Mark Bell's Power Project - You've Been LIED To About Supplements || MBPP Ep. 934

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about a recent video from former guest, Eugene Teo, explaining how to spot a bad supplement with fake claims  Watch the Eugene Teo ep here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6GldA9e2K8     New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

I'm going to show you how to deconstruct a supplement, critically assess it, and assume whether it's worth spending your hard-earned cash on. And then some people say that they don't really take supplements, but then they have a lot of supplements. Because they're like, oh, I wasn't thinking you were talking about like vitamins and minerals. Do you guys think that because The Rock has his energy drink that people are more likely to trust that energy drink than like a monster? Fitness and health and fitness. That's not most of the population. Most of the population is just like chilling, living life. And The Rock says this is good for you. The Rock says.

I think that we're in a day and age where the branding of stuff is a lot less important than you might think. I think it's convenience. Maybe they are going to hype the product up more than what it's worth. Just because Jesse James made $17,000 off of one post doesn't mean the product's bad. What are you guys' thoughts on fat burgers? There's certain things that you can't really get that much help for burning fat is one of them one of the other ones that's a huge one is pain what you doing over there you're messing around with some grippy stuff i well i bought this after you mentioned it, but I ended up spending $200 on this fucking gripzilla tornado.

I want better grip strength, dog. Is that what a lot of, like, Andrew, in your experience, is that what people say about Encima, that he really struggles with keeping a good grip on people? Yeah. If anybody's been stuck in his De La Riva, you'll know it just oh you just a little tug on the gi uh sleeve and boom it comes out and just move a little bit and his hands just can't it's like slippery bar soap yeah yeah dude i've been dude no it's cool it's cool though i've been really working on my grip incessantly this thing's it's interesting do i think it's the next thing you need to spend 200 something dollars on no but if you have some if you

got some money to spare and you want to buy it buy it it's at least i mean it's made extremely well and it's fucking no weighs a lot but yeah i will say this the getting the threading thing on like trying to screw that shit on was extremely frustrating um and it's it's there's some frustrating aspects to it but i think when they do it yeah when they do like a v2 or whatever but it's solid it is a solid product stir it like you're stirring something or you're in porridge go like i think if uh you were like someone on a motorcycle or a dirt bike dirt bike i think it'd be amazing because they talk about how much they need grip for that you can can go forward, backwards, and then you can loosen the thing way up and have a lot less tension.

You can move your wrist this way on here, and you can arm wrestle it. That's what it's originally for. Show them what you were doing in the office. Oh, yeah. It's kind of going like this, and it gets really exciting to kind of get it up here. You're going to have a lot of fun. The next version, he said, you're going to be able to slide up and down. I'm not sure what that feature is for, but that's interesting.

Yeah, I do dig it quite a bit. I mean, I've been using not just these ones that they sent, but for a while, I've been using the ones from Captains of Crush. Dude, my grip has – people have commented a lot about my grip. You know what I mean? So I'm – yeah. Literally, people are just just gonna be seeing me on the podcast now like when we have the guests i'll just be fucking hey you feel that in your

shoulders kind of everywhere yeah it's it's cool though it has called build quality so yeah touch my shirt mark i want you to see how soft it is it. See? Yeah, man. I don't... Soft, silky, smooth, but hard underneath. Very hard underneath. It's another one from Viore. I don't know the name of this shirt from Viore, but it's a good one. It's one of their casualties.

And people that are wondering, no, you are not going to look as good as Nsema by trying it out. But it'll make you look better than you do currently. At least you don't have like a fucking alien head. Have you noticed like with my headphones, my head doesn't look like it ends? It looks like it just keeps going. But don't you have it further back, though? I don't know. I guess so.

I see what you're saying. The extra brain power in there. Type in, you know, the alien from Alien? I think it's the alien from Alien, right? Yes. I have that head. Can you use that to your advantage you do that in jujitsu you like press it down on people potentially yes

i felt it um you know what i'm talking about now yes you see it that's me doc that's my fucking head it's perfect because it's like where does it end we have a thumbnail on the channel that looks just like that with my fucking head it's perfect because it's like where does it end we have a thumbnail on the channel that looks just like that with my head oh lord our dysmorphia reaching new heights and seem to think you look like an alien oh god what do we got we got a video to watch, don't we? Yeah. Supplements? Mr. Eugene Teo. We had him on the podcast.

He's an amazing creator. He makes a lot of amazing content. Y'all should check out his channel if you haven't already. But he made a video on, like, judging supplements, you know? And recently we've been talking more and more about supplementation on the channel. We've had different people that have come on. We had Adam Hotchkiss, and he mentioned a few things that would be good. I bought some P5P recently because of it. But I think Eugene put out a really good piece of content on this, so we should talk about it.

Yeah, let's check it out. Also, guys, comment below real quick. In terms of supplementation, what do you personally find useful? Because, I mean, a lot of people use so many different supplements, but I don't know. As far as supplements are concerned, some people have the craziest stacks where they have like 30 pills a day and they think it makes a difference. Do you guys really think that supplements like that can make that much of a difference for you? So comment down below what you're using currently. And then some people say that they don't really take supplements, but then they have a lot of supplements.

Because they're like, oh, I wasn't thinking you were talking about like vitamins and minerals. And it's like, well, you know, people might be using vitamin D and vitamin C and all different kinds of stuff when you really break it down. Yeah. All right. Today I'm going to teach you a very important skill. How to tell if something is complete bullshit. When a new supplement or product enters the market, there are three core ways that you can get influence into purchasing it. First is marketing hype. This is where the brand strategically plans out content to build

awareness. It often includes the use of influencers or affiliates and may include creating more scarcity through giveaways to create even more marketing hype. Next is trust in the brand or the specific authority figures associated with that brand. If I've spent a long time sharing good information with you, you're more likely to trust me. And the stronger that trust is, the more willing you are to put that trust in. This has actually been on the desk for a few days. I think it's been on the desk over the weekend. Let's see.

They don't go bad. Still holds a little bit of carbonation. Yeah, there's some, I don't know what it is. If it's like the, like the, well, I don't know. Well, the carbonation is gone, but it tastes good. No, like most energy drinks are like good for like a long well, I don't know. Well, the carbonation is gone, but it tastes good. No, like most energy drinks are like good for like a long time. I don't know what it is. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?

I think it's great. Shelf stable? I think we're in the future where we don't have to worry about whether or not we drink our energy drinks fast enough. Fair. Yeah. I think there's some stuff when it comes to energy drinks. I think people just like the flavor of them too.

Oh yeah. That's true. People do like to energy drinks. I think people just like the flavor of them too. Oh, yeah. That's true. People do like to hit that caffeine button a lot too. So there's caffeine and a lot of times there's vitamins in there as well. But I think people just enjoy the taste of it. And a lot of them nowadays just have a lot less calories in them. This Gorilla Line stuff is good, but guys, be careful with it. Don't be drinking three of these things a day.

As much as it's great, that's just a lot of caffeine other stuff it's it's meant as a pre-workout you don't want to take anything that's going to mess with your sleep yeah all right let's go into me blindly for better or worse we also place trust in celebrities and athlete endorsements which is why influencer marketing is so arms and finally we have the actual research does the product contain the things that you want in the doses that want, and does it fulfill a specific purpose for you? There's a clear overlap between all these factors, but today we're going to focus a little bit more on this one. I'm going to show you how to deconstruct a supplement,

critically assess it, and discern whether it's worth spending your hard-earned cash on, or whether it's a complete waste of time. This is important, because if you don't know how to do this, you expose yourself to being misled by bullshit marketing hype, and people who might use their perceived authority in one area, like having a jacked, trunipersick, those probably cheap drugs,

to sell you supplements or services that you don't need because they're making a ton of money from you by selling their bullshit. There's a lot of sub-primals that are convinced that Liver King is taking steroids. If you don't believe this is possible, then I suggest that you take that self-limiting belief, you put that shit in a fucking box, and you bury that next to all your embarrassing shit, and don't open your fucking mouth about it.

Let that live with you. Several months later. I'm making this video i apologize yes i love this how jacked he is there yes i'm on steroids oh i'm getting positive y'all it was too long ago we were under fire everyone was like you stupid fucks believed him oh god that was great but good times good times on i mean okay let's see on that note do you guys think that um because the rock has his energy drink that people are more likely to trust that energy drink than like a monster in today's day and age absolutely i i think so okay well i mean he's the fucking rock right he endorses something there's going to be

most people don't aren't deep into fitness and health and fitness that's not most of the population most of the population is just like chilling living life and the rock says this is good for you yeah okay rock says the rock says so first of all i think monster is huge it's a huge company they have so much distribution, right? I think that we're in a day and age where the branding of stuff is a lot less important than you might think. I think it's convenience. It's convenience. It's expense.

And it's what the product does for you. So Monster has a similar result every time you have one. It feels like it gives you a zip, right? It feels like it gives you a boost. You know what to expect taste-wise. So from a branding perspective, they nailed that kind of over and over again. But I've been thinking about this a lot more recently. I think with social media and just a lot of the direction that a lot of things are going in, I don't think the branding is like the key ingredient anymore.

I think it's like, what can this product do for me? Is it around a lot? Do I have easy convenience to it? Is it going to get to me kind of quickly? And what's it going to do for me? Does it taste good? Like I think energy drinks are like entertainment. Like, yeah, I'm kind of bored.

I'm going to have an energy drink. Like just pick up my day. My day is kind of like blah, energy drink, boom. Okay, yeah, because like, you know, no disrespect to like ZOA, but like I had it, it's fine, it's good. But like if I'm in a store and I'm going to purchase something, it's like, oh, I'm going to go for that white monster because I enjoy it more. But I don't sit there and think like, oh, but the rock doesn't drink this one

or whatever, you know, so that's why I was just asking that. I like the rock better than the owner of monster yeah you're not going to probably buy it just because of that but maybe some young kids might be influenced in that direction especially with uh because they just showed um sorry is that jacob paul or logan paul yeah logan paul and ksi so i can see i can see something like that where somebody's been following them for a long time and they want to support their favorite you know creator or whatever it may be so like that i kind of i understand a little bit more than like a celebrity influence or like they showed um thor what uh hemsworth yeah i don't know like that wouldn't persuade me to go one way or the other but like i don't know like if i enjoyed

gorilla mind a lot i'd be like oh that's der. Like I'm going to – I'll definitely opt for that. And he's done a deep dive on his shit, right? Yeah. So one interesting thing though too is like the Prime drinks, I've had them. And the funny thing about it is like the electrolyte thing, blend in it, isn't the greatest. But it does taste really good. That is one thing that a lot of companies do try to lean towards like because the first thing you're going to get somebody is if it doesn't taste good

no one's going to fucking buy it even if the ingredients are great but they kind of killed it with the taste of it you know so you look how big gatorade got to be right yeah it's you know the gatorade just got you believing that all the athletes took it and then so you were like well if they're using it for their sport like i'm just going to use it for mine but gatorade works it's it's effective like it has sugar in it but carbohydrates help hydrate the muscles they use sodium their original formula wasn't bad and seem to just broke something it's okay it's it's the grip thing that i just had oh god that's the second thing that I just had. That's the second thing that's felt to this. It's a heavy thing.

It's not like a karate kick. But yeah, I mean, things like Gatorade, they actually can work. They can be beneficial. But yeah, did they swindle a lot of people into buying a product for a price that probably isn't appropriate because it probably costs so cheap to make it? Yeah, probably. But that's the American way. Also, I may be mistaken, but like, you know, the kind of maybe the Gatorade that was popular years ago,

I remember drinking it when, you know, we'd be playing soccer and stuff, but there'd be carbohydrates in it. But if you looked at like the amount of electrolytes in it, there was not that much in terms of sodium, magnesium, potassium. And that's one thing that like, I guess the market is more educated on

because even though Prime doesn't have the best electrolyte mix, it's like they keep the calories low and they do have sodium, magnesium, potassium in it. And it's more than the original Gatorade. So it's like the market is getting smarter of like, oh, it doesn't just taste like a sugary drink. There's something in it that's going to help me out. Yeah, and Gatorade now has like an official electrolyte square bottle drink. It's like Gator Light, I think it's called. Yeah, yeah, I think it's called Gator Light.

They should have thought that one through a little longer. They don't give a shit. They're like, all right, people are trying to take some market share away from us. Put this out, and they'll pump out some new thing. Gatorade Zero, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's go. Commission as an influencer.

What is the most you've ever made from a brand deal a one-off my highest was like 17k but i'll be honest with you that's not high enough seventeen thousand dollars for a single post which i'm sure has gone up since then and is only a fraction of what he really makes from long-term brand partnership deals and affiliates this is not a big at jesse james west he might not be your cup of tea but i think he puts out entertaining content and seems like a great guy. I only picked him because he's one of very few who has been transparent about his earnings, which is a really important lesson for many of you who might not realize just how lucrative that side of the business can be.

So here's how to take the power back and break things down. Maybe just pause for a second here. I guess that could be problematic, right? Somebody's, they are getting paid a lot of money to put out a post so maybe they are going to hype the product up more than what it's worth um i don't really see a lot of influencers though and i'm unfamiliar with i haven't seen a lot of jesse james stuff i haven't really seen too many influencers i mean we saw what liver king did but it's rare for someone to be like take this this is what you're going to look like i don't really see a lot of guys doing that i do understand that a lot of people would

associate the creatine back in the day with the bodybuilder that was put in front of them but even back then i don't really know if the guys were like this is all i use you know i don't to me it doesn't seem as deceiving as everybody else in the fitness industry seems to make it out to be, but maybe that's because I sell supplements. I see a lot of posts still. And the thing is, is like, most people aren't like, yeah, take this to look like me, but they're, you know, they'll do their workout. Then they'll be like, no, I'm mixing up my drink. Tasty. And I mean, it is a direct advertisement for the product, which isn't bad but it's some people do make it sound like this is the main thing that's currently helping me out even though it's

a part of the equation like protein shakes are definitely fucking useful we just talked about that on a prior podcast all these things are useful but when marketing it um it's like it it's these products are shown to do more than they actually do right uh but we do know how we do know how a lot how useful these things can be but i think it's just uh it's it's tough it's tough because like you know that the biggest things are your nutrition your sleep that's why kind of all the companies that we personally do work with are things that aren't really that hard to sell right because you know there's a mattress that actually is going to be beneficial for your sleep there's fucking shoes we do use supplements but like the supplements are bare bones there's nothing

crazy about no crazy claims um but there still is some weird marketing out there you know and people will fall for it do you guys think it's like up to the influencer to like announce that they're like with a company or not with a company? I always find it interesting. I have caught myself doing that before. And I'm like, it's really no one else's fucking business if I'm with a company or not with a company. When you say with, what do you mean? Like getting money from them.

I'd rather tell people I'm getting money from a company rather than telling people that I'm not. Because that seems more shady to me. Like I'm not getting money from this grip company right people that I'm not, you know, because that seems more shady to me. Like I'm not getting money from this grip company right here that I'm promoting. And we're actually not though. Right, right. But no one has any way to reference any of that. Yeah. You know, if I'm like, hey, I'm excited to announce that this grip company is like part

of our podcast. I'd rather tell you that I am making money off of it and tell you that this is a flat out sale. This is a great product. This is what can I do for you. This is how I discovered it. You guys already know I've been in the fitness industry forever. I examine all, you know, as many products as I can get my hands on. And this is one that I think will fit you. Like I'd rather kind of tell people potentially when there is a, an exchange of money saying like somebody paid me to like kind of get this spot

but it's interesting too I think a lot of times we feel the need to be like I'm not even getting money for this Garmin watch that I'm wearing but I'm going to tell you about it or a ring or whatever it might be yeah I could I know for like I think like an Amazon review like if the company sends you an item for free you have to mention that in your review like i got this to review here's my review or whatever the heck they say and i thought for a while that's what you had to do on like social media except no one's policing it like nobody's actually checking to see if like oh did they give you money for it or whatever and then at at one point i remember people were like hashtagging ad on like a nike picture it's like nike's not actually paying you like you're just trying

to front and act like you are somebody important but um yeah i i don't know i um i i would obviously yeah i would definitely like if people were more transparent about it um i don't know it's hard it's hard to know right it's hard if somebody has a code you know like if somebody's like use my code you you know yeah yeah you know yeah so like and most people when they when they're talking about a product they usually have a code attached so like they're not saying they're not explicitly saying i'm getting paid for this but if there's a code attached then the person that's talking about it is going to be getting a cut yeah it'd be cool to talk to somebody that's hasn't been like in the fitness realm for a long time just

be like do you understand if they have a code that they're probably getting paid like i'm curious because we understand that but i wonder if somebody you know like the everyday consumer yeah doesn't automatically know that and does that change your mind and why yeah yeah it's interesting too like does it change your mind like this because just because jesse james made 17k off of one post doesn't mean the product's bad the product could be awesome it could be great that they have 17k to spend on that yeah and this is like this is the thing about this it's like if you're someone who is trying to promote things that's why you kind of need to be careful about what you work with because i do know people that are just like who've worked with brand after brand after brand just switching switching

switching and then after a point you just realize oh you don't necessarily really care about like what it is you just kind of care about getting paid which is fair everyone needs to make their money but it's like you need to be you need to be cognizant of exactly what you're working with because people will use it. And you want – if you're saying somebody fucking sleep on this mattress, you want them to get the results you're talking about. Or if they don't, you are no longer trustworthy. And that's a big deal if you're someone who's trying to help people better their lives and their fitness. It's a big deal.

Yeah. people better their lives and their fitness it's a big deal yeah i said no to a knife company recently that i'm still kind of thinking about because it was like a sick-ass designer knife and i'm like oh that would be sick but then you know of course they always the way and i said this to a pants company too recently and the way they word it they were like hey this is free all you have to do is just post on social media about how much you love the product and i'm like well what if i don't love it like what if i kind of just like it or if it's like meh like now i'm already on the hook for because you sent me something and now you expect expect something in return so yeah it's always kind of weird but i just i don't need that knife one's gonna sit with

me for a while because it looks sick this is also why it's like it's super necessary it's kind of like look up reviews on things like we may be talking about Vivo or fucking just any of the stuff that we've talked about here. But then go and look up people's experiences. Just go YouTube stuff. Because, yeah, we don't just work with anybody. And it's cool if you trust us. But then if you just go and look stuff up, you'll see, okay, it is legit, right? Or maybe we're bullshitting you and making money

on the author end. No, we're not doing that. But yeah, do your research. There you go. Most informed decision possible on where to spend your hard-earned money. Before we go any further, it's worth mentioning that this is not a sponsored video. It's not an ad. I never accept any paid endorsements no matter how profitable they can be. My channel will always be about sharing information with as little bias as possible. Step one is find the ingredient list. Now Derek's new product is extremely transparent, which is already a huge thumbs up. And he's even gone a step further and just released the video going through a full dissection and analysis of every single ingredient, the research and his reasonings for putting it in. I love that. Because even if he was wrong

about something, he's putting himself out there to be open, honest, and not intentionally mislead anyone. So we're going to go through this and I'll give you my thoughts on it and whether I recommend it or not in a sec. But first, contrast that with one of Australia's most popular fat burning pre-workouts, OxyShred, where there is no detailed ingredient list. That is a dead giveaway. Pause this real quick. Yo, okay.

What are you guys' thoughts on fat burners? I still get surprised about how many messages I get from people about like, oh, what fat burners do you use? I remember when I was a young, when I was a teenager, um, in my early twenties, shit, I was like, what's the best fat burner, this and that. But you find out kind of like, they're not really right. Like, what do you guys think about them? There are certain things that you can't really get that much help for burning fat is one of them. One of the other ones that's a huge one is pain.

You can't have 10, you can't even go to the doctor and have them tell you what kind of pain you're experiencing. Like they can use every form of technology possible to try to figure it out. X-ray MRI, everything. And I think fat burning is similar. There are things that you can probably take that might encourage your body to

like liberate a little bit more fat. It might be encouraging to be in a caloric deficit while you're taking a fat burner. So therefore, it might be effective, but it's not the fat burner that's really doing much. It's not that ozempic. Yeah, it's the fact that you're on a plan. You're on a diet. But yeah, in my experience, I haven't really ever seen anyone. Again, I've said this many times when it comes to a supplement it's

not like oh my god you see so and so oh yeah they're on that new fat burner you know like holy shit like and sema's always in great shape but he's fucking diced man it's insane he looks stage ready i don't know what's going on he's going to compete in the olympia that oxy shred baby he's on fucking oxy shred and it's just working perfectly so that shit is deceiving as fuck though because you do see some people who are like when they get lean they're like i'm taking this fat burner and if you're in the know you're like bitch you you fucking lying fuck like you know it's not that fucking pill you're taking right now yeah i know like um like a lot of them will have like yo yo, yo him bind or, you know, that, and then like, yeah, I believe black pepper extract or something like that. And those are, I believe they actually do like raise your body temperature and you might start sweating.

You know, like when we're on the mats and I'm drenched in sweat, I've never done anything quite like that before and I'm sweating a lot. But like if I take something that makes me sweat a lot more, you know, is it burning fat or is it just like kind of depleting whatever hydration I have in my body, therefore making me lose weight? So in that aspect, they do that, but I don't know if they work to burn fat. Yeah, whatever the case is, it's not going to be anything that's going to be really super effective in burning fat. So does it maybe raise your temperature up a little bit? Could it maybe help somebody lose just like a tiniest amount of fat if you utilized it for like a year straight or something? Maybe, but it'd be so minimal and so minuscule. We know what the truth is. The truth is you have to have your habits connected.

Otherwise, you can't lose that body fat. Power Project Family, we talk about beef and meat all the time on the podcast. That's why we partner with Certified Piedmontese Beef. But did you know this? That 85% of all grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries? 85%. Damn. All grass-fed, grass-finished beef in the United States is imported from other countries. Eighty-five percent.

Damn. But certified Piedmontese is made in the U.S. of A. America. America. Fuck yeah. So go ahead and get some of the best tasting, some of the leanest, some of the best beef from Piedmontese. Andrew, how can they get it? Absolutely.

So you guys can head over to cpbeef.com and check out enter promo code power to save 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Again, cpbeef.com. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Fuck yeah! Something like Yojimbe could move the needle a little bit. But like this is something kind of interesting to think about here, long-term versus short-term. Let's think about something like electrolytes, right? When most people exercise, a lot of people are dehydrated and that causes them to not be able

to put in as much work, move as much volume, exercise for as long of a time with higher intensity, right? Which if you add that in over a week and months being dehydrated because of lack of electrolytes, they won't burn as much fat as the person who has like let's say creatine and they're using electrolytes. gym. But those products right there will help you burn more fat than the specific fat-burning product of OxyShred or Yohimbe or whatever, right? And those are cheaper. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the top-selling supplements are things that help you manage your testosterone levels like some of those Frank Thomas commercials. Multivitamins still kill. You got to pull that. thomas commercials um multivitamins still kill you gotta pull that multivitamins still just dominate the market and they've been huge forever and i think there's there's other things that have started to replace that with uh more natural means like i think uh like athletic greens i think

is uh when you're when you're uh talking about like b vitamins and c vitamins and all these different vitamins i'm not really sure exactly where they come from. When they come from other sources and they're put into like a capsule or pill form. But when you have something like athletic greens, at least it's like chopped up greens that you're getting some of these nutrients from. So the supplement industry is kind of riddled with being stuck in the past. I don't even know if that's wise to take a multivitamin, just a general basic multivitamin. I kind of think that they are – I think they're kind of dangerous personally. But I don't have any proof on anything like that.

But I don't think they're a great option. They make you just pee weird colors. They give you a lot of maybe stuff that you don't need. This is something that I found pretty interesting. So I've been using the Athletic Greens for a bit. I mentioned that. And I used to take a multi. Every time I take multis, like first off, when I pee a little bit later,

mad yellow, kind of stinky. That's something that kind of always, for me, always happens with multis. It may not be bad, but it doesn't seem like it's good. It's never a great experience. But the Athletic Greens or whatever never had any of those weird peeing things you know what i mean like there's no crazy color yeah so it's interesting because athletic greens is essentially a multivitamin that also has greens and stuff in there that you typically don't get in your diet so you i wonder is it because it's blended and in that and this is all of that in

one pill i don't fucking know but that's an interesting little might be more bioavailable or maybe there's an argument and i can't i have no idea but like maybe what they stick inside of a multivitamin is just so high concentrate that your body can't really assimilate it i mean think about normally when you're going to eat something yeah how much nutrients would you really pull from it uh you know just think about magnesium you know somebody takes a magnesium supplement where would your magnesium normally come from normally come from like nuts or something imagine like trying to break open a bunch of nuts it takes you forever you might eat a small handful of it and then the nuts are are uh like in nature scientifically

uh combined with other things that will help you absorb all the nutrients like when you eat a piece of fruit for example it has potassium in it which helps with your blood sugar regulation it has fiber in it which also helps with your blood sugar regulation so you're you're getting sugar which people are like oh my god you're getting sugar but you're getting sugar, which people are like, oh my God, you're getting sugar. But you're getting sugar with cofactors in it that actually assist your blood sugar. So when you get things in nature, or even when you kind of blend them up

and do things like that, you're still at a much more natty state than you might be otherwise. And when it comes to a fat burner, I don't, like, again, I just don't really think, I don't really think it's going to be something that really moves the needle for people. I don't think they should waste their money on them.

Don't honestly don't. Hopefully you get a refund. Probably full of shit. Sorry guys. I guess I probably won't be accepting that part. Yes. It's got a whole bunch of active ingredients in it, but because they don't disclose the exact doses,

they could have just put the most infinitesimal inactive amount that confers no benefit in it and still label it and use it in their marketing so ehp labs is asking me to trust that they the company who stands to benefit financially from misleading me won't use lower doses or do you guys remember shreds oh yeah you meant like 2016 2015 remember shred xt nah shreds uh i remember there's page hathaway i think was her name she was uh one of the shreds athletes shreds had the fat burners that's when like because supplement marketing on social media was kind of new since instagram was kind of new it was just abhorrent like it was like yeah this to burn fat and people were all over that shit

but um i do think uh like a fedrin and which is like not a product you could really get anymore unless you have a little eca stack asthma right and then there's your hembine which seems to have tiny bit of merit we know the impact of carnitine but you can't really consume enough uh karmaine via supplementation. You got to inject that motherfucker. You got to inject it. It burns. And then there's some peptides and there's some hormones that seem to have some beneficial effects in terms of like burning fat. But again, nothing really happens losing fat-wise unless you start to have some habits.

happens losing fat wise unless you start to have some habits and there are things like uh ozampic and we're seeing some some discoveries that seem like they have some benefit but for every reward there's there's always risk on the back end of that but i think it's amazing i think it's incredible that there are starting to be solutions for people that have really struggled with their weight for a long time people that are backed up against the wall, I don't think they have a lot of choices. And I think that looking into something like that might be a good choice. You talking about like Ozempic? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you mentioned, be careful with something like that because there might

be some of you guys who are seeing a lot of people are hopping on Ozempic and that stuff. Just be careful. We're seeing people starting to lose a little bit more muscle mass than they originally thought and things like that. So there's risk to reward to everything. So what he's talking about here is proprietary blends. And maybe I'm just – I believe people are too good for this sort of thing. But it's mind-blowing to me that a company would go through all this trouble like marketing.

I don't, I don't know exactly what it takes to put out a supplement for the entire world to buy, but to make a very ineffective supplement that is being sold based off of complete hype. Like to me, that sounds crazy, but I, and I understand it,

it obviously happens, but like, I guess why, why do all that knowing that it's not going to work? There's a lot of reasons. Um, please explain. Yeah. So if you wanted to, you, you're, you're pretty keen on like nootropics and you studied them a bunch and, and made some yourself and things like that. Um, if you came to me and you're all pumped and you're like, I like nootropics and you studied them a bunch and, and made some yourself and things like that. If you came to me and you're all pumped and you're like, I want ashwagandha and I want this, I researched this and that and these different things. I would then,

if I'm a manufacturer, I would say, Andrew, that's amazing. That's great. Do you want to do that? Here's come an issue. The type of alpha GPC that you're looking for, we can get it, but we don't know for how long.

It'll be available through 2023, but come 2024, it's going to be scarce because maybe some of the other bigger companies are buying it or have deals or whatever. The other ingredients that you were looking for kind of same thing. Like it's hard to source these. We're looking for sources and they might call you back and I might call you back and say, you know, I, I found, I found some of what you were looking for, but then it turns out, you know, the, the original thing that has a gram of alpha GPC now has 500 milligrams. Now it's cut as well as they're going to explain i think it's explained in this video um you know just it just keeps kind of

snowballing and you're like uh my product isn't really the same anymore you know it and that's that's what happens and when you put something in a you got to put something in a capsule it's like how much shit can you stock up in a capsule? And now I got to tell people to take six capsules. It's like, I just lost half my, even the people that are going to buy it, they're not going to use it continuously if they got to take fucking six of them. That is a barrier. And then you're like, well, maybe I can, uh, you're like, shit, maybe I can make it a powder.

And then I tell you, well, Andrew, interesting thing about like alpha GPC and caffeine and these different things you want to use. They all taste fucking horrific. And it doesn't matter what we try to do to it. We can't mask it. And now you're like, fuck. And so you have to make some bastardized version of exactly what it was that you wanted to make in the first place. Damn. But that's also kind of why like when it comes to things that have a proprietary blend

i usually just stay the fuck away from them i mean i some i saw that in a video years ago i was just like let me just stick to bigger stronger faster oh you guys mentioned that in bigger stronger faster there we go i used to stick with things that have the ingredients on the label so i know exactly what i'm taking in even though maybe sometimes people can lie about that but it's much harder to i mean coming from you make supplements it's sometimes people can lie about that but it's much harder to i mean coming from you make supplements it's much harder to lie about that what if starting out there like let's say uh steak shake actually like it can do something pretty crazy uh i don't know what i insert whatever crazy thing can happen from taking

a protein supplement you gain muscle faster than a whey protein. And you just don't want anybody to know what your secret blend of ingredients is because then they're all going to start copying you. Because I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people that are getting ready to launch their meat-based complex protein shake based off of steak shake yeah to try to protect it or whatever so like yeah is there any merit to like being like no it's not that we're lying about what's in it it's just we want to protect our secret ingredients there are probably people that do that there are people that probably yeah choose to just put proprietary blend

so it's kind of on there as one like hodgepodge thing that you, you can't really tell exactly what's in there. But most of the time, I mean, I'm just curious, but most of the time, like when people do that, it's not for, it could be,

but it's usually not for that reason. Right. It's usually so I'm not qualified enough for sure. I have somebody that I go through all this with back and forth and he's like, no, you can't do that. He's like, yeah, you can do that. No, you can't do that. You know, and they go back and forth with you. And, uh, even something as simple as like adding caffeine to something, I'm like, I would love to be able to tell people that this product has like the

equivalent of like a cup of coffee in terms of caffeine or half a cup of coffee. Or he's like, yeah, you know, you can't, I'm like, I see other coffee or he's like yeah you know you can't i'm like i see other people he's like you can't make that claim or yeah you can't so there's certain things that you can make whatever claims you want you can kind of do whatever you want but the second that you start making money then you start to get on people's radar and then you're gonna get submarined by another supplement company they're like yeah so-and-so look at what he's doing. I think that's illegal. And they'll look at your package and they'll be like, oh yeah,

that is, you know, not because they are regulated. They're regulated a lot more than you would think. And I think that people are hoping like that the FDA comes in and does something, but the food, food and drug administration kills a lot of people as well. I mean,

with the different drugs that get passed through the pharmaceutical companies and things like that, they're not always safe. They try to test them the best they can, but they don't really know. I don't think that would be, I don't think it could be a legit product using fantastic evidence-based doses. I really hope it is, but it's just as likely that it's complete bullshit. So anytime that you see proprietary blends or undisclosed doses of ingredients, we'll run the other way. Here's something you might not realise. A lot of supplement companies will pick their ingredients

based on what's trending on Google and not because there's a ton of research supporting their use in humans. Things like Garcinia Cambogia and Raspberry Ketones used to be super popular, not because of all their beneficial effects and research, but because they were featured on Dr. Oz. Another example is Logan Paul's Prime Hydration Formula. It can be marketed

as an electrolyte formula and he bangs on about how it has more electrolytes and less sugar than his competitors and how it doesn't really taste salty compared to his competitors. But that's because he only uses about three percent of the amount of sodium that they do which makes no sense because sodium is the main ingredient you want in an electrolyte formula for it to work well. But that doesn't matter because he just wants to sell you shit. Assuming we have the ingredient list and doses, we can go through and fact check them. Do they A, have a clear mechanism of action on how they're meant to work in your body? B, do they have any supporting research supporting their effectiveness in humans? And C, are they used in the correct doses that are supported by the research? And

this is where it can get a little bit nerdy and technical. So pay attention now while I show you what I personally do. The first place I go to is examine.com. Again, I'm not sponsored whatsoever. Gorilla Mind has the following ingredients, and if we search them we can very quickly find how the compound works, what some of the pro's doses are, and the research supporting it on examine.com. AlphaGPC has a lot of data on it that we can nerd out on to your heart's content. But we can't just take the fact that research exists on the topic to mean that it's good. There's differences in validity and generalisation to the wider population of the findings of

different studies. And most importantly, there's differences in dosages. Now, Derek captured a good amount of research, but not all of it. And out of all the research he did provide, if you look at the actual reference papers, the vast majority were using significantly higher doses than what's in his product. There were a couple of studies that did use a lower dose and saw some benefits at around 250 milligrams, although they did also state that higher doses are more likely to yield beneficial effects. And this is why it's so important to not take the studies. But, you know, the funny thing is the case of the guys and girls who are buying that

Gorilla Mind energy drink are not just drinking one a day. That's the thing. Maybe, I don't think that was maybe the reason. Maybe it was. But like, we know guys who are drinking three of these a day two to three of these a day so it's just like imagine if they were drinking two or three of these a day with higher dosages already right that would be that would be wild like you do like i don't i don't think that maybe that's what derrick was thinking about but it's just like if you put the

bigger dose of everything you still have guys like we know who are drinking two of those, three of those a day. Now you have a safety issue because motherfuckers can have heart attacks. Yeah. He could have probably put less caffeine and then kept everything else the same. I don't know. I mean, what the hell do I know? But I get what you're saying. But I don't think doubling the alpha GPC would hurt at all.

It could be fine. I don't I have to look at the other ingredients, but it's the caffeine for sure. It's tough because like, you know, his product is going to be more like direct to consumer in the beginning rather than being something that's in a store. Being direct to consumer, you're like when somebody orders 12 of these because the shipping, I don't have any idea how much this product costs but like the shipping can be expensive. That's where you incur a lot of your costs, both the consumer and the person selling the product. You get screwed by that because it gets shipped around a couple times. And then so somebody spends, I don't know, $5 per can or something like that or $4.90 or something. I don't know, $5 per can or something like that or $4.90 or something.

And they want that to have – like when you drink it on your way to the gym, you want to feel – especially because people have already had the scoop of Gorilla Mind. So now if someone had the scoop or two of Gorilla Mind and they have the ready-to-drink and the ready-to-drink doesn't match up, they're going to be like, fuck, man. This is not as strong as the other product so it really depends on your you know if you're direct to consumer you could sell it with less caffeine but but they already put out a product that you know what i'm saying they already put out a product that that's working well for people and they don't want to have people have it uh feel like it's working less uh the fasting gum that I put out a while back, it only has 25 milligrams of caffeine per thing because I was like, people probably chew on a couple of these if they're trying to fast for many hours. Not just going to chew on one. So I'm like, that was in consideration and even the dosage of the other stuff.

But again, you run into a lot of issues like, oh, I'd love to use like 700 milligrams like hapagenin or something, but good luck trying to stick that into a stick of gum. Let's think about like monsters, just normal monsters. How many monsters most people you know drink a day?

Like most people I know who like monster will drink three monsters a day. And it's like that, like that's probably why there's only 150 milligrams of caffeine in there. Because if there was 300 per, right, that's 900 milligrams of caffeine, right?

Do you guys remember, like, because, you know, I haven't, well, I don't think I've really ever taken pre-workout on a regular basis. But, like, are pre-workouts and energy drinks starting to contain more or less caffeine than they did, I don't know, like 10 years ago, if you guys can remember. Dude, you'd have to pull up a fucking Google reminder. One of those pre-workout things. It's been years since I've touched pre-workout. I haven't used pre-workout a lot. But I think it's all over the map. You know, I'm seeing that's why something like FitAid fits in there really nicely because it's got like, what, 125 or something like that?

90 milligrams of caffeine. 90 milligrams of caffeine. There's a lot of companies that are recognizing, man, not everybody wants to have their face lit on fire the second that they touch one of these products. So I think you'll see more and more room for the more mild. I mean, there's so many soft drinks nowadays the more mild caffeine and also the artificial sweeteners and stuff which again i'm not against i actually i actually dig them i think they're fine but uh some people are conscious of that so people are trying to pull back on their caffeine consumption and people

are trying to pull back on the artificial flavors that they have and sweeteners i'm curious kind of what do you guys think about pre-workouts do you are you guys like fucking do you need your pre-workout do you love your pre-workout or is it kind of a just a hit or miss thing for you and there are a lot of companies that make the non-stem pre-workouts right so pre-workouts that don't have caffeine there are those two yeah i was just thinking like by the time my son starts you know hitting the gym if like pre-workouts will be like a thousand milligrams you know just to fucking get the day started i you know the odd thing is i doubt that just because tiktok exists because like you know you see kids for now you you see younger guys like just doing three four scoops and if a company puts too much caffeine and a dumbass puts four scoops then the

product killed the kid yeah like companies still want to be able to live right yeah nobody wants to hurt anybody right now i know you're looking in the mirror you're getting ready for your nephew's quinceanera you have a long sleeve on that looks horrible and your pants don't fit right that's why we partnered i don't know why you're laughing that's why we partnered with viore clothing you see this is the boulevard shirt jacket fits great. Stretchy feels amazing. It's the best long sleeve in my closet. And one of the biggest things that we love about Viore is that they have clothes that you can wear to parties. They have clothes that you can wear in the gym. Like I said, your nephews can see it. You can look great wherever you go. If you step

your fashion game up, plus this stuff feels like baby skin on your skin which is kind of creepy but at the same time it's kind of nice and you know it andrew where can they get it yes you guys gotta head over to viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash power project to automatically receive 20 off your order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes fucking hell hell. It's an amazing video by the way. You want to blindly trust what I or Derek or anyone else tells you and instead go a little bit deeper into what the research is actually saying. Something else to keep in mind is Gorilla Mind uses alpha GPC 50% which is where they take the alpha GPC and they cut it with 50% filler.

It sounds shady but this is completely fine. It's done because alpha GPC in its purest form is really hard to work with and less stable as it draws in moisture really easily. So cutting it helps to avoid this. But that means that the dose here of 400 milligrams is actually 200 milligrams. Unless they mean that they put in 800 milligrams to yield 400 milligrams of active ingredients. I don't know and I could be wrong on that. So if I am, I do apologize. So does this mean Derek is full of shit and underdosing his products? Absolutely not. The dose he uses is lower, but it's not so low that it's completely ineffective. And while you're probably not going to want to dose this exact product three times a day this absolutely could make up part of a larger supplement stack where you enjoy your beverage in the morning with the

other ingredients coming along for a ride and you take some alpha gpc in isolation later in the day if that's what you want what do you guys like do you guys have a pre-workout stack or something things that you just make sure are in your system before you do a workout of the day? What do you guys? Normally I just wake up and have some coffee. I make a steak shake, iced coffee, and then I come to the gym. I always like to, not always, but more recently I like to give myself 10, 15 minutes. If I give myself 10 or 15 minutes of movement,

then do I still need to take Kratom? Do I still need to take an energy drink? Usually 10, 15 minutes into some movement, I'm like, nah, I feel amazing. I feel incredible. I'm going to go. Yeah, I'll take a little bit of caffeine, about 100 milligrams of caffeine, liquid form.

And then, yeah, that and some electrolytes. So I take like a pretty big, like the biggest shaker cup I could find, and I just fill that completely up with water because I'm about ready to go sweat a whole bunch. As I'm heading out the door, I'll take a shot of just raw honey. And then in my intro workout, I've been using First Attachments intro workout. We just had Justin Harris on the podcast recently. And in my intro workout, I've been using First Attachments intro workout. We just had Justin Harris on the podcast recently. And because I was feeling kind of like, so I do open mat and then I do class. And when I start doing class, sometimes I'm kind of like zoning out.

Like I'm not able to like be present. So I'm like, Mark, I think I need like some kind of intro workout or some like liquid carbs or something. And that has a little bit. So I've been using that like in conjunction with electrolytes. And that's been feeling good. But as far as like a pre-workout, like no, I haven't touched an actual pre-workout like ever. I like where your mind's at. Like you're thinking like nutrients, you know, macro and micronutrients.

I think that makes a lot of sense rather than just trying to draw upon yeah something to light you up yeah which i still think can be effective but use so sparingly yeah in the mornings like now the athletic green things has been pretty consistent but i don't think like that's like something that gets me hyped it's just something that's part of the routine um i'll have creatine in the morning i'll have a whole thing of electrolytes in the morning um I've actually been doing a half-calf coffee or sometimes just decaf coffee too so that I'm not doing high caffeine every single day. But the thing is, the creatine, the electrolytes, those things get my body ready kind of for being able to perform, whether it's jujitsu or in the gym,

because now I'm hydrated and ready to go. but i i don't take anything like right before i work out anymore some days like you know jake benson has helped us you know start using the injectable carnitine so i'll use that some days but i've only been using that maybe twice a week it's been a little bit more than a week since i've used it since i haven't had any crazy crazy sessions what's that injectable l-carnitine what is that injectable shut up mark shut up you know that's what it feels like you want to pull up that video real quick I think that's which one mark posted on his page um if you go to mark's page I think it's actually kind of funny this guy found out the truth about encema oh my at least he made it sound like it we already had yeah it you guys have to tell me which one go right right there

with this one click it real quick it's kind of funny yeah i thought it was really funny bro this guy tries so hard in these videos to act like he's never heard what these drugs are that are so common now that even like the average gym goer would know what Deca and Glenn is. This guy is like, what's Glenn? What's testosterone? Look at him, man. He knows exactly what all those things are. I love that he listens to the podcast, though. Yeah, that's great.

What's Deca? what's trent what's we gotta lean into that harder she's like a needle excuse me uh can you like wait for the natural listeners can you describe a syringe for us a lot of listeners are probably natural like myself so could you go back a couple steps and explain all this oh man that was good that was incredible amazing oh the way he put himself in the frame as kenny like if you notice he cut his shoulder off so that he looked like he was that was creative that was creative he spent a lot of time on that post oh my gosh do you think it's uh important that people know because like he was saying

that um you know the alpha gpc is 50 he's like so what they're doing is they're cutting it with some other stuff now two things real quick uh natural pure alpha gpc is just like really really hard to find and it's very very expensive so i would imagine you know this all factors into why he put you know the 50 but the way he he um the way eugene puts it almost seems like derrick is out there cutting this shit by himself and putting it in there that's not the case um and i'm curious if you think people understand that like all this comes from outside sources and then gets put into a supplement like it's not the case. And I'm curious if you think people understand that like all this comes from outside sources and then gets put into a supplement. Like it's not, you know, his scientifically based thing.

Right. It's like you went to a warehouse and you told the guy, hey, put this much in here because that's what the company wanted inside this drink. Yeah. Everyone has like a manufacturer. It's really rare that somebody is their own manufacturer. And even if you were a manufacturer, you're probably not going to actually make the potassium sorbate that's in your supplement. I mean, it's still got to come from, you still have to source it from somewhere. So even the companies that piecemeal stuff together for you and put it in a canister and slap your logo on it, they're even getting it from somewhere else too. And when it comes to a lot of stuff, I mean people – because of the stigma of where a supplement comes from or because of a stigma of a particular country, people would be like, I don know i don't want that in my product like i don't want uh you know grass-fed whey from china but i'll

take it from new zealand right like and i'm just saying like this is can't have that chinese whey in my fucking protein it doesn't necessarily make any sense uh but it's just like it's where we're at and so these things are going to come from certain spots there's even people will pay uh for trademarks and things like that like uh rather than just having regular creatine in their product they might have crea pure which is a formula rather than just having a magnesium threonate somebody might uh use magteen which is a again a not trademarked, but patented like formula that I don't know how more effective it is than the other ones, but it's a perception. And so if

you're like, oh, that has that in there, you know, even with my own company, I'm going to put Bubz MCT oil powder and collagen in there because I think it's a reputable brand and they have great products. And I'm like, this will give my supplement brand more clout. So why wouldn't I think it's a reputable brand and they have great products. And I'm like, this will give my supplement brand more clout. So why wouldn't I do it? So there's a lot of things like that where you're just trying to make a decision that is improving your product to the best of your ability. And then you're also, you're going to be conscious of cost because, you know, a lot of people, like not for myself, but a lot of people like not for myself but a lot of people when they do start a supplement brand they usually have like investors because it can be really expensive

and if you start talking to your investors you're like yeah i got i got this product and i got this product and they're like well why does this intra workout product why does it cost us 70 dollars you're like because it's the best it has everything in there it's got all the stuff in there you recover from your workouts it's amazing they don't give a fuck and they'll be like but the pre-workout only costs us seven dollars and we can sell it for 50 this intra-workout fucking thing that's 70 we can't even like could you sell it for 140 you're like no like okay dude then you need to like wait to come out with that other product or you need to reformulate it or something because that thing's a piece of shit and we won't be able to make money off it.

Incredible. Those are the kind of things that happen. Yeah. Dang. Alright, here we go. or watch Derek's video and do your own follow-up fact-checking on the research he presents. You can see just how deep this stuff can really get, and why most people are going to be like, you know what, screw it. I'm happy to be led by placebo, marketing hype, and influencers. And that is completely fair enough. But that's the point I want you to consider.

Businesses have to focus on their bottom line. They can get there by providing an excellent product, or they can get there by providing a misleading and mediocre product, but glam it up with marketing hype and a facade of misleading evidence and authority. Derek has done a great job in sales by presenting his reasonings and research breakdowns. I don't believe he's trying to mislead anybody and it's at his absolute best to create a fantastic product. And I'm sure he would also be the first to say, don't take his word for it blindly and learn to look further into the research yourself to make your own judgment call. If you are consuming this stuff, then I imagine

you care even just a little bit about improving and optimizing your life. And part of that will also come from doing the work to be able to think for yourself and improve your understanding on what you're doing. So let's cut to the chase. Do I recommend this new drink? I could argue that some of these ingredients may be better dosed in slightly higher amounts but Derek is also likely keeping in mind taste and solubility in making not just a beverage but a carbonated beverage where it definitely is tougher to just jam in more ingredients even if you wanted to. I personally wouldn't use this because I'd rather source individual ingredients myself and create my own stack.

I did a quick search on iHerb without even trying to budget and I wound up roughly a buck to a buck fifty cheaper per serve when sourcing the raw ingredients at a retail price. This also lets me adjust the stack to my needs. I'm very sensitive to caffeine, would rather enjoy a coffee on occasion and go a lower dose of supplemental caffeine or use no caffeine at all. And I can't do that with the drink. I also can't experiment with adding in or reducing the doses of different ingredients to test how I react to each one in isolation. But really, it doesn't matter what I recommend or not, because I am not you. For many of you, this may be a great product. I can only present to you the facts or give you the ability to find the facts for yourself and leave it up to you to make your own decision.

I thought it was great. I think that's almost like what any great teacher, mentor, parent would do with their child or anybody that's trying to show people the way sort of you'd say you know here here's a bunch of options here's here's what i think you present the information as best you can and you say well now it's up to you to make your decision you know you like derek you like his products you dig what he has going on and you try the product and you enjoy it and fucking keep going for it yeah you know this is this is one thing though where i do think like getting blood work done is super beneficial

because examine.com is such a great resource there are so many supplements there that you can see actually do have benefit or actually are good for you um but you know some of the stuff that dr hotchkiss told me to try to take i wouldn wouldn't have thought of using P5P for my free test. You know what I mean? I would have thought of using some of the things. But because number one, I wouldn't have known. Number two, like analyzing my blood work, that's not my profession, right? So if you're someone who's really trying to optimize things, utilizing supplementation, because again, Merrick doesn't

just throw you on hormones. You can get your blood work done and get it analyzed and see what supplements will actually move the needle for me rather than throwing the whole kitchen sink at yourself and trying to see if something moves, right? That and then also there's the, Andy has that nootropics book on the website now, but that's why getting some help with this can be beneficial because you might spend a lot of money on supplements that are actually proven to do something, but in your case, it's actually not necessary. And I would agree that sourcing stuff on your own is probably almost more effective. It's just you have to be more nerdy about it. You got to be more diligent. You're like, I got to take this alpha GPC pill and this B vitamin and this thing. So that's what people are trying to do.

They're trying to bring you something that, that is pushing everything together. Like there's plenty of products that have Tomcat, Ali, and what's the other? Vodogia, Agrestis. There you go. That have both of those in combination in a product. And then it will also have maybe B vitamins and other things that they think could potentially, maybe it's got boron in it, which is supposed to help increase your free testosterone. So that's usually what people are trying to do. But then again, sometimes in your efforts to do that, what actually ends up in the product sometimes isn't like always the most optimal. Yeah, and like I was pointing out earlier, so thinking back to the original formula of AlphaBrain,

everybody loved it, and all of a sudden they had to reformulate it because the manufacturer that was actually putting the powder in the capsules was using like the same bins that they were using for like modafinil or something like that, like an actual drug. So they so they were like oh it's just a nootropic and people are like dude i feel fucking awesome and they're like oh we got to reformulate the uh formula you were using fucking modafinil yeah something like that sorry if i like adderall but something like that that was like like this works and all of a sudden man, it doesn't feel as good anymore. Oh, what happened?

They had to clean up the manufacturer. So it's like, oh, that's crazy. So, again, you don't even know. You can put your best foot forward and assume that, like, everyone's putting the highest quality ingredients, but, like, they're not there. They're watching somebody put the shit in the capsules and stuff. I guess that's why, like, some of these people that get sponsored by companies they're not they're watching somebody put the shit in the in the uh capsules and stuff i guess

that's why like some of these people that get sponsored by companies will have the video of them walking through the fucking warehouse looking at the fucking beakers and shit i don't know it's all fake yeah it's probably not their warehouse no probably not though there are you know sometimes they they'll say this facility is like FDA approved or something like that. That just means someone came in there and like made sure there's not like a bunch of rats everywhere. But it doesn't validate the supplements any further. The supplements do not get checked by the FDA. Yeah, the supplement industry, you know, they're going to try to get you to purchase their product.

So they're going to try to, they're going to try to get you to purchase their product. So they're going to overhype it. It's going to under deliver in terms of a lot of times under deliver in terms of what it actually has in it. Because again, it just can be cost prohibitive. It can be really hard to, you know, source that many ingredients. Sometimes the ingredients themselves are just hard to source over and over again. And you think about how many supplement companies there are, how many people are utilizing like caffeine as an example, you know, just take caffeine, just take that one thing.

How much different caffeine is getting spread, you know, throughout the world. That's not just even coffee, but that's in energy drinks. And it's like Monster or some of these big ass companies, if they really wanted to, they could probably just buy all of it and then no one else has energy drinks anymore, you know? So it's not as easy as you would think. It's not as simple as like, this guy's lying to me.

You know, his product used to have this in it. Now it has that in it. And that's not always like, just because you're trying to fuck somebody over, you getting screwed over you can't get that same ingredient anymore like man i really love having that b vitamin in there but then you get a call and they're like we don't know when it's coming back and you're like what what the fuck am i gonna do now yeah you had a specific formula you had a specific you, way of advertising it. And I'll just end on this. But it doesn't help you at all if you are somebody who claims that your stuff is tested. So I could

even say like, oh, it's third party. But like, is anyone going to really believe me? You know what I mean? Like, I don't even know how you'd go about doing that. So there, I mean, there's not, as far as I know, there's not a supplement company that does anything like that. Maybe there is, maybe there's a couple that do that, but there's a reason why nobody does it. It's because it's a waste of time. I'm, you're better off hitting the streets as hard as you can, telling people about the product that you have. So they're aware of it and telling them what it can do for them. Cause ultimately that's what the consumer cares about what does it cost where do i get it what's it going to do for me but this company says that their ingredients are scientifically backed right so what does that

mean it doesn't usually mean a whole lot usually it means that the usually it means that the items in your product were tested at some time in some sort of test. Like we'll just take like amino acids as an example. So branch chain, essential amino acids, things like that. People will say these are scientifically tested. These are scientifically proven. And yes, that might be true that some of those amino acids have been tested, but it's not the same amino acids that are being utilized in the product. It was something that was tested long ago. So there's all kinds of little shady things that people do that are like that. But thanks for pointing this video on, Seema. I think it's dope.

Yeah, it was good. Eugene, awesome job on the video, man. And as far as supplements are concerned, it's like supplements can definitely be useful. They can definitely be helpful, but don't try to use supplements as something that's going to take the place of your good nutrition, good sleep habits. Like most people try to use caffeine to mask bad sleep habits, right? So just try to dial in the habits that we fucking talk about all the time, because that's going to move the needle way farther than you than adding any, most any supplement to your lifestyle. Take us out of here, Andrew. Absolutely. Just quickly point out that one of my favorite things still to this day is to walk into a supplement store and check out just about every freaking supplement they have, regardless of what I believe that works or doesn't work. It is still so much fun for me. So anyways, thank you

everybody for checking out today's episode. Please let us know what you guys think about this conversation. Like Nseema asked, let us know what you guys think about this conversation. Like Nseema asked, let us know what your guys' supplement stack is in the comments below and hit that like button and subscribe. Follow the podcast at MB Power Project all over the place. My Instagram is at I am Andrew Z and Nseema. Where are you at?

At Nseema Indian on Instagram and YouTube and Nseema Indian on TikTok and Twitter. Hit up the discord for our next Q and A. You guys probably saw we're doing giveaways during some of our Q&As. So hit up the Discord. Ask questions for the next Q&A. Mark, where can people find you?

I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.