probably already know about. But there's also some assistance that you can get through some of these various drugs. A hundred percent. I mean, it starts the positive reinforcement wheel with momentum, right? Especially like, take the example of somebody is feeling

chronic pain. They're already not exercising. They have a desire to change their life, right? So if you can help remove or buffer that chronic pain, that's a positive reinforcement to get to the gym and start making progress. Right. So with us, when you do diagnostics, A, it starts with the health coach. It starts with that needs assessment. And then we're going to pick laboratory markers that are relevant for your case and relevant for your health and goals. When you get that back, when you get our customer report and when you meet with the health coach to review your diagnostic labs, there's going to be lifestyle interventions, there's going to be supplementation, there's going to be nutritional aspects, and then there's going to be medication treatment plans if indicated, right?

So we want to cover all spectrums here, but yeah, absolutely. So sometimes you can use substances or you can use some assistance that radically speeds up that wheel of motivation, and you're going to be inspired to train harder. You're going to keep it going. You're going to see results faster. That makes us feel good. We want to chase joy. We want pleasure.

If you're starting to see results in the gym faster, you're probably going to keep up with it. So I think it helps people lock in faster. People have asked me a lot of questions about testosterone over the years. And some people are like, well, would it help with weight loss? Would it help with my health? And I can't really promise them anything on that because everyone's so different individually. Like maybe somebody has high blood pressure and maybe it's not the right situation. But I would say that if somebody has low testosterone and they feel like they're not motivated,

it don't feel like they have energy, a shot in the arm, so to speak, can be something that can be really helpful to assist that person maybe to get that momentum that you're talking about. Oh, absolutely. And if you think on the other side of the spectrum, let's put it from the point of view as somebody that already thinks testosterone is the cure for their problems. And that's what they need and they want. But let's look at this individual and they're overweight, right? They have insulin resistance that's identified on labs.

They're not working out. they already want to lose 50 pounds. If, if let's say a clinician were to prescribe them 200 milligrams, let's just, let's just say, they're probably going to gain 10 to 20 pounds extra right away. Their insulin resistance is already not good. They might feel bigger. They might feel bloated. They might feel tighter and restricted.

Maybe there are some positive attributes that are happening from that. But it might not be the best plan. Maybe it is better to start them on lower doses and work on fixing the insulin. insulin resistance, put their body in a better receptive state to actually gain muscle, if that's their goal. It's really common. People come in, they're overweight. They want to do a recomposition of their physique immediately, which is losing fat and

building back muscle. It's not so easy to recomp if you're in a state with excess body fat, right? Yeah. Your glucose control, your nutrient shuttling, it's not going to work out so good. So that's where the customization, I think, really comes into play. and just like a workout program from whether you're if you associate it with workouts if you're an athlete if you're a beginner if you're a weekend warrior i think you have to periodize their program especially when it comes to their uh treatment modalities maybe there's a phase of of just improving baseline metrics and health status and insulin resistance first if you accomplish that and you do some of your homework your lifestyle interventions the carrot on the stick is now maybe we can push the button forward a little bit And now you can build more muscle. You can perform better.

You can move better, et cetera. Gotcha. You know, doing jih T2, I get so many questions. And just because the way I look, I get a lot of questions from guys who are like, man, I've been hearing a lot about like TRT and like, what are your thoughts on TRT? And I've been getting a lot more questions about peptides, which has been interesting. Guilt by association probably. You, motherfucker.

Absolutely. But with, you know, starting on the TRT bit, I'm curious when, you know, I think it's hard as you, let's say you start moving forward to your job, you work more hours, family, right? And you're not able to get the sleep you want to get. You're not able to do all the things you want to do, right, in terms of nutrition. TRT seems like it might be the way to try to go, right? So I know there's so many different contexts for TRT, but what would you say would be like a checklist of things to think about before you decide to pull the trigger on that.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you could bracket it just by age first, right, as a qualifier. But there are men, especially nowadays, in their early 20s, that are truly having erectile dysfunction. They don't have drive. They don't have any vigor in their life. Their energy is poor. They have brain fog.

Yeah. They're just in this depressed state. So I think it is worthy to, at the very least, evaluate your diagnostics. It's just like if your car is not performing well, maybe go get it assessed. Maybe see what that check engine light is first before you just go modding it. So I would say absolutely start with diagnostics because that's going to validate for you. Maybe in some cases if there are things that are wrong. Maybe your testosterone levels are great.

Maybe it's your receptor sensitivity to the androgens that is off. Maybe there's implementations we can put in to correct that. Right. Maybe your SHBG is a little bit too high. there's interventions we can do besides testosterone. But yeah, I think to your point where you started this is like you could go the route of living the primal lifestyle, let's say, but we're not in that world to do everything properly. You know, your body doesn't have caffeine in it, but most of us rely on caffeine.

So I think, you know, it's a personal stance, right? And everybody gets to make that choice from themselves. But personally, I think we have to understand the environment we're in, the society, the way of life. it's not always easy to get perfect sleep. It's not always easy to juggle work, family, career, fitness, your passions. But if you want to feel good, right, use some tools that are available if it's not going to cause you harm.

So A, always start with an assessment protocol to really see what's going on behind the hood. But yeah, if you can lean on certain tools to leverage to enhance your quality of life, go for it. This is funny. This is something Craig Jones said in an interview. It's a little satire and a little hilarious, but I think it's accurate. And his point was saying he lives a very, you know, radical lifestyle. He doesn't do the healthy things.

But his tagline is why I use testosterone is because I get to keep my level stable. And that's healthier, right? Because these, these lifestyles that people can live are going to make their testosterone levels fluctuate. Okay. It's a way to think about it. Okay. Would somebody be able to have children? Because that's something that pops up here and there.

And I don't really know if there's like, I don't know if there's like research or evidence that shows that you can take testosterone and then come off it and then have kids. I don't know. That was my experience, but I don't want to say that my experience is something that's going to happen for everybody. Yeah, 100%. So when it comes to fertility, right? I mean, testosterone is going to suppress your natural production, right? You might have good sperm production. Maybe your motility goes down, right? And that's part of the issue. So I think there are cases where it could lead to infertility or a struggle to get pregnant. It's hard to know if that was the case before you started testosterone anyways or if it was after. But what I will say is there's plenty of interventions and we've had tons of success working with hundreds of clients to help them conceive. We even have members that are spending $10,000 per month at fertility clinics and they're not able to use or recognize or leverage tools that we've used to have successful pregnancies, especially with males. So when things are like HCG or FSH or even just a vitamin supplementation or growth,

hormone in some instances, we've had success with fertility. And these are the things that the dude at the gym that's trying to sell you some trend probably isn't going to be able to tell you. No, probably not. No. And you've got to look at the full menu of options and interventions that you can include. But, yeah. No.

Go ahead. So, you know, the popularity of peptides, that's also like I've had, I literally had a guy this week that was like, you know, I had this injury. I'm thinking about peptides. I've heard of 5-5. I'm like, BBC 157, that's the thing I've heard of. He's like, yeah, I heard of that one. So, I mean, I literally told him to give Merrick health a call

because you guys understand and can like, you guys can help people out with those things. But on the aspect of peptides and testosterone, are there any peptides that could be the thing that people resort to before the HRT type protocol? And is that even, because again, you know, in my mind, I feel like peptides is the first step. that before that, is that even logical for what I'm thinking or no?

It really depends on your goals, right? Like peptides are so vast, right, in their effects. And some of them are more pronounced and powerful in some aspects. But when it comes to testosterone, right, it has very unique effects in the human body. That peptides can't necessarily replace, right? There are some peptides that may improve or increase your natural production of testosterone, whether that is a buffer that keeps you coasting long term or it's temporary. while you're using that drug, it likely will never match the stability and levels of being on

TRT itself, right? Kind of to Craig Jones's point, keeping that stable baseline. Yeah, yeah. I think peptides absolutely have a point and a purpose, but something like BPC or TB500, that's not going to increase your testosterone. It might help your recovery. It might help with soft tissue injuries, inflammation, things like that. But, yeah, I think you really got to look at what the goals are behind getting on TRT.

Are there any peptides that alter your hormones at all? There are peptides that alter your hormones or interact with your hormones. So look at like growth hormone secretagogues or growth hormone releasing peptides or anything along those lines. That's going to trigger your pituitary to release more growth hormone downstream IGF1 in your liver. So yeah, that's influencing your hormones. But these things or my understanding, which might be incorrect, it doesn't influence your hormones the same way as, as like injecting testosterone or injecting testosterone lowers your natural testosterone production.

Yeah, it's going to suppress, whereas the peptides, like even talking on the growth hormone access, most of the time it's just going to enhance or amplify or it's going to trigger, you're going to either control the timing of the release or the power of the release. But it's not a direct replace. So you can take them for a little while and come off of them

and probably not necessarily have as much of a negative consequence? Possibly. The amount of peptides are vast. and their effects. I can't speak to all of them. There could be some that do. There's new ones coming out all the time. A hundred percent. Yeah. Are you aware of, I don't know how to say his name, but he's local, Dr. Vasquish or Squeesh or. No, never heard of him. Jack queen. Yeah, yeah, there we go. Yeah, yeah, getting closer. There we go. I saw him actually last night when we had, we had dinner. I saw him afterwards. He actually lives in that, that hotel. But he was telling me about a testosterone that

That's a liquid that you can squirt underneath your tongue. Okay. I forget what he called it, but maybe you can look some of it up, Ryan, but I don't know, are you aware of like some of these different testosterone that are coming out. It's supposed to be something you can take daily.

Interesting. It's not an injection. I know we've heard this many times over and it's like never quite the same. It doesn't have the same impact. I'm not familiar on what this is. There's obviously been oral testosterone, right? Options available, but it doesn't work just like injections do.

Yeah, they never work the same. even the topical creams and stuff, they have impact and they can help. They work differently, especially where you put it on your body, right? So like scrotal testosterone cream tends to rapidly boost DHT levels, right? And it tends to convert a little bit less to estrogen, right? And it's fast acting. So there are different applications and there's different effects, but at the end of the day, it's testosterone.

I think it's like a logical thing to think about if you were to think about, you know, your average person being like a little bit overweight and maybe under muscle and so forth and coming to you guys and just like recomping their body, gaining a little bit more muscle mass, losing a little bit more body fat. It's like, how could that not be a healthy endeavor? I guess you could take it too far. Sure. You can kind of end up over, you know, overdoing the amount of testosterone

and maybe other things that you're implementing. But for the most part, it seems like that should help with blood glucose levels. It seems like that should help with a lot of things that people are facing. based with. Yeah, I think the key is just working with a competent, intelligent team that knows you, knows your history, and knows what's going on, having conversations frequently, doing check-ins frequently, understanding what are the pros subjectively and what are the cons subjectively from the patient and able to tweak it, right? Able to periodize your plan, make alterations, I think is the key. You know, we've been with Merrick, we've been working

with the show for about five years now. We've been working with you. I don't know if you guys have any feedback for us and what you saw as far as value for Merrick. if you're comfortable sharing. I mean, you know, being somebody that's used performance-hancing drugs for a long time, I've just found them extremely helpful. There's nothing else I can really say about it. Obviously, there are some negative side effects. I've had high blood pressure before.

I've had my, but this is my own reckless version of abusing anabolic steroids. This is not under the care and guidance of Merrick Health. This was my own thing I was doing years ago. You know, I took quite a bit and was very heavy. My shins were bright red because my circulation wasn't amazing. My hematicrit was through the roof. You know, my red blood cell count was through the roof. And then I started communicating with Stan Efforting.

And he started saying, hey, man, like, this is, like, not only is this not good, this is bad. Like, you're in, this is a not good territory. So we need to, like, fix some of these things. So I started watching my blood pressure and started to, you know, do some of that. And then years later than getting with you guys and getting good feedback on, you know, where to keep my LDL, my HDL and my triglycerides. And you guys always do a great job of, I think, not only explaining the different routes that someone can go, but you're also, you know, I'll mention some things.

Maybe I want to take a little extra something or maybe I want to do or go slightly, different route. And your, you know, people will say, well, that's not what I'm recommending. But, you know, if you want to do that, then we want to be able to support you in that, which is cool because I think that, you know, some people go to their doctor and they don't get that. They don't get that support at all. The doctor's like, I'm not going to treat you. I'm not going to work with you if you're going to be, you know, doing that kind of stuff. So that's really cool to hear. I mean, that's the biggest thing. We have a non-judgmental approach and we work with such a wide variety of people. So whether you are a female tech CEO, whether you are an engineer, whether you're a

cop, whether you're a Mr. Olympia competitor, a competitive powerlifter, that optimization is going to be different for each of those. There's going to be different things that they value, different things that they pursue and different, let's say, downsides that they're willing to accept, right? Our job is just to communicate, assess, make the right calls, make sure you're educated. And obviously, Obviously we won't cross boundaries that are within our scope, but we will provide education and we're still gonna support you. We wanna make sure you're good and you're healthy. Yeah, and I'm, I mean, from my end,

I'm on the other end of the spectrum where like I've, you guys have had my blood work for years now. So, you know, I mainly use Merrick Health as a way to analyze my blood work to just let me know, because like I said, I don't really take anything. I go through supplements, nutrition, my lifestyle. Yeah, supplements, nutrition lifestyle, caffeine,

you know what I mean? So, I mean, I take something, but it's not PEDs. And the thing for me is like I want to make sure, especially as I can continue to get older, that the changes that I'm making to all of these things, especially as I add different types of movement and all these things that are making a positive impact. And I want to know if something changes, what am I doing differently that might be causing that negative change, right? So it's one of those things that even if, you know, I suggest Samarits people just to get the blood work analysis for some.

just so you actually know what's going on. And you're not the person in their mid-30s who gets blood work back. It's like, why are all these numbers out of whack? And then you have to start trying to play catch-up, right, versus understanding it for a period of time. Yeah, you get a health passport on yourself. You really take a look back in time and actually see where you were, right? We can try to estimate how we felt five years ago and, oh, I felt the best I ever felt

five years ago. It's been five years. You've woken up so many times. Do you really remember what was going on? So I think that's a great idea. Ryan, what do you find there? Oh, just on the drops that you can use for testosterone. It says there are compounded sublingual testosterone drops or trokeys, lozenges prescribed by some doctors.

There's also a buccal system called strant that sticks to your gum, not under the tongue, and releases testosterone over time. I don't know if this is the same, but. Yeah, there's some like sexual wellness preparations that have a little bit of testosterone. I don't know this on the clinical side, but yeah. There's just new shit going on all the times. Hard to keep, hard to keep tabs on. Yeah, 100%. When it comes to the peptides, what like, what are you guys able to work with?

I know that RFK recently just, I don't even know. I guess he like unbanded, which I don't know what that means, but they're not FDA approved necessarily. Yeah, it's in process. So it's going to be multi-step. and then what they're going to do is they're going to evaluate these peptides. They're going to treat them seriously, evaluate what utility there is. And then at the end of the day, there might be some that are released for compounding pharmacies to manufacture again.

And then so providers could prescribe versus the black market or the gray market. And there's like 12 or 14 of them. Yeah, there's like 12 or 14. Yeah. You know, I really want to actually ask you about that because like now you go to any website, people are just getting peptides galore. What are some like what are the risks of trying to go to a website where you can get peptides for a little bit cheaper or your your favorite influence or has this code to

whatever right what are the risks of going that route because everyone wants to save money especially with the economy right now dog yeah 100% I mean there could be potentially legal risks although I think those are might be small yeah you really don't know the quality you don't know the compound you don't know the strength the dosage you don't know what else is in there from the manufacturing process the sterility right Are there any like crazy shit that you've seen? Like I'm, I want to know. I would say probably more than than anything just bunk or not what is supposed to be in the vial.

But that could be potentially very dangerous for somebody. So at least with peptides that are coming from the compounding pharmacies, you know exactly what it is. You know the dosage. It's a prescription generated specifically for you. So it depends if you're a cowboy or not. Not a cowboy. I mean, some people too, it depends on how far you want to take all these things. but you can get stuff tested.

And there's companies that will do that, but it's expensive. It's an expensive process and you are kind of rolling the dice. Sure. When you're just going and try and willy-nilly whatever peptide. Because you see the difference, the discrepancies in prices and you're like, I don't even understand these prices. Because they'll be like vastly different. You're like, whoa, this is crazy.

Yeah, well, when it's coming from like a pharmacy, for instance, right, there's more steps involved. there's a lot of infrastructure involved, right? There's more they have to go through. So, yeah, you're paying for peace of mind and assurance. For yourself, how did you kind of start getting into all this? How do you start getting in like fitness and then how to kind of evolve into where you are today? Yeah, absolutely.

So I started when I was a teenager, just bodybuilding, right? Lifting weights, bodybuilding, exploring that. I started training in strongman training. And around that time in my early 20s, that's where I started to explore with some of these performance dancing drugs myself, which is typical in that way. Through that, I just kind of, I've always been obsessed with how different chemicals, different compounds, supplements, medications can influence physiology, especially on the cognitive side, right? It's just a weird interest of mine, being the guy on Aeroid trying to understand every profile. So was that like a forum deal?

It was old school. It was an inventory of like all psychoactive drugs. And from none, Nutmeg to GHB to marijuana to caffeine. And there was reports. People would report the effects of a certain dosage they took, what they experienced. And it was just an older web catalog of all these items. Anabolic and performance enhancing agents were on there as well, smart drugs.

And then it can go very deep and dark into other quadrants. What is the other quadrants, my friend? Well, any psychoactive drug you can think about is going to be on there. Okay. But anyways, I've just always had a fascination with how to, influence and change your body, right? Whether it be through mental techniques, physical techniques, or leveraging substances. Yeah, yeah. Just always been a funny passion of mine.

And strong, man, you got to be big. Yeah, I was not that big. It's tough. It's a tough sport. You got to be, you got to like weigh a lot, I think. So we were, so I was, I was young, 1920 and I competed. There was lightweights, which were 230 and I was in the 200 class. So I don't know what it's like now the weights probably have gotten heavier, but I know back then, basically the 200s were using the same weights as the 231 plus team. So they might be getting reps for us. It was just struggling to get a one or two rep max at that time. But it was a blast. And like, how old you? I'm 34. So like when you were in your early 20s like Strongman wasn't as popular as it was now. I mean, it was popular, but like wasn't popping like it was now. No, not at all. You just liked it for the

love of the game, not because of social media. Yeah, so I had the unique pleasure. There was an America's strongest man winner in the early 2000s, very well known Jared Spibbrook, if you ever heard of him. And I was a personal trainer, and I got invited to come to this club. It was just in a garage gym. And me and my buddy went, nobody talked to us for like a year. I think it was Nancy and Stacy. I think I was Nancy at the time. That was the only words that were discussed to me. And we had, it was just that type of environment, right? Where we had to earn the respect over the course of a year. Did my brain just start?

Like, did these people call you Nancy and Stacey? Oh, yeah. Oh, they literally called us Nancy and Stacey. Is it just Nancy and Stacey that's hot? No, that was, that was us. Wow. So it was a cool environment, though, to learn to grow. It was a great opportunity to train with some, some legends in the sport.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, strong man. Strong man's wild and you got to be like just incredibly strong, but also like in many different disciplines, you know, they're not only just like deadlifting and doing some of the other movements. They're doing those farmer carries

and all the other crazy shit that they're doing. Well, it's super, it's power and athleticism, right? So like, you know, you guys just had Phil on the show and Merrick just introduced him as the performance director and that's a division. We're super excited about growing and expanding. But again, it comes down to performance and athleticism. So Strongman was so fun for me

because I wasn't the biggest, I wasn't the strongest. But I could throw some shit, right? I could grind on farmer's walks, right? I could be explosive and I could still have some success, right? So that was fun. You know, I do want to say it's really good that, because there's a lot of telehealth clinics out there now. But the fact that you guys have opened a performance division,

and like before you guys do already tell people and give people ideas in terms of lifestyle, sleep, all these other things. But the thing is, is like movement as an option for healing your body is huge. Like it's it's it's it's something that a lot of people want to pin something before seeing what they can do as far as movement's concerned you know what I mean so it's good that you guys are like really Getting in deep with that with someone like Phil because that's something that can that can really

Shift the habits of a lot of people and make longevity truly something that is in their hands More so they have more control over a hundred percent I mean you have to do you have to do some sort of training the drugs will work right medications will work there's no denying it but what do you what are you doing it for how are you applying it it so i know i know for me even like the looser my body feels the looser my mind feels you just feel better overall we talked about this even with breathing into different areas yeah so yeah it's it's absolutely it's necessary and as a company i mean we are a health optimization company is not just about medical treatments right it really is about lifestyle interventions etc so i think it's a perfect fit for our clientele and that's what we want to be is a little bit more well-rounded and holistic as a as a health

company got you how have you kind of figured out your own optimization like what what do you view uh you know looking at your own blood work and knowing the things that you know now yeah so to be honest i've always really been like a DIY guy this whole journey right just like we talked about why did we start merrick well for derrick and i for instance this didn't exist there wasn't an option so we had to learn on our own, experiment, make tweaks, learn bad lessons, mistakes, have some wins, right, and figure it out for ourselves. And I think that that mindset I've carried with me throughout the years, even going into Merrick Health. But what I will say is recently over the last two years, I've really leaned on my company myself. So for me, I have a health coach. I work with

our medical director. And they have dramatically helped me figure out some health issues that I've head like weird autoimmune conditions, genetic diabetes conditions. And this is through diagnostics. So for instance, we have a panel called Vibrant. It's a vibrant tick-borne illness panel. And I've been tested for years for Lyme, for autoimmune, nothing ever registered. This was the first test with enough accuracy and specificity to actually pick up Lyme disease. Wow.

Yeah. And the same thing with the genetic test for Madi diabetes. So I've been leaning. This is what I would say, especially people that are. Type A, they like to explore themselves. Sometimes it's amazing just to outsource that decision making to a trusted competent team. And it saves you so much time and stress, trial, and error. So I've been leveraging heavily our team myself.

And the same thing with Phil on the performance division. He's my coach. Yeah. Right? And I lean on him and he sets me up for success. I got to just. And I don't have to think. I do got to say it.

I hope I hate to cook you out. But I do love that for my supplements. Because like for the longest time, there's just certain supplements that just a staple within what I would use, right? but the supplements I take are now just based off of my blood work things that would be beneficial and it's nice not to have to like really guess too much with that you know what I mean for sure that's just that's just awesome 100% yeah I'm the guy from you know true nutrition that has 15 bags of every powder right and I like to make my own blend my own dosage I get to take one out alter it

tastes like you know it tastes like trash but who cares right it is good just to have a package I don't have to think about it I have a team, they have my back, they understand what's going on in my physiology and my diagnostics. Let me just trust them. Let me outsource it. Don't add something new. Let me just have trust. Yeah.

And one thing that, because this thing with AI now, there's a lot of, there's companies that will literally, they'll just use AI to analyze your stuff. And I've seen some feedback from like other people and other companies. I won't name names. But the feedback is so generic. and it's like, yeah, you type that into an AI, it'll say, yeah, you know, you want to eat less starches. Like you see a lot of these nutrition buzzword things.

And I think one of the coolest things is when you're able to work with someone and talk to them and they can explain everything as to why this is the way it is. It really does make a true difference in the decisions you end up making. You know what I mean? Because some things from some of these AI things could be correct, right? But there's a lot of things that are just very generic and you don't want to have generic shit with your blood. Yeah, even with AI, like you have to prompt it right. You have to lead the witness, so to speak, to get to that level of granularity, right?

And the thing with our team, so like how do you have trust in somebody? You have to spend some time with them. You have to ask hard questions. And from your own point of view, are they just reading something off of a statement sheet? Or are they able to give you analogies? Are they saying it's not so black or white? context involved with it. Those are the things that build trust and also what we believe as a company.

So rather than outsourcing health coaching, for instance, which is the guide in the medium between the patient and their treatment outcomes with a medical practitioner, that is an ongoing relationship. And within our team, we have a very high level of training that goes in for recruiting, for training, consistent knowledge sharing. So every week since our company started, the entire company, it's not just medical providers, not just health coaches. It can be customer service. We always do a clinical meeting. And it's an opportunity for somebody to step up and actually do a deep dive research and

discuss and present topics related to the field of health. It can be stuff unrelated to Merrick Health, but we believe in always advancing in learning and being non-dognetic. So I think it's key. That's our model anyways. We believe in the human interaction. What are your thoughts of the kind of inventions of the GLP ones that have come around? I know they've been around for a long time, but then they got FDA approval for weight loss, probably over the last three years or so. Yeah, 100%. I mean, if South Park is talking about it, you know, it's made a mainstream, right?

So there's no denying the power of it. And then you also have a lot of feedback. Like feedback from our customers is generally all positive because we're looking at their specific case, their specific lifestyle, the rest of their nutrition, their diet. And we're using the smallest dose possible. And we're not using it forever. using it for phases. So I think a lot of the negative feedback comes from people that are taking perhaps too much. Perhaps they're not exercising. Perhaps they're not getting any nutrition now that

they're on this drug. But I think it has done well for the zeitgeist of just awareness and actually leaning into some of these tools. Like maybe it's not too good to be true. Maybe there is a way to use this, you know, the dose, the poisons in the dose, right? And how you're utilizing it. maybe you can be on a cocktail of things. A hundred percent. Right. So you use some tri-septitide and a little bit of testosterone and you're, I mean, how are you not set up to head in the right direction? You got the food noise blocked out.

You have a little bit more motivation to go to the gym to exercise and to do your jiu-jitsu or whatever else stuff that you like to do from the testosterone. So you should be heading in the right direction. Yeah. If it works in your life, right? You're not getting nausea. You feel well still. getting enough calories, you're able to do what you want to do. That's great.

Curious about this, you know, because again, I, I just have this idea that when it comes to some of these things, there's not necessarily, not necessarily that there's going to be bad side effects, but there isn't necessarily a free lunch. And when I hear people talk about peptides, it does the messaging from a lot of people, it sounds like a too good to be two type of thing. Like it just sounds way too good. Like there seems to be nothing. And maybe I'm, am I being pessimistic about this?

Am I being a little bit too cautious? Like, is there anything that people need to be mindful of when they get into the realm of using peptides? I would say the biggest thing, like, again, is work with the medical practitioner. Okay. That you have confidence in that is working with you on that decision making tree, looking at your diagnostics, your health history, and leaning that route versus the DIY. Right? I can't speak to what could potentially go right or wrong.

But for the most time, you know, they can be innocuous and they can add benefit. But there are a lot of theoretical or practical risks that come with it. Yeah, I think everyone has to keep in mind. Like, these are all drugs. 100%. How safe are they? Right. There's a lot of drugs and chemicals.

We invest or interact with on a daily basis. And some are approved, right? And we're to believe that they are safe, right? I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan.

A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have, high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing.

They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have, and they can kind of see where you're at, and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects, too, where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shades of doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this.

Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing. If you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that?

They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the hole. But that's not really what happens. It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital,

they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle.

And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to, to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things.

Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help

from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels, head to Merrickhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. And for something like solve a problem or for something to like work, you know, like I wonder how you define that, you know, like if something worked for 10 years, did it work?

Or, you know, if you end up with a cancer or something like that, unfortunately. But you wouldn't be able to tie it to these exact things necessarily. But that is a thing of interest. But like we see that with a lot of medications. The medication might get some. somebody off the hook for this, but then they still might get hammered by this other thing. 100%. This other thing might be, you know, still waiting the wings for them.

We see it with various diseases and stuff like that where you, even cancer, it's not necessarily the cancer, it's the treatment that is the painful thing. But the individual has to decide whether they feel that that radiation is, you know, in their best interest to go and do that. So, you know, that's the biggest thing. I think with Merrick, our intentions with it is to participate with our patients in their health care journey, right? Have an open dialogue and make joined decisions together, right? Explain the thoughts, the risk profile, the uncertainties, the somewhat certainties, and discover

and agree together if we're going to take that path, right? Provide options and opportunities and education and don't hold back from theoreticals, right, but make that decision together. And Seema, I think for someone that's already pretty healthy, I think they should really should think the way you're thinking. I think they should really think like why, if I'm relatively healthy, why I mess with anything? Why not just go the route of getting better sleep, paying attention to my nutrition, listening to some of the supplement recommendations and just stay right here for a while? 100%. You know, and then, but then if someone is a little bit more compromised, they maybe have diabetes and they got a couple things where it's like they're just behind and they feel like they can't figure

out a way to get ahead. Maybe that person says, I don't mind if there's something on the back end of this. 100% and other people have different drives and motivations that don't make sense to other people, right? Like an Olympic athlete, right? Yeah, sure. I'll shorten my life if I win gold, right? That's a decision-making tree. Yeah. And that person's going to go that route.

So at least do it with some guidance. Yeah, that girl this year, but downhill skier, she like almost lost her leg forever because she went, she did downhill skiing without a MCL or something like that or PCL? Yeah. It's insanity. I mean, think about the decisions. make all day, whether it be having too many cocktails and driving or the amount of cheeseburgers that we eat on a weekly basis, but sometimes we fear other interventions where there's largely nothing but success, little downsides, but we're hesitant on that.

That's real. Right? That's real. So it really is a risk assessment type of decision. I do think it is something to really be aware of though. Like there are a lot of people that are going towards these GLP ones and there's going to be products and inventions that come out that are going to be better. going to get approved faster. They're going to get pipeline through stuff quicker, probably.

There's the James Bond peptide. I'm not sure if you heard that one. What's that one? The 007 peptide. Ryan, we've talked about it before. Maybe you can bring something up on that. But it's like people gained like four kilos of muscle mass. Was it like a myosatin inhibitor? In, in collaboration. Yeah, with like these gLP, 123s, ABCD. Interesting. I think that's what it was. It's like a combo product. Oh, it's a blend.

Got it. Understood. What's it called? BPC157 combined with it. I don't know. This is it. I don't think this is it. I don't think chat GPT has this wrong.

Oh, okay. Chat GPT doesn't know what's up. Fuck you. But anyway, there's going to be things that are coming down, the pipeline that are, you know, they're probably going to be enticing because people will be like, oh, that's going to be, oh, that one was good for me. And I really liked that one, but now I'm going to jump on this one. And they might do so recklessly.

And again, that's why it's great to have people that research this stuff and people that are paying attention. 100%. And like I said, like with our standards and our clinic and what our clinical team is comfortable with, like they're going to research, they're going to come to their own conclusions. We're going to wait for evidence. And we're going to be honest with people. So there are boundaries that we absolutely will not cross.

even if as individuals we think maybe we would like to explore that. That's not something we're going to do with the public. You know, I'm curious. You know, we were talking about psychedelics the other day. And is there ever a point where clinics would be able to be like, maybe you can use some psilocybin for that? It's like, is the guy, obviously that's, well, yeah, tell me, what are the ramifications of that?

Because you guys just can't do that. But is that? Is that possible at a certain point? Yeah, that's not a Merrick Health thing. Of course not. But the landscape for treatment with psychedelic medicines is evolving and is emerging, right? So there is areas in the United States where certain things like psilocybin are able to be researched, to be used to even be used therapeutically. Yeah.

And those are those are missions that are continuously growing. So even in Texas recently, there was a $50 million plus bill dedicated to the research of Ibogaine for PTSD. for veterans interventions, for trauma, and then for mood and for addiction. Yeah. Yeah, there was a documentary. I think it was like waves of war or waves in war or something like that. 100%.

Yeah, with DJ Shipley. That was talking about veterans. Pretty damn powerful. Yeah. But we had Sean Wells on the podcast, you know, a legendary formulator. And he talked a lot about these treatments and these treatments that he went to.

But it was with, it was with, you know, an expert. It was with something like, I don't know if you would call it a shaman or like a medical director. Sure. Guided. He was guided and he did that here in the United States, I think, and he recommended so people listening, if they want to check that out, they can just watch that episode and there's a lot of information on it. There's providers, there's different churches, there's different associations. And you guys had a guest a couple years ago named Tom Fiegel.

And he's the CEO of a company called Beyond that operates out of Cancun. So that's a company that I'm a partner in. And I've experienced firsthand for Ibegine treatment. And that absolutely changed my life radically. And it's a very powerful intervention for people when it comes to PTSD for mood, for trauma, for addiction, for receptor sensitivity, restoration, even for things like Alzheimer's or. Parkinson's for why do you think things like this exist I mean this comes from like a tree bark right yeah I mean

it comes comes from Africa it's part of the witty religion or the tradition I should say not the religion but this is part of their sacrament and they say it was you know delivered to them from God directly so this is their right of passage this is their initiation and it's been used for hundreds of thousands of years what was your experience with it like how did it help you yeah so I mean I've I've used ibegain i've been to beyond seven times now what you've done it i've done it seven times seven times yeah it's the most powerful medicine that i've ever interacted with whether it be psychedelics or even on the cognition side of things like with smart drugs or neutropics yeah so i think it's had the most profound change in my uh physiology afterwards uh and also on a spiritual level how so in the

physiology yeah so on the physiology so this is just my experience but I've had the opportunity to witness about 60 people go through Ibegain treatment for various issues, whether it be mood, whether it be trauma, whether it be drug addiction. And I've gotten to witness. It's a long protocol. You're going to be there. You're under medical supervision the entire time. It's built out like a cardiac unit, right? They do it very safely because it could be a dangerous medication. But whether it's mood, trauma, or addiction, it's like a 10-day protocol is generally how they do it. it, it can alter depending on the case or what have you. But typically it's this process of a customer or a client is going to show up one way. Let's say they're in the thralls of addiction

and it's 100 degrees in Cancun and they're wearing hoodies and they're just like little trolls just like hiding, can't talk to the world. They disappear for 24 hours. You see them the next day. They've got a fresh haircut, a suit and tie and they're just like little kids again. And it's wild from anything from fentanyl or opiate addiction to amphetamines and stimulants or just traumatic issues that have happened in their life. But what it does, like what it did for me on a physiological basis is, again, I felt like a little kid again. I just felt restored sensitivity to things like nicotine to things like caffeine. It felt like the first cup of coffee I ever had. And it just gives you this incredible sense of clarity, incredible sense of peace, energy, performance.

helped with my gut, helped with autoimmune conditions and rashes and blisters. And it's like a complete rewiring of your nervous system. It's really what it is. It's so crazy. Yeah, it's supposed to like reset your receptor sites. Yeah. I wonder if it does that even with like steroids. So yeah.

For example. Yeah. We're actually, we're actually looking at that. Get bigger. Yeah, well there's thoughts about, about androgen receptor sensitivity changes. And the same thing with your thyroid point. Yeah, we don't know. No, so I think you have to look at all these variables and study them before and after.

So we've actually done some work through beyond at Merrick when it comes to diagnostics. I have a friend Ian McCall. He was a UFC fighter, and he runs a nonprofit called Athletes Journey Home. And they, so what they're doing for veterans when it comes to PTSD studies, he's doing for athletes. Right. So athletes at the highest peak of their game, let's say they're a fighter. Some of these guys are in their 30s and they have signs of dementia already, right? they're doing these retreats and they did one at beyond with ibogaine therapy we did the diagnostics

pre and post and we're going through that right now what the results look like but he's using a variety of plant medicines and it's having a profound effect on neurogenesis and healing and symptoms of traumatic brain injury what led you to seek out ibrahimine yeah so like i've explored uh like psychedelic interventions in my own life prior to ibegain and for me it was just like an opening of awareness and interest into that side of of reality and uh when it came to ibegan so i came because i was stuck i was in a phase of just burnout i had chemical dependencies i just could not get off the bus i had a lot of things going on my life i wanted to live a different life i heard about i began it was actually through your brother's documentary, the mini series that he did.

And you were like, oh, that looks really cool to be yelling at someone to shut the TV off when the TV's already off. That's what my brother's doing. My brother's like, it's so loud. He's like, we shut the fucking thing off. You guys like, the TV's unplugged. It's a wild experience. It's hard to put it.

It's hard to put into words. You do hear the buzzing in your ears. That's the first thing you hear or a lot of people hear when the medicine is kicking in. It's wild. But yeah, it was through that. But there weren't treatment options. There was not much available. and then beyond came on the scene.

So just by happenstance, I was able to connect with them and it radically changed my life. So again, when I first came, it was because I was in a bad place, right? And I needed to get off the bus. And it gave me what I was looking for. But what it did for me is it really cracked open my head

and it opened me up to a different spiritual path, let's say. And it was an incredibly difficult experience. It was a hell ride. I mean, it was it was torturous. Right? It was the most brutal experience. I've ever had, but afterwards surviving it, or that's what it felt like, I just survived this thing and I came back. Reborn as a new person and how I felt, it was so cool to overcome that

and to survive it. So in future attempts, I've gone for just further exploration, further self-development, understanding myself more and putting myself into uncomfortable places. And it actually became very joyous. taught me how to meditate, taught me how to breathe, taught me how to get through troubling situations. Like you had a you had an experience that wasn't uh I mean maybe there were some tough parts but overall like the experience itself was a joyous experience. Oh yeah totally joyous because I believe it's it's a reflection of who you are and who I was during that hell ride was somebody so uncomfortable on an airplane that I either want to numb myself and change how I feel on this plane or I want to escape. Yeah that's not reality. So for me I think it's a reflection of who you are when

you go into that experience. So for me it was a hell ride. probably because I had a hell ride going on in my head. But yeah, basically just felt like every thought loop that I had built up for years that were unresolved just all came rushing out. And then by the end of it, there was nothing going on. There was no tape playing in my head. It was just peace and clarity.

So for me, I got a taste of that. And I was like, wow. Yeah. Did you have to deal with yourself or did you have to deal with like something that happened? Oh, I mean, there's things that happened. And like in my experience, like you're, it's basically a life review. I'm just talking about my experience.

I can't tell if you were to take it what yours would be like. But for me, it's kind of like scrooged. They, yeah, they call it truth medicine. And that's what it is. And it's, I had memories that I didn't even remember, right? Through childhood, through life that pop up. And then all of a sudden you reconcile that and you understand what that event meant, for instance.

But the thing about it is it's not like a therapist telling you what's wrong. with you it's you faced with yourself with God whatever you believe and you cannot deny it it's your own movie you have played back you have to like don't show this part you have to swallow that hard truth and the only way to get through it is to face the dragon so to speak so for me I think it's really just change my philosophy on life on many levels and it's taught me the power that I have in myself to overcome things that's why I'm so excited about like again not to revert back but even some of the stuff we're doing. We just trained Jiu-Jitsu the other day.

That's uncomfortable, but I love it. I want to be uncomfortable. I want to grow. I want to overcome things. And I've had experiences that I've overcame in many ways that, yeah, it's like, I want more of it. When you went through some of those treatments, you have somebody saying, like trying to interpret some stuff for you, like trying to help you with, oh, like this, you know, that situation that you're describing is because of this or whatever.

Yeah. So that would be, the, the, the, biggest thing like I can only speak to beyond's approach because that's only center I've been at and I wouldn't go anywhere else at this point but again the difference between somebody telling you what that meant versus you coming to that conclusion yourself that's what they practice so they're they're not there as psychologists to tell you what's going on and interpreting your story maybe there's cross talk you're really you're surrounded by a group of incredibly unique people whether they're actors or musicians or general public.

It's just a really cool spot. And you guys are going through this journey together over the course of 10 days. And you're getting hit with these truths and you're discussing the dialogues. And really it's about coming to your own conclusions and certainty on things. But yeah, for me, it's just,

it's your soul talking to you. It's God talking to you. You cannot deny what that is. So you must accept and you must move forward with it. But the thing is, like, I relate it to optimization. at the same time. Right?

So it's taught me how to control my nervous system in my state without chemicals, without substances, but using different techniques, right? Yeah. So that's the value in it for me when it comes to optimization,

but I think it's greatly powerful. Benefits people, whether it is addiction, whether it's trauma or it's optimization. Beyond even has a program just for optimization. That first go of it, was that enough to get you to kick the dependencies?

100%. Reborn, 100%. So like even with people that have, let's say they have opiate addiction, generally you skip withdrawal phase, right? You skip that phase or it's dramatically reduced. And essentially it puts you 90 days ahead

roughly of the recovery curve. Right? So it really helps build momentum. So yeah, it helped me get back to baseline, be in a good spot. And then the rest of the exploration, just came from trying to learn more about myself. So, you know, earlier you mentioned that you were like really, really big on neutropics.

So my question is like, what neutropics are you messing with right now? Is there anything that like, well, yeah, what are you messing with right now? And is there anything that you think people should start thinking about that? Maybe they haven't heard about it before. Yeah, I probably, I use less supplements, substances, chemicals, interventions than I've ever used in my life. I mean, I do think I began as the most powerful neutropic. that there is, like at least for me.

But there are things that I'll experiment with, like methylene blue I'll use every once in a while. But every once in a while, maybe some new peft or something like that. But 10 years ago, we were using, you know, we still do today at our practice, but Selank, CMAX, even oxytocin nasal spray is something I've been using

post-training to try to get back into a parasympathetic state. The same thing with Selank nasal spray. Right? So with my training load right now, Now it's higher than it's ever been. Yeah. And I'm a very sympathetically driven person.

So how can I rebound my HRV and how can I drop parasympathetic faster, right? Obviously breathwork or sauna or coal plunged or something like that. But Selank and oxytocin I think has some great promise for doing that. Improving recovery scores overnight, helping you drop back into baseline. Yeah. What's diehexa? I don't know much about it. I figured that you would know.

I think it's something that is on that list that could be used by. places like Merrick. So I don't know too much about DiHexa personally, nor do I have experience. But as I understand it, it was kind of a synthetic version of BDNF that is much more powerful. So there are some anecdotes out there. I don't know much about that compound personally. Also help some people with like autism and stuff. I would imagine it would depend wildly on what part of the spectrum you are in terms of your autism. But a hundred percent like, you know, back in the day I would use things like cerebrilicin or cortexin and those were some of the most potent neutropics that I'd use at that point. Absolutely. Even when it came to resetting caffeine sensitivity or

improving your central nervous system response or recovery. Yeah. What about like the zins and all the different things that you get pretty hook? I'm in it right now. I'm in it right now. So you and do you still have some dependencies that you don't like, they don't like or you don't mind them? I would say caffeine. So caffeine and nicotine have crept back into my life. And I mean, they're, they're pretty okay right now. I take an I've been. Yeah. So, but, but like a couple months back, I quit caffeine for the first time in like 20 years.

I quit caffeine and nicotine for eight weeks. It was a little hard at first. I got back to baseline. I felt great. But I just figured, wow, feel so good. I imagine what a cup of coffee feels like today, right? I'm similar. You know, I've kicked things and then brought things back in.

And, you know, I've done that with caffeine. I've done it with Kratom. Yeah. I've been off Kratom for like two weeks recently. Like I just every once in a while, I'm like, ah, I think I'm kind of like using like a lot of that. I should probably cut back. 100%.

You know, you can get, you can get lost in these things real quick. Yeah. And you can start to justify him. And you're like, I'm sounding like a drug addict. 100%. Like what I would say for me, it was like death by optimization, right? You get obsessed with learning that there's all these tools that you can leverage. to be in X amount of state

or I can be in this mood for this purpose or I have a lot of work to do how can I make it as enjoyable as possible, right? And you get a free lunch for a long time until it catches up with you, right? And then you have too much going on. How do you get off that bus? So yeah, I try to minimize as much as possible

and just try to learn how to feel good through exercise, through movement, through other practices, sauna, cold plunge. So really I'm just in a phase of learning how to manipulate my own pharmacy inside. Sometimes forget how good it can feel to like just learn something new.

Completely. Like drugs aside, just like literally just learn something new makes you feel amazing. Totally. That's why I love like jujitsu or even playing around with striking or working with Phil's. I'm just doing constantly,

I'm doing new movements. I want to feel like a little kid again, right? You were talking about having those little twins, the babies that are just roly polleys, right? I just want to feel functional. I want to be able to do whatever I can do. So like for us at Miracle, like that is kind of the goal, right?

What is optimization for you? We want to help match that. What made you start jujitsu? Because you also mentioned that like America had a little company thing and everybody did jiu jitsu, even if they didn't actually do jiu jitsu. It was amazing. Yeah, we had our whole leadership suite out for an offsite event that we had earlier in the year.

And I think we had 15 or 16 of our leadership team come out. We all did Nogi. We rolled. I was at, um, so I have, I started doing jiu jitsu. and some martial arts years ago in 2019 with a guy Victor Torres out of victorious MMA and then a guy Tim Washburn

who's just incredible at jujitsu those guys poured a lot into me but I had gaps I mean there was my life was health and fitness right and then it became building a company and I sacrificed my own health I didn't need to but I thought I needed to do that and now I'm kind of on the journey back right

so for me like working out is incredible myself I can make progress, but nothing touches like physical combat. There's a different feeling whether it be like I feel different post-workout. I like being humbled, humiliated. Nothing drives me to improve and learn faster than just getting walked over like our session we did the other day. Me and Phil were talking about it and it's like no that can't happen again, right? So it drives you to improve fast. But yeah, I think it's a it's a different feeling. It's endorphins, is competitiveness and it's validating yourself.

You can talk to talk all day long, but if you get out there and you're exposed, you have no choice but to learn or don't show up again. Yeah. So for me it's been a lot of fun. And it's mentally engaging. Yeah. 100%.

Breathing hard, working hard. Yeah, it's brutal, but it's fun. It all makes you feel really good. It does. Going on a run or doing jujitsu or just getting yourself these compromising positions where you're like really, you know, trying to figure out how you're going to, I guess, almost calm yourself down because you work so hard. You're getting sweaty and breathing hard and trying to regulate your breathing, trying to regulate

your heart rate. I just find that to me, like doing something like that almost daily just makes me feel great. Necessary. So like I'm sure you've talked about this a million times, but when was the first time you went for a three mile run? Like when did you start? Oh, it was like, yeah, just a couple years ago. Yeah, what drove you to begin that? Um, I guess just having the capacity to be able to do it. So I was like walking a lot and then I would like walk, run and eventually just, uh, I was on. So there's a route that I go on that's like a, it's like a circle, I guess you'd say. And I would walk that every day and I'd walk, run it a little bit here and there. And then eventually I was like, oh, I think I can just run the whole thing. And that's about three miles.

That kicked it off, just a personal challenge. Do you feel different? Like are you chasing cardiovascular fitness at this point? Yeah, I feel like I could use a lot more of that rather than another strength training session. Yeah, it's different. It's different than strength training. It's a different effect. I think it's higher on the dorphine scale, makes you feel good.

It feels good to breathe. I mean, I still love lifting. And I'll always love lifting. But just at this point, I'm like, I don't really know what another lifting session will necessarily do. It's not like I'm going to stop lifting. So even if I was to trail off a little bit and only lift once a week, I don't think there would be any real noticeable difference one way or the other. If I did it for a short period of time, then kind of came back around to it. So it'll always be there. I've always loved it. And so my focus has changed. Have you noticed correlations with

like energy levels or sleep from going more cardiovascular fitness building? Like has that? Have you notable things in your just quality of life? I don't know. I've always, my sleep hasn't been great, but I think it is getting better, but I think it's like super slow. Yeah. It's like getting better in super slow motion.

Like I used to wake up like four or five times a night and now I wake up three or four times a night. You know what I mean? So it's better than it was. But it's hard for me to like just like just be out. Like there's no scenario. where I sleep in, you know, like I can't sleep, you know, I'll wake up, I'll wake up at four and then I'll wake up again at like 630 or so. I tend to wake up almost like every 90 minutes or so.

I almost like clockwork. Every once in a while I'll be out for a little bit longer, but that's about, that's about all I got. So, I mean, health benefits. I mean, I've always felt good. You know, I felt good when I was bigger and fatter. I just, I didn't have the same capacities, the powerlifting person that people saw that that only existed for a short period of time sure even though there was a lot of footage of it i only did that for like about four or five years being that big and before that i was more like this back to baseline yeah back to baseline exactly cool well thanks for coming on the show today and i think it's amazing that you guys are uh you know building and expanding and thank you so much for the support of the show absolutely thanks for the

opportunity, you guys. Really appreciate it. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.