Playing to Win - PTW # 100 - Mike Mutzel

00:00:00.320 All right, guys, what's up? Welcome back. We're live for another podcast. I'm joined

00:00:05.240 with Mike Mutzl today, and we're at my 100th episode. I haven't done a podcast in a few

00:00:10.800 months. I kind of take a break from doing podcasting from time to time. But Mike, welcome

00:00:14.600 to the show. How are you doing, man?

00:00:15.920 Doing great, Rich. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.

00:00:18.400 That's great. Perfect. I am looking forward to talking to you, man. I got a lot of questions

00:00:23.180 here. I know that you're like metabolic optimizing health sort of biohacker dude. I was on your

00:00:31.700 podcast about a year ago, and we've chatted back and forth here and there, just sort of

00:00:36.060 in between. You've got an interesting YouTube channel. I follow you on social media. I've

00:00:39.320 loved a lot of the stuff that you've put out. So I want to offer you guys, as my viewers

00:00:43.480 today, a little bit of insight on some of the stuff that I personally find interesting

00:00:47.900 that I don't often talk about that much when I'm in the car sort of recording videos around

00:00:52.740 optimizing health, sleep, supplement use, sexual performance, fat burning, muscle growth,

00:00:59.120 just like lifestyle sort of stuff for guys. Because I think it's, I mean, like as you get

00:01:05.180 older, man, it's like, you know, one of those things that you really just have to be attentive

00:01:08.140 to. Because if you're not, your life will sort of get derailed by it, won't it?

00:01:13.220 Oh, 100%. Yeah. And the decisions that you make now really impact how you feel in the next

00:01:17.140 10 years, 15 years. And like we were talking about offline, I mean, your metabolic health and

00:01:21.520 state of health will really impact the type of partner that you're going to attract and

00:01:25.700 relationship quality and satisfaction, in my opinion. So yeah, it's all interconnected.

00:01:31.640 Yeah. Hell yeah. We'll talk about all that stuff too. So I usually do this for 60 to 90 minutes.

00:01:36.360 You got time for that? Yeah, that's good. Let's do it. Cool. All right. So the way that we'll do

00:01:40.660 this, guys, the live chats on YouTube keeps telling me to run channel membership. So it's set to members

00:01:47.920 chat only. It helps, I guess, with the algorithms is what they say. So become a channel member. You

00:01:51.980 can participate in live chat. If you have one to throw a question at us during the live show,

00:01:56.920 just super chat it and, you know, toss it up on the screen. And, you know, we'll dive through those

00:02:01.040 as we sort of move through it. But I want to get into the first point that I got here, which

00:02:04.980 is supplementation. Because I've used a lot of supplements, you know, in my life. And I know

00:02:09.440 there's some that are overrated and there's some that are underrated. But I want to get some feedback

00:02:13.220 from you from your perspective. So what would you say are the most overrated supplements out there

00:02:17.760 that people are taking that they probably shouldn't bother with? Yeah, Rich, great question. Well,

00:02:21.440 right now, it's a lot of the NAD boosters, things like NMN, NR, erythrone A. I mean, these are really

00:02:29.320 popular supplements right now that are purported to slow down cellular aging and things like that. And

00:02:36.200 they're very expensive, I think, for certain contexts and conditions. You know, if you had dementia or

00:02:41.500 Alzheimer's, and you've never exercised, and you were in your 60s, they could be tools. But I think

00:02:47.160 for most people, the juice is not worth the squeeze. Those things are very expensive. Honestly,

00:02:53.600 Rich, I think multivitamins as a whole are kind of a waste of money. Most multivitamins have synthetic

00:02:59.540 folic acid. The form of B12 is cyanocobalamin, which is a garbage form of B12. So I think that's one

00:03:08.180 thing that people waste their money on. If you want to supplement with high potency minerals,

00:03:12.340 zinc, magnesium, selenium, I think those minerals are really important, particularly for men.

00:03:16.900 You can just take a B complex instead of a multi. So those are things that I think are kind of a

00:03:22.440 waste of money. Greens powders, I think a total waste of money. And these things are heavily advertised.

00:03:28.420 I heard some of these green powders have like metals in them too, like the athletic greens. I think

00:03:33.620 they've been tested. Wasn't Peter Atiyah like kind of dragged across the coals or somebody that was

00:03:38.720 associated with some of these athletic greens? Yeah. I mean, that's the downside of the supplement

00:03:46.680 business. When you get natural product, natural extracts, and you concentrate them, whether it's

00:03:51.640 pea protein powder, hemp protein, rice protein, greens powders, like we're talking about. And the

00:03:57.120 problem with the greens powders more specifically is they contain a lot of barley extract, weed extract.

00:04:01.940 So you're getting sort of concentrated grains and pixie dust levels of spirulina or spinach or celery

00:04:09.040 or things like that. So kind of a waste of money if we're, if we're being honest and yeah, definitely

00:04:14.960 get your, if you want greens, just, you know, go to your farmer's market and get some spinach and kale

00:04:18.920 and do whatever you want. I'm not a huge fan of overdoing the greens anyway, but if that's what you

00:04:23.280 were to do, that would be a better option. So definitely don't waste your money on that,

00:04:26.320 but things that actually matter. So creatine zinc, uh, Omega threes really important,

00:04:32.260 especially if you test your Omega three index, there's a company called Omega quant in Sioux

00:04:37.080 falls, South Dakota, that does a blood spot assay on the amount of Omega threes to Omega sixes in your

00:04:42.880 red blood cells. And that for men in terms of reducing sudden cardiac death, really good data

00:04:47.700 there. So Omega threes, uh, magnesium company, if you can just spell it, cause people always ask in

00:04:52.420 the comments afterwards, for sure. Uh, Omega quant like quantify Omega quant. Um, yeah, Bill Harris,

00:05:01.200 uh, who runs that, uh, lab, he's been studying fatty acids for his entire career. Really, really great

00:05:06.960 guy. I had him on, on my podcast, but, um, yeah, that's a really good test that most men should, uh,

00:05:11.640 consider because it turns out that if you look at like, say the longevity of Japanese versus, uh, us here

00:05:17.400 in the U S, uh, definitely lower prevalences of all cause mortality, cardiovascular specific mortality,

00:05:23.100 and their Omega three index is closer to 8%. And so in here in the U S it's like three to 4%, uh,

00:05:30.280 for various reasons that we can talk about if you want, but are complicated. So I think that's a good

00:05:34.480 thing that people should look at just either. If you don't eat fatty fish, wild caught fatty fish,

00:05:39.400 not Atlantic farm salmon. Um, or if you don't eat grass fed beef, it turns out that grass fed pasteurized

00:05:46.000 beef has more Omega threes or as much Omega threes as wild caught fish. And so people don't think

00:05:51.520 about grass fed pasteurized beef as a source of Omega threes, but that's important grass fed beef has

00:05:56.400 as much Omega threes as wild caught fish. Yeah. It's a really good source of Omega threes, uh,

00:06:02.160 as well as conjugated linoleic acid, CL CLA. Um, yeah, grass pushes a fat burner back in the day. I think

00:06:10.320 Bill Phillips with, um, you know, his company was talking about it a lot. Is that still a thing?

00:06:15.200 Dr. Justin Marchegiani

00:06:16.320 People take it for that. Um, I wouldn't recommend supplementing with it. Cause if you get a grass

00:06:21.200 fed ribeye, you're getting plenty of CLA. Um, but yeah, it, it seems that it affects the gut bacteria

00:06:26.480 and that affects metabolic health. Um, but yeah, it's not really like a great, you know, way to lose

00:06:31.920 weight per se, but yeah, grass fed beef. It's amazing. Rich. I mean, we talked about greens powders,

00:06:36.320 uh, being rich in phytonutrients and carotenoids and all this grass fed beef has a litany, like

00:06:42.560 tens of thousands of phytonutrients and carotenoids and things of the sort. So, um,

00:06:47.520 I think for men and women, for sure, like fellas, get your ladies eating grass fed beef off the chicken

00:06:53.840 and tilapia and tofu. I mean, it, there's a lot of micronutrition, uh, that, uh, is really

00:07:00.080 supported for both men and women. Speaking of tilapia, I used to eat a lot of that when I was younger,

00:07:04.720 because it was pretty cheap and you know, you cook it in like some lemon juice and olive oil

00:07:09.200 and it tastes good. But then I watched this, um, it was probably dirty jobs or something like that,

00:07:13.680 like one of those episodes and they show you how they farm it. And it's like, they'll move

00:07:18.320 fish through these, uh, circular pens and guys will sort of walk and push them through these

00:07:23.280 mesh things. And I think as I understood it, tilapia is kind of like a bottom feeder and it would eat the

00:07:28.800 crap of the other fish droppings at the bottom of the tank. And then they'll harvest, it would be like

00:07:34.000 cod and then tilapia would go in the tank and they bush them. Is that how they do it still?

00:07:38.080 Like it's a dirty fish. I've never seen one of these, um, confined fish operations, but yeah,

00:07:43.200 farm raised fish is just bad. I mean, but they're not wild caught when you go to the store and you

00:07:46.800 buy cheap tilapia. Yeah. It's all farmed majority of the white fish. It's, it's going to be all farmed.

00:07:52.160 So if you're going to do fish, either catch it yourself or do sardines or mackerel that are wild caught off

00:07:57.840 the coast of, uh, Latin America or, uh, wild caught salmon, that's the only fish that I'd recommend

00:08:03.840 because think about it. You drive on the freeway, you see a feedlot with cattle, right? And we know

00:08:07.200 that feedlot beef is not as healthy compared to regenerative raised beef. The same problem is like,

00:08:12.240 we have feedlot fish and it's even more unhealthy because the fish we, we think fish is just naturally

00:08:17.760 enriched in omega threes, but these feedlot fish, if you will, farm raised fish are fed corn and soybeans and

00:08:24.400 canola. So they're fed the same thing that we're feeding chickens and pigs and stuff and feedlots.

00:08:29.120 And we know that to be unhealthy for those animals. So it's unhealthy for the fish too. And for you,

00:08:33.440 what do you think about, you know, since we're talking about fish and I want to go to the

00:08:36.000 underrated supplements in a second, but, um, seafood has a bit of a reputation around metal content

00:08:45.040 and mercury mercury is not good for you. Right. Um, quick story. I, so I get my labs in every four

00:08:51.600 months, um, through my guy. And one of the things that popped up one month, cause he was,

00:08:56.320 cause he was actually training me and he was like, you know, I want you to increase your consumption

00:09:00.320 of, uh, proteins, you know, for the training, this and that. So I try to keep my life simple.

00:09:04.800 So one of the things I did was I, uh, just bought a hell of a lot more, uh, tuna pokey sort of plastic,

00:09:10.720 uh, frozen packaging from Costco. It's easy. Just cut it open, thaw it out in a bowl and just

00:09:16.240 shovel it in your face and off you go. Um, but I think when I increased it to one serving daily,

00:09:22.320 maybe in some cases, two daily, you know, depending on how my day was going,

00:09:25.600 my mercury levels went like through the roof. They were four or five times higher.

00:09:29.040 And he pinned it on the tuna itself. Like, is it, is it all old fish from the ocean that

00:09:34.400 are problematic for mercury levels? Yeah. Well, with tuna specifically,

00:09:37.920 they're bigger fish, bigger body mass, and they are eating other fish. So just a, a concentration,

00:09:43.280 a bioaccumulation of heavy metals. Mercury is one, but probably cadmium, arsenic, and maybe

00:09:49.520 even microplastics. I mean, that's the thing. So the ocean, unfortunately, is just a repository

00:09:53.680 for plastic now, which is sad. So yeah, I mean, that's not to scare people away from ever eating

00:09:58.640 fish, but I think unless you caught the fish yourself and you live in, you know, Norway or

00:10:04.080 Alaska or, you know, Iceland, probably don't do a bunch of fish. I think for a food source,

00:10:09.760 wild game, grass-fed cattle are, is definitely grass-fed beef and bison going to be the top of

00:10:15.920 the creme de creme from a protein standpoint. All right. And talk to me about the most underrated

00:10:21.280 supplements, like supplements that viewers should contemplate taking that they're probably not taking.

00:10:28.240 Yeah. Well, for men specifically, DHEA, dihydroepiandosterone. And so this is a precursor

00:10:36.240 to testosterone. And actually when testosterone, it precedes the decline in testosterone because DHEA

00:10:42.720 starts to decline around age 30. So I find I've been coaching men and women since 2006. I find in

00:10:48.320 most of my clients over the age of 35, their DHEA levels are suboptimal and really important because

00:10:53.920 this is, as I mentioned, the precursor to make testosterone. Now, the cool thing about DHEA,

00:10:59.360 sadly, Rich, you can't get this in Canada. You have to get this through a prescription in Canada

00:11:03.280 and Australia. Some companies you can buy it online in the US, but it's not banned by the

00:11:08.640 world anti-doping agencies or anything like that. This should be an over-the-counter supplement.

00:11:13.920 But it's a great thing that it's really affordable. And I think the impact is pretty noticeable

00:11:20.240 because for men in their 30s and 40s, just jumping on testosterone, I generally don't recommend that. I

00:11:25.920 would exhaust all the natural resources first before committing to that for reasons we can talk about

00:11:31.120 later. And so DHEA is underrated for men. And the way to sort of think about dosing this is

00:11:37.200 10 milligrams of DHEA at night per decade of life. You're 30 years old, try 30 milligrams. 40,

00:11:43.200 try 40 milligrams. Women, it's about 25% of that. So 40-year-old women could start at 10 milligrams.

00:11:50.560 50-year-old women start at like 12.5, things like that. So that's one that's really important.

00:11:55.440 Creatine, I think is, you know, it's found in grass-fed beef, like I mentioned, but for a lot

00:12:00.000 of guys and a lot of people who have cognitive benefits too, doesn't it? It's good for cognitive

00:12:04.000 benefits. It's yeah. Good for the heart. I mean, this is, creatine gets, there's a lot of myths

00:12:10.000 about it. It will cause hair loss. It will cause this and that. All creatine does is help provide

00:12:14.320 cellular energy. So when you're doing high intensity exercise, whether it's walking, lifting weights,

00:12:19.600 intervals, CrossFit, like creatine is going to help you provide cellular energy. And so that's

00:12:25.360 what's unique about it. And in so doing, it helps. The brain is a very metabolically demanding organ.

00:12:30.320 And so creatine helps provide cellular energy for our neurons when we're doing cognitively intensive

00:12:35.440 tasks, like doing podcasts or presentations, things of that sort. So about two to five grams a day,

00:12:40.000 if you're getting, if you're eating red meat in an omnivorous style diet, you don't need a bunch of

00:12:44.080 creatine. You don't need to load it at 20 grams a day or things like that. You can start at two to five

00:12:47.920 grams a day. Just fine. What's the final word on creatine being nephrotoxic, like being damaged

00:12:53.120 into your kidneys? You know, these are old myths. This was one case study that was published in the

00:12:59.280 peer reviewed academic literature back in the early two thousands where an individual who had chronic

00:13:03.520 kidney disease went to the ER and the physicians were like, and he had some, I can't remember what a

00:13:10.800 chronic kidney disease or what the reason why he had maybe uncontrolled diabetes or something. And his

00:13:16.480 serum creatinine was high. And another blood test called bond blood urea nitrogen is commonly run

00:13:21.680 under chem 24 was high. And then, and the doctor said, well, are you taking anything? He's like,

00:13:26.080 I'm taking creatine and that got written up as a case study. And then it just got totally

00:13:31.200 misinterpreted. So yeah, it, it doesn't, it's confusing because when you get your labs, like your

00:13:36.880 guy, every four months, test your blood work, you'll have serum creatinine. It sort of sounds like

00:13:41.680 creatine. So people think that, oh my gosh, these are related. They're not creatinine is completely

00:13:47.200 different from creatine. And so anyway, I'm not concerned about kidney health or things of that

00:13:54.160 sort with that. And there's no documented evidence to suggest that creatine in the dosages, especially

00:13:59.280 that I recommended two to five grams per day for most people it's not going to cause kidney issues.

00:14:04.880 And, um, sort of going back to DHEA, cause, um, that's kind of getting involved in the hormonal

00:14:13.760 pathway. And we'll talk about TRT in a bit as well, but, um, does supplementing, supplementing with

00:14:19.440 exogenous DHEA shut down your body's own production of any hormones, testosterone, estrogen, D, DHT,

00:14:28.640 like any of these things that rich, amazing question, um, to the best of my knowledge, no.

00:14:35.040 And the, the bigger thing though, to think about is it's naturally going down around 30 and for some

00:14:40.160 people it starts earlier. So it's naturally going down anyway. So this is a way to, uh, increase it.

00:14:46.160 So yeah, it doesn't, the main reason why exogenous testosterone, how most people give it suppresses

00:14:52.240 testosterone levels naturally is because we're giving it in a ester bound to endothate,

00:14:57.760 cipionate or propionate and sitting around in the body for a lot longer. So we're having

00:15:02.480 supraphysiologic levels up testosterone, which will then shut down the brain based production,

00:15:09.040 the HPA axis, it'll shut it down. So we're giving this in physiologic amounts. And so it's not going

00:15:14.240 to have any, uh, downstream consequences. And more importantly, rich, when we're orally ingesting DHEA

00:15:21.360 in its circadian aligned rhythm, like we're taking it at night, DHEA starts to peak in the morning.

00:15:26.720 So we're taking it like we would take melatonin and it will start to increase. And what I like

00:15:30.960 about DHEA, especially as we get older is there's one hormone that actually does not decline with age.

00:15:36.480 And that is cortisol. All of the hormones decline, whether we're talking about growth hormone,

00:15:39.440 testosterone, all these hormones, estrogen for women, cortisol is the only hormone that increases

00:15:44.160 with age. And there are problems with that. Obviously you can gain more fat. You can lose muscle

00:15:48.800 mass. You can have rest, you know, restless sleep and poor sleep quality. DHEA antagonizes cortisol.

00:15:55.280 And so when you take DHEA at night, you can sort of counterbalance the age related increase in

00:16:01.440 cortisol. And so that's another reason why I like it, especially for people over 50. And

00:16:06.240 I know we're talking about men here, but for women, DHEA is very important post-menopause. Like guys,

00:16:11.600 if your wife or partner is having an issue with menopause and women's bodies change dramatically,

00:16:16.960 as you know, rich around menopause, part of that is because they lose not only a lot of estrogen,

00:16:21.600 but also androgens, the ovaries are making androgens for women, which affects sex drive

00:16:26.160 and libido and the ability to get aroused and wet and all that. And after menopause,

00:16:30.160 like the only organ in the body that is making any androgens, which are important for women to,

00:16:34.960 to have, to have a healthy libido for women, you need testosterone. So the, the, uh, adrenal glands

00:16:41.040 are the take over testosterone production in women. So they, and they're making DHEA,

00:16:45.920 which will then go to make testosterone. So for women, post-menopausally DHEA is really important.

00:16:51.120 Dr. Justin Marchegiani So taking DHEA before bed

00:16:55.680 will suppress cortisol production.

00:16:58.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani It can help. So what happens

00:17:00.800 is in some people, uh, they have, especially as they get older, this is

00:17:05.040 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Because the cortisol sprite,

00:17:06.240 sorry, to sort of clarify for viewers, because sometimes we kind of get through like these

00:17:10.720 geek zones where we might lose some people, but cortisol. So if you wake up in the middle of

00:17:16.400 the night, that's probably because your cortisol levels are going up sooner than what they should

00:17:21.600 be getting going up. And that happens. It's actually pretty common as you get older. Um,

00:17:26.480 especially in your like 35 forties or, or so, um, like I've had problems with this

00:17:31.520 in the past and do from time to time where it's like around two, three o'clock in the morning,

00:17:34.400 you'll just be like awake and you can't fall back asleep. And quite often that's attributed to

00:17:38.880 cortisol spiking. So if you take DHEA at bedtime instead of morning, you're saying that that

00:17:43.600 should help suppress it a bit. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, it can help that because

00:17:46.880 what happens is there can be cortisol. We want cortisol. It's not bad. I mean, I hope I didn't

00:17:52.240 portray that as bad, but we want it to rise in the morning. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, to get your

00:17:56.400 day started. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Exactly. You don't want it to peak at two in the morning.

00:17:59.360 And this really, this is a major problem for women going through menopause is they start to get

00:18:03.200 these cortisol peaks and troughs and all that. And they like wake up and they think they're wide awake at

00:18:07.680 two in the morning. Like I'm ready to start my day. And you look at your watch like what? It's

00:18:10.400 only two in the morning, but I feel like it's six in the morning. Right? And so DHEA can help with that.

00:18:14.800 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Interesting. Okay. Yeah.

00:18:16.880 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. Dr. Justin Marchegiani

00:18:17.520 Are there any other underrated supplements that we should be looking at taking that we're not taking?

00:18:22.960 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, for men, bovine to secular extract. So glandular therapy,

00:18:29.440 taking the gland. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, so that can be super helpful.

00:18:32.560 Dr. Justin Marchegiani You know, in terms of the overrated supplements,

00:18:34.720 like a lot of people are taking liver pills and all this every day. I think periodically liver

00:18:40.080 supplements might be helpful, especially if you're anemic or some such thing. But for men,

00:18:45.520 I found a lot of benefits. So I'll be 43 later this year, not on TRT, anything like that. And I keep my

00:18:52.720 levels, you know, like midline of the range a little bit higher, just totally naturally with these things

00:18:58.800 that we've been talking about. And bovine to secular extract, I take that at night as well. And I found

00:19:03.600 that to be particularly effective for maintaining a strong libido and morning erections and things

00:19:09.360 like that. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Interesting. I've never heard anybody mention that before.

00:19:12.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, it sounds weird,

00:19:14.000 Rich. Like people are like, well, why would you take the organ of the animal? That makes no sense. But

00:19:17.840 if we think about people that have autoimmune thyroid conditions, whether it's Graves or Hashimoto's,

00:19:22.880 or their thyroid has been ablated, it's really common for doctors to prescribe porcine thyroid. And

00:19:28.960 people feel amazing when they take that if they have a thyroid issue. Glandulars have been used for

00:19:33.760 a very long time in their early in the 1800s, early 1900s, type one diabetics would get the

00:19:40.800 pancreas extract from a pig like doctors knew back then. So this is a therapy that's been used for a

00:19:45.920 long time. But we sort of don't think about it as much anymore. Although, in my opinion, anecdotally,

00:19:51.760 with there's not a lot of good peer reviewed academic literature to support this because there's no

00:19:56.160 money to be made in selling the balls of a steer, right? But it actually works if you're consistent

00:20:01.520 with it. Dr. Justin Marchegiani So you're eating

00:20:04.720 extract from the balls of what?

00:20:06.160 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, of a bowl. Yeah.

00:20:08.800 Dr. Justin Marchegiani A bowl.

00:20:09.120 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, Rocky Mountain oysters. I mean, this is popular in Colorado and all that.

00:20:14.640 So, I mean, the liver king online, he's done a few videos and stuff like that. I think he's taking

00:20:20.880 other, you know, fancier- Dr. Justin Marchegiani You're taking vitamin T for sure.

00:20:24.320 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Oh, yeah. And peptides, whatever else.

00:20:26.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, I think, you know, there's something to be said about

00:20:30.160 extracts in that way. So, I think, you know, even for men with thyroid issues or subclinical

00:20:36.000 hypothyroidism, I take a little bit of porcine thyroid in the morning. You know, I feel like it

00:20:40.720 really helps with mental clarity and stuff like that, too. So, I think animal extracts are much better

00:20:46.400 than greens powders. Let's just put it like that. Dr. Justin Marchegiani All right. I want to move on

00:20:50.320 to some tips around muscle growth and fat loss sort of beyond, you know, walk 10,000 steps a day

00:20:56.640 and take protein supplements sort of thing. What are some of the areas that you sort of

00:21:02.640 play with that keep you optimized when it comes to muscle growth and fat loss?

00:21:07.040 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, great question, Rich. I think, first of all, we need to focus on the

00:21:10.720 stimulus, you know, and so you need to get into the gym and do compound lifts, you know. So, I see

00:21:15.360 a lot of guys, you know, I'm not a bodybuilder, right? But I have been lifting for almost 25 years

00:21:20.640 and all that. I feel like I'm stronger than I was when I was playing high school football now.

00:21:24.560 Dr. Justin Marchegiani So, compound movements. And so, what is a compound movement when we're

00:21:28.080 moving two or more joints at the same time? So, a squat, a deadlift, a bench press, military press,

00:21:33.760 pull-ups, rows, focus on the compound movements in the six to 10 rep range. And then, you know,

00:21:39.760 try to hit every major muscle group at least one day per week, you know, from the stimulus standpoint.

00:21:44.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani And then, from the nutrition side,

00:21:46.800 you definitely at least need to have a gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass for men.

00:21:52.640 So, super easy calculation, just figure that out. If you have a little bit extra fat, you know, you can,

00:21:58.640 like I said, ideal body mass, one pound of protein per pound of ideal body mass. So, that's important.

00:22:06.000 And then, I think sleep is really important. So, getting the phones out of the bedroom,

00:22:09.120 TVs out of the bedroom, trying to go to bed at the same time every night, that's obviously really

00:22:13.920 important. There, it's interesting research shows that actually, you know, pairing aerobic training

00:22:20.720 with resistance training actually enhances hypertrophy. So, doing, you know, like you said,

00:22:25.760 walk 10,000 steps, all that, fine, but also trying to do some interval training, try to do some long

00:22:30.640 hikes on the weekends. You know, I do cross-country skiing in the winter and then hiking in the summer.

00:22:36.400 And it's a great way to stay lean because, you know, lifting is really important, but the more

00:22:41.680 body fat we have, the lower testosterone levels are going to be. And so, that's, it's just like this

00:22:45.360 vicious cycle. So, we want to keep body fat low, strength high. And these big lifts, compound

00:22:51.760 movements are really, if you look at people who are aging well, they're in their 50s and 60s,

00:22:56.560 like they're hitting the gym pretty regularly and hard and not doing bands and these low intensity

00:23:03.120 exercises. You know, Sean Baker comes to mind and Stan Efferty and these people, like they look amazing

00:23:08.000 and Michael Hearn, you know. So, we want to focus on the things that actually work and because we're

00:23:14.560 going to lose muscle as we get older. So, we got to start now in your 30s and 40s to sort of put those

00:23:20.160 deposits into our, into our bodies that we have muscle as we age.

00:23:23.360 Justin Donaldson Whatever happened to, and this is kind of off

00:23:26.800 topic on topic, but whatever happened to supplements that they used to push? I mean,

00:23:32.160 when I was younger, I used to hear like vanadyl sulfate and HMB. Were those just discredited or?

00:23:38.400 Sean Baker Yeah, there was a lot of stuff like that.

00:23:41.760 Justin Donaldson I think vanadyl was designed to sort of influence insulin?

00:23:44.320 Sean Baker Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah. So, the vanadyl and like there's chromium

00:23:49.760 piccolinate and that for metabolic health and insulin response. I don't know what happened

00:23:55.200 with that. And HMB, I've, I've heard that don't know exactly how that works or whatever. And in back

00:24:01.600 in the early 2000s, late 90s, you know, we had all those pro-hormones and, and things like that.

00:24:06.400 Justin Donaldson Yeah.

00:24:06.720 Justin Donaldson Yeah, there was a lot of thing, a lot of stuff out there.

00:24:11.040 Justin Donaldson I think it's pretty effective if you use it in a stack, but there, but there's heart

00:24:14.640 complications that you can get if you use it too much, right?

00:24:17.200 Sean Baker Yeah, especially with ephedra. Yeah. So that's, that's a problem. I mean,

00:24:21.360 actually, there was just a meta analysis finding that just straight up caffeine, like getting coffee

00:24:25.440 or yerba mate or whatever is more effective for the sports performance than energy drinks and some

00:24:32.080 of these pre-workouts. So yeah, I would just stick to as clean as possible, you know, with these

00:24:38.320 things. So like, before I go to the gym, sometimes I'll just make a yerba mate. I've been drinking

00:24:41.680 mate since like 2003, a great source of, of natural stimulation without, you know, the problem

00:24:48.080 with like stimulants is they affect your sleep. So you're robbing Peter to pay Paul. So that's bad.

00:24:53.840 Justin Donaldson Stimulants, ephedra. What about clombuterol?

00:24:59.200 Justin Donaldson Yeah. I mean, if you're doing a body, here's the thing. So I've dabbled with

00:25:03.840 anabolic steroids in college. I did two cycles. I made steroids and I actually sold them to my friends

00:25:08.720 that played on the football. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't making, I didn't have a lab, but we would

00:25:13.520 make trend finna. So the tremble and acetate is a, is a steroid that is normally given to cattle.

00:25:19.520 And so you get the Chinese powder and you make it at home.

00:25:22.160 Justin Donaldson Yeah. You just, it's, it's like six or seven step process,

00:25:25.200 but you, you pull the binders out of it. So you just have the tremble and acetate and then you

00:25:29.760 suspend it in grape seed oil and then you inject it. And it's, it's a cr so anabolic. I mean,

00:25:34.400 trend is like the most anabolic steroid. It's way more anabolic than testosterone.

00:25:38.000 Justin Donaldson Yeah. So yeah. And I've, I've tried

00:25:40.720 Klein before. I have friends that have used Klein. I don't get the jitters off the clan.

00:25:47.200 Justin Donaldson Yeah. That's it. It's hard to focus. You get jitters.

00:25:50.320 Justin Donaldson Yeah. People use it for fat loss. I wouldn't honestly,

00:25:53.760 Rich, I'm not a huge fan of, of it.

00:25:55.760 Justin Donaldson I mean, like you're pretty lean and you don't use any of this stuff, right?

00:25:59.200 Justin Donaldson No. So this was when I was 19 and 21. And then thankfully I had a low

00:26:03.760 back injury. So I was, I wanted to be a bodybuilder and stuff like that. Did two cycles,

00:26:07.440 all my friends were using and all that. And I screwed up my L five L four. You know, I was coming

00:26:13.600 off my, the second time I did this stuff and I was, you know, I had like five plates doing deadlifts

00:26:18.320 and it was coming off kind of dieting, cutting for a spring break thing and fraternity stupid stuff

00:26:23.680 and just wrecked my back. And then, so that really got me into health. I mean, it was a blessing in

00:26:27.680 disguise and I haven't touched it since. So anyway, point being like a clan. I mean,

00:26:34.560 I don't know, not a big fan. Uh, yeah, I had a friend that, um, got some clenbuterol.

00:26:42.480 I think it was in my twenties. And I remember it, it, it was for veterinary use only is what it said

00:26:47.520 on the packaging. Cause it was for race horses and it was in a pump and you would, and you were

00:26:51.600 supposed to pump it on the, Hey, that the race horses would eat. So they would consume it. Um,

00:26:57.120 and there was a warning on the label. And I mean, they put this on all veterinary labels anyway. Like

00:27:01.280 if you want to get some ivermectin off Amazon, which by the way, you can get off Amazon. It's

00:27:05.360 interesting. It's not apple flavor to there. Um, but, um, you know, they always say the same thing.

00:27:12.080 Like do not, uh, slaughter or sorry, animal is not to be slaughtered for human consumption or,

00:27:17.840 you know, something like that. But I think it's just like a standard pharma warning. Um,

00:27:22.720 but that was one of the places that they got it from. But yeah, I wouldn't recommend

00:27:26.720 clenbuterol. I mean, the guy was very twitchy. He was always like, just like wigging out all the

00:27:31.920 time. So it didn't look like a good experience, but ephedrine, I think if you take ephedrine,

00:27:36.400 eight milligrams, a hundred milligrams of caffeine and then an aspirin and you do it early in the day,

00:27:41.840 not at night and don't do it when you're probably older than 38. I don't think your body, your heart

00:27:46.560 will, uh, appreciate it that much. But I think under that age, I think in your twenties, you,

00:27:51.200 you can get away with a lot more, right? Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But the

00:27:56.080 juice is not worth the squeeze because those 20 year olds and like, we all did a bunch of stupid

00:28:00.560 stuff from your younger, like it catches up to you later. So like, just try to be as clean as possible.

00:28:04.880 You know, like when it comes to just looking at weight loss in particular, like the idea of like,

00:28:08.400 I gotta get shredded for spring break or whatever. It's like, no one cares, like just slow and steady

00:28:12.880 wins the race and try to be as lean as you can just year round consistently. And that just comes

00:28:17.840 through consistency with your lifestyle and nutrition. Yeah, that's true. Um, so I mean,

00:28:22.800 the standard stuff, you know, still applies is eat good amounts of high quality protein,

00:28:28.400 um, move more, uh, eat better and calorie deficit is pretty, pretty much standard. You know, it's like,

00:28:35.200 it's like, this is how it works. You just eat slightly less in the way of calories in which

00:28:39.280 you burn every day. And you know, you'll be leaner as like the weeks go on sort of thing.

00:28:43.920 Um, let's move on to optimizing sexual performance. Yeah. Cause, um, you know, this is what guys like,

00:28:51.920 obviously. And you know, so what are the best ways for men to contemplate improving sexual performance?

00:28:59.200 Yeah. A lot of tools here. I would say number one, just getting off porn. I don't know how much you've

00:29:03.280 talked about this on your channel, but I think that is a major problem for a lot of guys.

00:29:07.760 So I quit porn in 2014, just like that. That's going to be a problem. Um, one, but getting back

00:29:14.080 to the performance specifically, uh, I think going in the sauna is a really good way. So if we think

00:29:19.200 about sexual performance, right, we have kind of two issues that men face premature ejaculation

00:29:23.440 and inability to maintain an erection. So focusing on the erection specific aspect of it,

00:29:29.120 you know, your ability to maintain an erection is a direct reflection of cardiovascular health,

00:29:33.440 because that's what an erection is, is blood flow going in to the microcirculation of the penis and

00:29:37.520 staying there while you're aroused. And so it's all about cardiovascular health and blood flow. So

00:29:43.760 walking 10 to 12,000 steps, like you said, I resistant training, not smoking, not vaping,

00:29:49.280 getting good sleep. And then I think the sauna is a really underappreciated sexual performance tool.

00:29:56.000 I mean, because literally you're getting blood flow like everywhere. Um, so that's, and basically

00:30:01.120 what sauna is doing, sorry, that didn't sound very scientific. Um, your, the sauna is causing

00:30:07.280 all of the blood in your core body to go into the periphery. And then when you go in the cold plunge,

00:30:12.080 the inverse happens. So you're literally like massaging and causing all the micro circulatory,

00:30:17.280 uh, machinery, your capillaries, your arterials, your veins, venals, all these to just to move and

00:30:23.280 become healthier because what happens as we get older. And if, if we have cardiovascular disease,

00:30:28.400 the functional unit of our cardiovascular system is called the endothelial tissue. It's these little

00:30:32.960 cells that allow nutrients and things that absorbed and secreted out, we get endothelial

00:30:37.600 dysfunction. So it's like the, if you think about you've driven on a roadway in California,

00:30:41.680 the roads generally suck in California. There's potholes and crap everywhere. You know, the roadways are,

00:30:46.080 are janky. And that happens in our cardiovascular system. We get little potholes and, uh,

00:30:51.120 scuffs and things, and the system doesn't work as well. And then we get high blood pressure,

00:30:55.360 we get erectile dysfunction. So we want to just look at a red ed through a lens of, uh,

00:31:01.840 vascular health. And so the sauna I think is amazing. And the cold plunge is, I mean,

00:31:06.000 this is a little tip, you know, so I have a cold plunge in a sauna, uh, having sex after going in the

00:31:10.640 cold plunge is like next level. I don't know if people talk about that or whatever, because I got a

00:31:15.440 cold plunge. So having sex after you're in the cold plunge is next level. Yeah. And I'm not sure exactly why.

00:31:20.800 I think because, uh, the blood flow, it, it really causes redistribution of blood, uh, the cold. Uh,

00:31:27.680 but I think there's a temperature aspect of it too. Like in the BDSM kink world, they talk about

00:31:32.720 temperature play a lot. And so when you're cold, she's warm, it's just, yeah, exactly. So that's

00:31:40.000 something that's unique. And, and again, we, we talked about testosterone earlier going in a cold

00:31:44.720 plunge. Uh, there's a whole community online have found anecdotally, we don't have randomized

00:31:49.440 double blind placebo control trials, but cold plunges increase testosterone. Uh, it's quite

00:31:56.480 profound. And again, mechanistically don't know how to explain this. Is it the temperature? Is

00:32:00.400 it the blood flow? Is it the hormetic stress? But cold plunges are another natural tool, um,

00:32:07.200 to increase testosterone. So I think in, and just performance in general, forget the testosterone

00:32:11.920 stuff. Now, guys, if you want to have a good session with your woman, do a cold plunge in the

00:32:17.440 morning, let your body heat up a little bit and you're still be a little bit cold. And then when

00:32:21.040 you get turned on, it'll it's like next level. So that's something to just play around with

00:32:26.320 how far after the plunge, like timeways, I think 20, 30 minutes. Yeah. Um, I found that to be,

00:32:33.120 and I just found this out just like by happenstance,

00:32:37.040 found it up accident. Hmm. That's peculiar. Oh, okay. And then you try it again. You try it like,

00:32:40.880 Oh, that's really interesting. You know? And then she notices it too. She's like, Hmm. Okay. So

00:32:46.480 anyway, getting back to the erection aspect of it, uh, blood flow and things like that.

00:32:51.280 There are other tools, you know? So if one has pre-diabetes or, or, uh, belly fat, visceral

00:32:57.680 adiposity, testosterone and blood flow could be challenges. There are other, other things that

00:33:02.000 we can do like a gains wave. Have you ever had a gains wave treatment? Um, you know, who talked to

00:33:06.560 me about that was Gia Campbell. There was, um, I've never had a gains wave treatment, but I had a home

00:33:11.360 device, um, Phoenix or something. Yeah. Yeah. It was a few years ago. I don't know if that's

00:33:15.680 effective as like the gains wave actual treatment, but it's basically this like, uh, sound pulsing

00:33:23.040 thing that you put on your penis and you, you kind of run it up and down and it breaks up like, uh,

00:33:28.000 plaque and artery blockages and all that sort of stuff. Is that still a thing?

00:33:31.600 Yeah. I mean, this is, I've had several doctors, uh, one of the first practitioners in the U S to

00:33:37.200 come out with the gains wave therapy. Her name was Catherine Retzler in Portland, Oregon. I did a

00:33:40.560 podcast with her. They gave me a free session and, uh, this was a long time ago and I don't have ED,

00:33:45.200 but just from a optimizing performance, uh, the gains wave really works. So doing that once a quarter,

00:33:50.720 uh, is a prophylactic because yeah, sadly, um, all men get ED over time. Like this is like all men

00:33:58.400 will die with prostate cancer, not necessarily from prostate cancer. So we trend towards prostate

00:34:03.280 cancer and we're going to get ED over time. And so I want to get out in front of it. You know,

00:34:08.080 I think intimacy is a great way to connect with your partner and I want to be able to,

00:34:12.320 you know, have that ability throughout my life. And so getting out in front of it.

00:34:15.840 So I do a gains wave once a quarter. Um, you just Google that, you know, there's a lot of

00:34:21.200 practitioners now that are doing this. And so the, the tool used to be used medically to help

00:34:26.320 break up kidney stones. So it's a shock wave, uh, type of therapy. And then, so it's, it's sort of

00:34:32.880 like trauma, like when you go to the gym, you, and you do hypertrophy training, you're causing micro

00:34:38.320 tears in your myocytes or your muscle cells. When you do the gains wave, you're literally causing

00:34:42.800 trauma, but you're causing the tissue, causing the erectile tissue in your penis to rebuilding it

00:34:47.840 better, uh, and stronger. So there's a release of stem cells. There's increased, uh, endothelial

00:34:54.000 nitric oxide. So this thing that causes your blood muscles to dilate, um, and, and micro trauma and

00:35:00.000 that repair, uh, helps the penis, you know, just get stronger, you know, so that, um, and I, I was

00:35:06.880 a little bit reluctant to go down the road of penis bump, uh, you know, but I, I do have one and I've

00:35:13.040 interviewed a lot. I've talked to a lot of doctors who do sexual health. A penis bump is really great.

00:35:17.360 The vacuum therapy, uh, maintains the gains wave, um, success. So that's something to optimize.

00:35:25.200 Um, I mean, let's just face it. Like it's more pleasurable for the woman if you're just like

00:35:29.200 hard as a rock. Right. So, um, and then that makes it more pleasurable for you. And then that causes her

00:35:33.600 to be more connected to you and want to be with you all that. So it's a, it's a good thing. So, um,

00:35:37.840 now that's kind of uncomfortable, the penis pump thing, and it's painful. Um, I don't do it as

00:35:43.280 consistently as I should, but when I do do it, um, she would use the bath mate.

00:35:50.640 I can't remember the name of this one. Um, I remember I was talking to Sterling Cooper about it.

00:35:55.360 It's, um, I mean the inconvenience factor of having to take a bath to use it as kind of a pain in the

00:36:01.680 ass. Um, but they definitely work. Um, there's no question about that. And if you're, uh, if you're

00:36:08.400 a rock hard dude, she's not going anywhere. If you can blow her hair back.

00:36:11.440 Right. Right. Yes. Right. Um, so

00:36:17.120 sauna is interesting, right? Because like sauna doesn't, is there any downside to sauna? Like

00:36:22.080 I haven't found any, any downside cause it's better for your cardiovascular health, your heart.

00:36:26.560 Um, you sweat, which, uh, alleviates some pressure off your kidneys and removing toxins from your body

00:36:32.960 because when you sweat toxins out through your skin, um, you know, you get rid of metals too, as well.

00:36:38.080 I think, um, when you're sweating as well, you're also getting rid of estrogens if I'm not mistaken,

00:36:43.200 or phytoestrogens or estrogen mimic and compounds. There's literally no doubt. It's better for your

00:36:49.280 skin health. Um, like there's literally no downside to using a sauna, right?

00:36:54.160 No, not that I can. I mean, maybe if you had a pacemaker or whatever, I don't know.

00:36:59.360 Your critical heart issues for 99% of the population, um, sauna is going to be all positives.

00:37:06.400 The only downside is it takes time and you might need to go to a bath house if you don't have one or

00:37:11.280 at the minimum, get us on a blanket, you know, that's something to do, but yeah, it's gonna be

00:37:16.320 all upside. You feel better. You're more relaxed. I mean, you're more present better too. I mean,

00:37:20.640 I do a sauna before bed. A lot of the times, if I want to get a good night's sleep, like I'll just

00:37:24.400 sweat it out for an hour there. It's also a good place to shave your head. By the way, guys,

00:37:27.920 if you're, if you're bald and you shave your head, best place to shave your head is get one of those

00:37:31.440 head shavers. And when you got a good layer of sweat on your head, it just, it comes in nice and

00:37:35.200 tight. Um, yeah, I haven't found any downside to sauna aside from the inconvenience of having to sit

00:37:42.160 there and, you know, just do nothing for half an hour, but I try to, you know, take care of social

00:37:46.880 media posts or read emails or some shit like that while I'm in there, but that's the only inconvenience

00:37:51.040 side to it. But yeah, so I didn't, I didn't think about it from the perspective of improving

00:37:55.600 sexual performance, but I guess anything that improves cardiovascular health will,

00:37:59.200 you know, downstream improve sexual performance. What about, um, supplements like, uh, beetroot

00:38:05.200 extract, uh, natto kinase, uh, pine bark extract. Like these are all supposedly improving your, uh,

00:38:12.640 cardiovascular health and your arterial health, like the flexibility of your arteries and all that stuff.

00:38:19.600 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. I don't know the science on that, to be honest. I mean,

00:38:23.200 there is a lot of like glycocalyx supplements now, like you mentioned that little, uh, pliability layer

00:38:28.320 there. Um, I don't know that, that, uh, and people take lawn Jack extract and, uh, uh, tribialis. I

00:38:36.880 think it's called tribulus. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. It's kind of a testosterone booster.

00:38:39.600 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. I mean, haven't seen a whole lot of success, you know, it's, it's varying degrees

00:38:44.320 of success with that. But I think, um, more importantly, um, is just cardiovascular health

00:38:50.480 by way, by way of exercise, sauna, a good diet, walking, you know, good sleep and things like that.

00:38:56.720 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Do you use a health tracker,

00:38:59.840 like an aura ring or a whoop or something like that? Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, I used to. Yeah.

00:39:03.360 I had the gen one or a ring long, long time ago. And I just got into the, a routine. I mean, this is

00:39:08.800 one thing we talk about mouth tape in a minute, because this ties into ED and performance as well. But

00:39:12.880 yeah, I think the aura ring is great. But to be honest, which I used it for years. And I just

00:39:17.280 thought this is just one more tool that I got to screw with. So I don't use it anymore. But I think

00:39:21.600 it's, if you're brand new to this, I think it's awesome for sure.

00:39:24.880 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, I've, I mean, I've got an aura ring. I've got the third gen. I've,

00:39:28.080 I've had all the generations now and I still use them, but they, but they added a, um,

00:39:33.760 a metric which tracks your cardiovascular age and the best. So this is really interesting.

00:39:42.800 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Um, the best that I've had my cardiovascular

00:39:46.400 age. I don't know if that'll, if the camera will focus on it. It's not going to focus.

00:39:50.160 Dr. Justin Marchegiani It's getting there.

00:39:50.800 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, it's not doing it. Anyway, um, it

00:39:55.360 if I can turn this thing up a little brightness, come on camera.

00:39:58.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani You pull back a little bit.

00:40:01.680 Dr. Justin Marchegiani There you go.

00:40:02.400 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Oh, wow.

00:40:03.200 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Cardiovascular age is minus 11.5 years for me.

00:40:06.960 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Wow, that's awesome.

00:40:08.320 Dr. Justin Marchegiani This ring. So I do everything that Mike's talking about.

00:40:12.320 Dr. Justin Marchegiani I'm into my fifties now and my cardiovascular age, according to the,

00:40:18.160 to its tracking is anywhere from nine to 11.5 years younger than my actual, like, you know,

00:40:26.400 date of birth age sort of thing. So a lot of this stuff works and I'm doing all the stuff that he's

00:40:31.200 already talking about. I just didn't contemplate. Oh, you know, sauna would add to that, but I'm in the

00:40:35.920 sauna after workout and probably probably daily now, you know, if I factor in after workouts at

00:40:44.080 the gym and using my own sauna in my basement before bed, I'm probably in them at least daily,

00:40:49.680 maybe even sometimes twice a day. So if I work out and then I go in the sauna again before bed and

00:40:53.760 have a shower just to get rid of the sweat, then I'll have a really good sleep. But absolutely,

00:40:58.320 sauna is, is, is right up there for me that I'd have to admit, but there's nothing else there that

00:41:03.200 is being missed. Yeah. From that standpoint, I don't think so. I mean, we could get into the

00:41:08.480 Viagra Cialis. Yeah. So it's like a low dose, you know, Cialis is standard five milligrams a day.

00:41:13.600 Like most guys over 40 start using that. Yeah. I think that's awesome. Yeah.

00:41:16.960 It's like Cialis has benefits beyond just sexual performance. Like it's good for your heart. It's

00:41:24.240 good for your brain. I think it delays the onset of degenerative diseases when it comes to like

00:41:30.960 Alzheimer's and stuff like that. I think it's good for your kidneys too, as well.

00:41:33.840 Hmm. Yeah. I mean, I, I think it's right. I'm not sure exactly. So it's, it affects the

00:41:40.160 um, uh, cyclic AMP, which is involved in like, uh, nitric oxide production, but it's very,

00:41:46.880 it's a little bit more specific than Viagra for the penile tissue. But yeah, I think it does affect,

00:41:52.560 um, the central nervous system as well, because one side effect, uh, can be low back pain for some

00:41:57.600 people because it's affecting, um, the phosphodiesterase enzyme and cyclic AMP, uh, and all that. And so it's

00:42:05.520 preventing the breakdown so that you have more nitric oxide, but it's good. Like you said, I think,

00:42:11.600 and I had this mindset too, like, I'm not going to touch that stuff until I'm older. Why would I

00:42:14.960 want to screw with that? But I just started taking it this summer, uh, because I want to prevent it.

00:42:19.520 So it's, there's a preventative men that have taken Cialis long-term have lower prevalence of ED

00:42:25.040 compared to age-matched men that don't. And so that's what the longitudinal data shows that it's

00:42:29.680 really good for just preventing age-related ED. So even if you, if you're great performance-wise,

00:42:35.040 um, you should take it for prevention. By the way, speaking of lower back pain,

00:42:39.120 I'm kind of zigzagging a little bit, but just as you sort of mentioned it, um, I've,

00:42:43.680 I've had lower back pain. Um, you know, especially in my twenties. Remember one time in my twenties,

00:42:47.360 I really hurt my back bad and I, I could barely move, but I got this inversion table and I've used

00:42:51.840 it for the most part since then a lot. Like I'll get up in the morning and I find that, you know,

00:42:57.520 when you've been lying down, your spine kind of decompresses. Um, and what I'll do is I'll get up in the

00:43:02.640 morning, you know, have a pest and I'll go right on the inversion table and I'll hang upside down for

00:43:06.160 a good three to four minutes. It's all you need. And it seems to realign your spine. I don't really

00:43:10.720 have any back issues anymore. Um, do you have any other tips for spinal, you know, alignment back

00:43:16.960 issues and stuff like that? Yeah. Just really prioritizing glute strength, uh, with hip thrusts

00:43:22.240 and deadlifts and reverse hypers and, uh, you know, all that GHD. Um, yeah. So your glutes,

00:43:29.040 uh, glute strength and all that will really affect the erector spinae strength as well. So, um, yeah,

00:43:35.520 I found that exact, like I said, I had a deadlift injury that like, really, I couldn't do a whole lot

00:43:39.760 and then started to follow Brett Contreras and his work and get it, you know, Tina Moore is a physician

00:43:45.120 friend of mine. So, and yeah, prioritizing glute strength. So I think a lot of guys, you know,

00:43:49.040 when you go to the gym, you see women doing hip thrusts or like leg kickbacks and you're like,

00:43:53.040 Oh, that's for chicks. But the women look at your butt too. I mean, as guys, you know,

00:43:57.360 that like women are into butts too. So, uh, but there's a functional aspect to having, you know,

00:44:02.080 nice glutes and that is, uh, helping with your, uh, prevent back pain. So core strength, uh, glute

00:44:07.920 strength, really important for long-term back health. Here's something that I've noticed. Why is it that when

00:44:13.680 people get older and I mean, obviously notice this more with women cause I'm straight, but, um,

00:44:19.440 like their asses go flatter. Like there's less of a, you know, bump in the rump sort of thing.

00:44:25.200 If you know what I mean? Like women's asses will go flatter as they get older. Like what's up with

00:44:28.720 that? Well, we lose muscle mass as we get older. This is just, and that's why we need to resist and

00:44:33.920 shrink to prevent that. But we lose muscle at a quicker pace in our lower body compared to our,

00:44:40.000 compared to our upper bodies. And so there's really good evidence like twice as fast or

00:44:44.800 there's a curve. I have a, I created this Instagram post. I remember it was during COVID

00:44:48.400 sometime in the summer. Uh, I could send it to you, but yeah, there, there's a curve.

00:44:52.480 Uh, there's a study, I think it was like in 2017 or something that looked at, uh, the pace,

00:44:57.440 but it was interesting. Like the, it was almost double. It was like close to two X the pace. So

00:45:03.360 yeah, I think a lot of people, when they go to the gym, their leg training is like leg extensions

00:45:08.000 and a hamstring curl. And they're calling it good. Like you gotta do like, I, I lift legs almost

00:45:12.240 sometimes three days a week. If depending upon how much hiking or cross country skiing I'm doing,

00:45:16.960 at least twice a week. And so it's heavily glute focused and squats, deadlifts, reverse hypers,

00:45:23.120 uh, kickbacks, you know, all the, all of that different iterations.

00:45:28.240 Got it.

00:45:29.120 Um, okay. Let's do TRT, uh, testosterone replacement therapy. I have a chapter in my book.

00:45:33.440 I talk about optimizing your hormones. Um, I think if I knew, um, what I know now about hormone

00:45:42.960 replacement in my forties, I probably would have put off going on TRT. Um, I think I've been on it for

00:45:49.680 eight or nine years now or something like that. Um, I remember the first few years were just like,

00:45:54.560 wow. Like I was like, I put on, I mean, I was 193 pounds when I started TRT. I'm about six foot two

00:46:03.120 and change. And I put on about 20 pounds of weight. And I think most of it was muscle,

00:46:10.880 bone density and water weight. There wasn't much in the way of fat that went on. So

00:46:15.600 testosterone certainly has a, has a profound impact on the muscle on your body. And I was,

00:46:22.960 I started looking like a bodybuilder, like in my forties again, which I looked like in my,

00:46:27.120 you know, early, early twenties and even early thirties, like up until then. So it does work.

00:46:32.320 Um, but I don't think as many guys need it as they get on it. I think that if there's

00:46:41.040 a serious approach to optimizing your, you know, your, your testicles on production and

00:46:48.480 the axis that exists that, that, that runs your hormone panel, that, um, you can kind of delay it

00:46:56.160 or maybe even completely avoid it. You know, for some people, there's some, there's some guys that

00:47:01.120 I know that are in their sixties and seventies and they're pretty good shape. Um, and they're not

00:47:05.440 on TRT. What's your, what's your advice on testosterone replacement therapy? Like what's your

00:47:12.400 position?

00:47:12.800 Yeah. Rich, I very much like yours. I think it's an easy, it's, it's kind of like goes

00:47:18.560 impact for weight loss. You know, if I'm being honest and I'm not trying to undermine anyone

00:47:22.080 who's been on TRT. I, I understand. I've been tempted many times to go on it. Um, because you

00:47:28.640 look, this is why, I mean, I don't want to affect your channel algorithms, but this is why transgender

00:47:33.440 therapy is so popular among young women. Like they feel like crap. They get on testosterone. They're like,

00:47:36.960 whoa, this testosterone is amazing. Like we all know that, but you know, I think long-term it's

00:47:45.120 better to wait as long as possible until it's absolutely necessary. That's, that's my, uh,

00:47:50.000 position and then go with the lowest dose possible and do subcutaneous injections, uh, bi-weekly as

00:47:57.440 opposed to a one, uh, every 10 to 14 days intramuscular injection. So we can talk about all that, but

00:48:03.040 that that's my position is like, you know, go wait as long as possible because there's other things,

00:48:09.360 Rich, we can do beforehand. Uh, you can take HCG, you can take Clomid, you can do peptides. You can

00:48:14.160 do a lot of things to just kickstart. Um, you know, the, the testosterone because I've had some clients

00:48:20.800 who are on TRT high doses and they still feel like crap and they have still have no libido and all this.

00:48:26.560 So if you're not doing the lifestyle things, the testosterone could just get ripped and converted

00:48:32.160 by various different enzymes, uh, into estrogen and it can make your problem even worse. And so I

00:48:36.640 think you have to do the lifestyle stuff anyway. So I would exhaust that first. Then if it's,

00:48:41.840 things are not working, cause in some cases they're not, you know, if you've played collegiate football

00:48:46.080 and you've had a lot of, uh, you know, repetitive head injuries, your hypothalamic pituitary, uh,

00:48:51.200 center could be screwed up, right? There there's reasons why people have low T, uh, outside of the,

00:48:56.560 you know, persistent organic pollutant endocrine exposing chemicals, uh, route. So that's my

00:49:02.000 position, um, is exhaust all the natural resources first, then consider HRT. And then I would recommend,

00:49:08.880 uh, getting a testosterone propionate and doing subcutaneous injections, uh, maybe twice a week

00:49:15.840 or even three times a week, focusing on 10 to 20 milligrams, you know, uh, every other day or so.

00:49:21.280 Yeah. Um, as far as, okay, so I'm just going to throw this up on the screen cause I want to get

00:49:27.280 your take on the supplementation over here. Um, I have a supplement line, so kind of a shameless

00:49:33.200 plug on it, but I think it's, it's relevant. Um, uh, share screen. So this is the stuff that I have

00:49:42.080 in my supplement store. We have a mutual friend that put me in touch with a supplier. Yeah. Um,

00:49:46.560 so there's T DK. So T has, um, let me put this up here. Can I make this a bit bigger?

00:49:56.240 So these, and I mean, you don't have to buy this stuff. Um, and it obviously, you know,

00:50:00.320 helps out with my channel what I'm doing, but the stuff that's in the ingredient list is tribulus,

00:50:05.520 uh, which is a proven testosterone booster, a cryocin, which is an estrogen. Uh, so it's like an AI,

00:50:11.360 it's a natural AI Tonga Ali dim, which is another kind of an AI horny goat weed, ginkgo extract and

00:50:18.400 boron. Um, is there anything outside of that? Like nutraceutical wise that you would recommend

00:50:24.400 to guys to help optimize testosterone? Yeah. Uh, maybe zinc zinc as well. So I put that in the stack.

00:50:32.240 So when I organize it by testosterone support, we've got, um, the vitamin DK stack, which is very useful

00:50:38.720 for testosterone and optimal, uh, hormone production. And then I've also got zinc in

00:50:43.040 here as well. Um, which isn't a very like zinc is probably the cheapest product that you can buy,

00:50:48.800 which is great for immune health or testosterone production, all that sort of stuff.

00:50:54.160 Um, and then there's like an add on sort of something, but whenever somebody asks me,

00:50:58.640 I always tell them, take zinc, a vitamin DK blend. It's important that it has K in there. Otherwise

00:51:04.800 you'll end up, um, like your arteries will get too hard. Like they'll calcify. So you want to get

00:51:09.440 the calcium in your bones, not in your arteries. And that's why they mix the vitamin DK product.

00:51:14.000 And then there's, uh, you know, the testosterone support. And by the way, guys, you can find all of

00:51:18.000 these, these will all be a pin in the link below after the show's done, but you can go to the

00:51:22.640 unpluggedalpha.com, uh, to grab stuff over there. Is there anything outside of that that you would

00:51:27.120 recommend? Rich, those look like good stacks. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Um,

00:51:31.760 um, uh, yeah, zinc, there's some decent research on us, ashwagandha KSM 65.

00:51:37.440 Yeah. I've heard about ashwagandha. What's the deal with that?

00:51:39.920 Yeah. It's, it's an adaptogen. There's all these different herbs that are adaptogenic

00:51:43.680 that can help mitigate stress and things like that. But you know, for some people,

00:51:47.120 ashwagandha doesn't work. Um, but that's just one more to consider. But yeah, what I like about

00:51:51.440 those supplements that you presented is they're going to affect estrogen metabolism as well.

00:51:55.280 Yeah. Uh, the dim, the christen, all that, which that can be a problem is, is men can,

00:52:00.480 especially if they're a little bit overweight or have body fat to lose. I definitely want to consider

00:52:05.440 estrogen in that context because the fat cells have different enzymes that will aromatize

00:52:10.880 testosterone to estrogen. And that's what I mentioned. Um, you know, several clients of mine,

00:52:15.440 they're on TRT. They're like, I don't notice anything. Cause like they have fat body fat. So

00:52:19.520 it's the testosterone is being ripped over to estrogen and they even sometimes feel worse.

00:52:23.280 Do you like to pay more attention to numbers or the outcome? Like the way that I sort of

00:52:30.800 answer this question when people pose it to me, I'm like, well, do you have libido or you horny?

00:52:35.200 Do you wake up with a boner in the morning sort of thing? Like to me, that's more important than

00:52:39.600 what your numbers say on blood labs. Like, where are you with that?

00:52:42.320 A hundred percent. Yeah. Treat symptoms, not labs. You know, there's guys who have no symptoms,

00:52:48.800 but have relatively low testosterone, but feel great and are rock stars in the bedroom and in

00:52:53.280 life. Yeah. So I think that's where labs can be. They're good. They're a good barometer,

00:52:58.320 you know, but it's just one proxy. So you want to look at symptoms first.

00:53:02.240 Got it. Yeah. I mean, the other thing too, I'm going to hate to say it, but it needs to be said.

00:53:09.520 You just might be with a chick that you're not attracted to or that attracted to. So that could

00:53:13.600 be part of the problem as well, too. I mean, Tom Likas used to make this joke all the time, right?

00:53:17.440 You know, if you want to fix ED, then date younger, hotter women.

00:53:21.280 Wow. Yeah. I personally did that. I went, I was married for 12 years, got separated.

00:53:27.600 There's a lot of emotional disconnect in that marriage, but like had no, no libido. And I

00:53:32.880 thought, man, do I need to get on testosterone? Uh, started dating someone who I vibed with, uh,

00:53:38.960 and younger and all that. And like, it was like insatiable appetite. So same scenario,

00:53:44.320 same house. It didn't move. So yeah, it's a, you gotta be with someone that you're physically

00:53:48.400 attracted to. You know, that's a, yeah. If you're forcing it, like it's, it's kind of pointless if it's

00:53:53.840 not there. Um, let's go to sleep and optimizing sleep because that plays a big part in just life

00:54:01.360 in general, man. Like, you know, your optimal hormone panel, health, stress, anxiety, the,

00:54:06.320 you know, the impact on your organs and all that sort of stuff. And I've definitely found as I've

00:54:10.560 gotten old, like, you know, as a young guy, I, I'd have to set the alarm to get up in the morning to

00:54:16.320 make it to work. Right. Otherwise I would just keep sleeping and I don't enjoy that benefit anymore

00:54:21.760 that much. Anyway, you know, if I can put it that way, I'm, I'm usually just up at the same

00:54:25.520 time all the time. Um, what are your best tips for improving sleep, depth of sleep, REM sleep,

00:54:33.360 deep sleep, like, you know, all that restorative type of stuff that we, that we still need that I

00:54:38.560 think, I mean, do you find with the guys that you talk to, uh, like sleep becomes more of a

00:54:42.640 challenge for them as they get older or yeah. Okay. For sure. Yeah. That was Sally. Um,

00:54:47.680 yeah, but it's often, it's been there for a long time, but it's just like your body,

00:54:52.160 you're less resilient as you get older. So like we used to, you know, think about in our twenties,

00:54:55.600 like you go out clubbing or partying and you can function on two hours of sleep and be just fine.

00:54:59.600 But I mean, in your forties, you're going to be destroyed. So, um, yeah, sleep really important.

00:55:04.000 So what do we do? I think it really actually starts in the morning, rich. So being intentional

00:55:08.240 and I'm not just copying Huberman. I wrote this in my book, belly fat effect in 2014, right? So

00:55:13.120 getting out and getting up, exposing your eyes, your naked eye without blue light,

00:55:18.160 filtering glasses. Like I think we're both wearing now to the sun, even if it's a cloudy day. Um,

00:55:23.520 so I recommend to all my clients get a photometer off Amazon. This is a, it'll read you or enumerate

00:55:30.080 the light exposure in the form or the unit of Lux. So we have to talk about light in the context of

00:55:35.760 Lux and, and this $29 actually there, there are some apps that are like really low cost to on your

00:55:40.400 iPhone. So you get a light meter because you want to be exposed to at least a thousand Lux

00:55:45.360 in the, you know, at some point before noon. So that can help to optimize and get the cogs in

00:55:50.800 the circadian rhythm wheel functioning properly. So that's important. And then we want to focus on

00:55:55.600 optimizing light light hygiene in your house. So in the two hours before bedtime, you want to keep it

00:56:00.400 less than 50 Lux. I don't have my phone right here, but if I could hold it up a phone, even when it's

00:56:05.840 dimly lit, we'll put out like 70 Lux. Like it's a lot, a lot of light. Remember we want less than 50

00:56:12.480 uh, in the hour before bed, less than 10 in the bedroom, we want close to zero, uh, Lux. So if you

00:56:18.080 have a TV in your bedroom, if you have all these night lights, I mean, that stuff is going to script.

00:56:22.640 How question is that blue light removal button in most phones now, right? You know, where you,

00:56:27.520 where it kind of follows like nighttime, like, does that do anything or is it just

00:56:31.360 Dr. Justin Marchegiani I think it's way better than not, but it's still, it's the light intensity.

00:56:37.200 So yeah, the blue light is a little bit more disruptive to melatonin release and circadian

00:56:42.400 rhythm, uh, kind of the induction of sleep and sleep processes, but the, uh, the, the intensity

00:56:49.040 matters. And so there was a consensus statement paper from a group over at Stanford that publishes

00:56:53.040 in 2021. And so very clear more than 500 Lux during the day, less than 50 Lux in the two hours before

00:56:59.760 bedtime, just before bed, less than 10 bedroom zero. So download an app on your phone, buy a meter on,

00:57:06.640 uh, Amazon and just optimize your house on a phone. It's actually native to all phones.

00:57:10.400 No, I found that you just sort of go through the menus and you can take out the blue light

00:57:14.240 after a certain period of time. It makes the screen look like crap. Like it's not very bright. Like

00:57:18.720 I use an, uh, app on my computer. I just opened it up. It's F dot Lux. It's totally free. You know,

00:57:23.760 you can download it, put on your laptop, you can put it on your PC and it sort of follows like where you

00:57:28.880 are in your location. And at certain times of the day, it'll put more, uh, blue light on your screen.

00:57:34.720 And at certain times it sort of takes it out and your screen kind of turns like a, almost like a

00:57:39.040 yellowy orange. Cause it takes out most of the brighter lights. So that's one thing that I've

00:57:42.960 done that I've found, you know, to be a little bit helpful too. Yeah. But these are all amazing

00:57:47.440 devices or tools and things, but you know, speaking of the, uh, sleep aspect and there's a hack

00:57:53.680 on YouTube where you can triple click your phone and you can customize that on. If you have an iPhone

00:57:58.240 on the right, I don't even know the button, whatever the button is. And so I have that

00:58:02.320 turn on to the night mode. And so it sucks out all the blue light and it's all orange,

00:58:06.480 but I use that if I'm on Instagram, because, um, when you take the color out of Instagram or Facebook,

00:58:11.680 you're going to be less inclined to doom scroll. And so it's a good thing.

00:58:14.560 It's like a black and white almost. Exactly. So that's, I don't know,

00:58:19.760 we're all susceptible to it, right? You go on Instagram to DM a friend or to post and you're like,

00:58:23.520 you get sucked into a 20 minute time suck. Yeah. One of the things I do in the morning,

00:58:28.720 you know, the whole light in your eyes, I think it helps. I think Huberman talked about it where

00:58:32.800 it's like the oldest cells in our body, like is in our eyeballs, which are designed to react to

00:58:39.440 light in the morning. Like when the, when the sun's low on the horizon. So what I do is like,

00:58:43.680 where my house is situated is I can sit on the porch and I'll bring a coffee out. Even in the winter

00:58:49.520 time, it sucks because it's cold here in Canada, but I'll sit out there and I'll just like, listen

00:58:53.520 to like a chapter of a book for like 10 minutes, like an audio book. And I'll just stare in the

00:58:58.800 direction of the sun, even if it's cloudy and I'll just drink my coffee for 10 minutes. And that seems

00:59:03.920 to do the trick. It's awesome. Yeah. That's amazing. And there's controversy about timing of caffeine

00:59:10.480 because you want to let adenosine build up and caffeine block. I say, don't worry about that.

00:59:15.040 That routine is great. So just, that's fine. Obviously exercise, getting back to sleep is

00:59:20.080 going to create sleep pressure. So that's good. So moving throughout the day and then our last

00:59:25.440 mealtime, I mean, that actually does impact things. So like trying to eat at least two to three hours

00:59:31.200 before your desired bedtime. Really, it would be ideally four hours, finish your last major meal

00:59:37.600 that can impact sleep as well. So,

00:59:39.280 Dr. Justin Marchegiani And weed and alcohol that's been proven to be no good for sleep.

00:59:44.080 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah, you know, I used to drink a lot. Not a lot, but I loved red wine. You

00:59:48.960 know, I would kid myself thinking the health benefits are why I'm drinking it, but I just like the feeling

00:59:53.680 of it. I gave up alcohol in 2023 and man, my sleep has been so much better. I mean, alcohol will definitely

01:00:00.880 kill your libido and testosterone. We talked about sex performance. And if you're drinking a lot,

01:00:04.560 that's going to screw things up. And if you take an edible here or there, everyone's unique how they

01:00:09.600 respond to cannabis. You know, I don't know. I'm not totally against edibles. I think it can make

01:00:15.600 some people lazy. It can enhance intimacy. So if you're into that, if it's periodically I'd like,

01:00:20.800 I have no problem with that. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Edible is definitely

01:00:22.800 enhanced intimacy. There's no question. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. So I think that's a cool,

01:00:25.920 Dr. Justin Marchegiani It will disturb your sleep. Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. I was actually in France

01:00:30.160 in June and the THC is illegal there, but they had a hemp edible and my partner and I took it and

01:00:38.720 we didn't expect anything. I thought, okay, I'll help recover. We did a huge hike, you know,

01:00:42.160 in Chamonix and like the intimacy from that was like next level. I don't know what the heck they put in

01:00:46.880 it, but yeah, that's a little hack for people for sure. But getting back to sleep. So mouth tape

01:00:52.400 is surprisingly effective. Rich, have you gotten into this?

01:00:54.960 Dr. Justin Marchegiani I've tried, but with a beard and you know,

01:00:58.880 like I've even thought about shaving off the beard, but it's like, it's part of the brand now.

01:01:02.800 Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah.

01:01:03.040 Dr. Justin Marchegiani But it's hard for me to tape up my mouth with a beard, but

01:01:08.000 I've sort of trained myself to sleep with my mouth closed because I use a CPAP machine now,

01:01:12.560 right? But I use the nose pillow. So it it's sort of like just deals with the nostril area and I can

01:01:18.080 sleep with my mouth closed now and just sort of breathe through my nose the entire time. But yeah,

01:01:21.920 mouth taping. Can you talk about that? Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. So in essence,

01:01:24.800 when we're in our different stages of sleep, we have REM sleep, rapid eye movement, we have these

01:01:29.440 very deep stages. When we're in those deep stages, they're particularly restorative and how they're

01:01:33.680 restorative is because our brain will temporarily inhibit muscular contractions. And so I'm giving

01:01:39.200 you that backstory because if you're breathing through your mouth while you're sleeping, your tongue,

01:01:44.160 the low tenacity of the tongue will not be there and it can collapse in your airway and you get these

01:01:50.320 apneic events. And some people have sleep disorder breathing, which is on the trajectory of sleep

01:01:56.240 apnea. I think there's a lot of people that are pre sleep apneic, but they don't know it and because

01:02:01.680 they're breathing through their mouth. So when we mouth tape, we take the tongue out of the picture

01:02:06.000 and we just forced breathing through our nose and we don't have those apneic events or just sleep

01:02:11.360 disorder breathing. And that is really important because it ties back to those periodic apneic events

01:02:16.080 are stressful for the cardiovascular system. It can lead to high blood pressure, endothelial

01:02:20.320 dysfunction, erectile dysfunction, obesity, and beyond. So it's not just like the circadian rhythm

01:02:26.080 aspect of sleep and light hygiene and all that like we talked about, but how we are breathing while we're

01:02:31.200 actually sleeping really impacts the quality. So this is a really easy way. But Rich, in your case,

01:02:36.880 I mean, they do have little things you can put appliances on your jaw. So I don't know. There's

01:02:42.800 options out there. I've seen like chin straps where they'll sort of like keep your mouth closed.

01:02:47.040 Yeah. I've seen mouse devices. I mean, I can sleep with the CPAP or without it. I used to travel with

01:02:53.520 it. Now I don't bother because I just know how to sleep on my side and be able to breathe through my

01:02:57.360 nose. But I tend to sleep better with the CPAP on. But I have like a whole, like my fucking bedroom

01:03:04.000 is like built like a biohack cave, man. It's dark as shit. I have a chili pad underneath the mat.

01:03:08.800 I've got a grounding mat. It's, you know, it's cool. I've got a weighted, uh,

01:03:12.960 fucking blank, everything. Like I've done it all. Nice. Um, one of the things I was going to say

01:03:18.080 though about, um, sleep and breathing and mouth taping is if you want to figure out if you have,

01:03:24.960 um, breathing issues or if you have an issue with apneic type of vents, I mean, yeah, you can do a

01:03:30.480 sleep study that they suck. I've done two of them where they wire you up. Like there's hundreds of wires

01:03:35.920 they put on you and they monitor you and everything. And you get like complete data, but

01:03:40.080 a cheap, easy way to do it is just put your phone beside your bed and put the audio recorder on and

01:03:44.560 make sure it's got like, um, the peaks and valleys, you know, whenever it picks up sound

01:03:49.840 and just record yourself sleeping. And all you have to do is look at it and sort of slide it across.

01:03:55.040 And if you see a lot of, uh, bumps, that means that you're snoring. And if you like go to the

01:04:01.760 snoring events and see if you stop breathing, like if you do the, you start doing shit like

01:04:07.600 that, like you're not breathing and you're depriving your body of oxygen. Another thing that you can do

01:04:12.000 too, which is actually really, really cool is, um, there's a device called, uh, a looky device.

01:04:16.960 It's L O O K E E. And it's basically a SPO two monitor and you wear it on your finger.

01:04:22.720 Um, and it'll track your blood oxygen levels throughout the night. So if you see your blood oxygen

01:04:29.120 dropping below, what would you say? Like 90%, 93%. Yeah. That'd be low. Yeah. Below 93 would

01:04:35.280 be a little concerning, especially sleeping. Yeah. So track that. And if you see,

01:04:39.520 and there are about a hundred bucks to get track that. And if you see that your blood oxygen is

01:04:43.280 dropping below 90%, you're shortening your lifespan, you're harming your cardiovascular health,

01:04:48.720 you're depriving your organs in your brain of oxygen. Um, your Dick's not going to work as well.

01:04:54.320 Your hormone production is not going to be there. Your productivity is not going to be there next day.

01:04:58.960 Like sleep is that important? Oh yeah. I found anyway, like I went down like the

01:05:02.480 geek rabbit hole of this and I just fixed as much as I possibly could. Nice. That's awesome.

01:05:09.200 Is there anything else that we're missing aside from the mouth taping? Like, I mean,

01:05:11.760 the mouth taping is great if you can do it, but if you have a beard, it's, it's, that's tough.

01:05:15.200 Yeah, it is tough if you have a beard. Um, Rich, I think that's it. I mean,

01:05:20.160 these guys are bond charge are our sponsor. I just happen to have this on my desk. Uh, sleep mask is cool.

01:05:25.040 Okay. I like these guys, this one bond charge, they have a bunch of different tools, but, um,

01:05:30.160 yeah, sleep mask. I mean, you want to walk out the light. Yeah, exactly. And you know, um,

01:05:37.040 for example, I mean, I have blinds, um, there's no street lights or anything, but you know, we have a,

01:05:41.840 I don't know, half an acre. So yeah, so I just, I use that. Um, but yeah, so I think just making

01:05:48.640 sure it's dark is the bottom line. Okay. Super dark. Um, what about focus and productivity?

01:05:55.120 There's a lot of like biohacks around focus productivity. There's, you know, the limitless

01:06:00.240 pill that it's not a real pill, but it's, you know, from the movie sort of thing. Um,

01:06:05.200 what are the best ways to improve productivity as you get older? Cause your cognitive function

01:06:09.360 definitely goes down. And you know, I found that I've had to implement a bunch of stuff in my life.

01:06:13.760 I want to hear from you on that though. Yeah. Great question, Rich. I mean,

01:06:16.800 this is not really an area of my expertise, but I think, um, locking up your phone. I think the

01:06:22.000 biggest source of distraction is our, our cell phones nowadays. So, um, I, I have two little,

01:06:27.120 two different cases. I can't remember the one that I use, but it's got a timer on it. I just put my

01:06:31.440 phone in there for 90 minutes and just do like, just deep work, you know, and turn that off. Um,

01:06:36.880 I go back and forth, I delete Instagram, then I read it, you know, stuff like that. So I think,

01:06:41.040 you know, when it comes to focus and productivity, it's just a, a function of being less distracted.

01:06:46.000 So that's important. Um, exercise breaks throughout the day, I think are really important.

01:06:52.560 Or I'm at 11 o'clock, let's go for a walk or how do you do that? The exercise breaks and being

01:06:57.520 intentional about that. Um, and just like getting outside and breaking up the day. Um, we can only

01:07:02.560 focus for a shorter period of, and be effectively, um, you know, be effective in our work for a short

01:07:08.640 period of time. So yeah, I mean, I can't, I haven't dove into this research, me hear different things in

01:07:15.040 different books you know like we can only focus on one thing for like 18 minutes and you need to

01:07:18.080 take a micro break and go back to it you know but i think that's important so doing some push-ups

01:07:22.960 doing some wall squats i sometimes will do yard work for just 10 minutes and come back in

01:07:27.760 um you know so that's where take the stairs at the office whatever yeah yeah summertime i'll i'll

01:07:33.200 just get on my bike i mean if it's a nice sunday day i'll just you know get on my bike take my

01:07:36.880 shirt off get some sun on myself and go for a 20-minute bike ride it's just you know that's

01:07:41.280 awesome dick um anything else you know beyond that for focus and productivity like you have

01:07:46.080 any supplements that you recommend you know one of the things that i started doing as well too is i

01:07:49.520 started to eat eggs again i mean i've got a little bit of an mrt response to eggs and i think most

01:07:55.120 people have this i was talking to dr anthony j he was saying most people have like a a bit of a bad

01:07:59.760 response to eggs because they're in like all the vaccines they put in us when we were kids and stuff

01:08:04.080 like that it's like the albumin or that or that white film that's on the egg so that your body kind

01:08:08.480 of like has a negative response to eggs but i put eggs back in my diet like i'll eat three eggs every

01:08:14.000 morning now and i find it's the choline in it that helps me focus and get more done like it just gets

01:08:19.120 my brain working better yeah i mean you know i think going on more of a low-fat keto or a carnivore

01:08:25.440 style diet not having the peaks and troughs and blood glucose levels from uh refined carbs and sugars and

01:08:32.080 grains and stuff like that i think is honestly the best thing for cognition you know when you look at

01:08:36.240 um dementia and alzheimer's and and these are diseases that are characterized of of like

01:08:41.760 cognitive dysfunction uh there's often a metabolic component to that uh not always but very often

01:08:47.440 times and so um yeah just just having less peaks and troughs in your glucose levels by eating healthier

01:08:53.200 whole foods and exercise so yeah i think eggs are really important superfood i like raw dairy as well

01:08:59.280 there's a milk milk fat globular membrane which is uh it's globulin that helps i mean think about

01:09:06.080 like a baby cow or a baby human like the brain is developing so milk has things that help cognitive

01:09:12.000 function so i think that's important um exogenous ketones sometimes i didn't take this today but

01:09:18.800 i'm gonna film later with my video guy i always take a exogenous ketone uh ketone ester beforehand

01:09:25.040 i find that clears the cobwebs really well um is that like one of the little shot bottles that i've seen

01:09:31.360 yeah yeah i've not tried those they apparently taste pretty bad but they're good for your body

01:09:36.560 composition and for brain function yeah for brain function um yeah i don't know for weightless some

01:09:42.560 people market market them as weight loss on amazon but i don't think they're particularly good for

01:09:46.720 weight loss but you have a product that you know that you like when it comes to those ketones yeah

01:09:50.000 ketone aid this guy frank yosa i've known him for a lot of years ketone aid um i can't remember it's

01:09:56.800 just a tone a id like band-aid ketone aid okay you can just get that stuff off of amazon yeah uh or his

01:10:05.920 website yeah he's got a great website um but yeah i do like that uh beforehand i think nicotine can be

01:10:12.800 helpful too but there's the addictive potential i i chew nicotine during every podcast just break it

01:10:20.960 up and i put it up in my gum line up over here it's sitting up here right now is that lucy uh what's

01:10:26.000 that is that the lucy gum uh no this is just nicorette it's a four milligram uh dose and you know i just

01:10:32.880 break it up and put it in my gum line and just leave it there and it just really gives you a nice

01:10:36.000 step like nicotine's proven to have a lot of uh cognitive benefits and it it's it's actually healthy for

01:10:41.760 your brain yeah yeah yeah i'm a fan of nicotine for that um i don't know just go ahead use gum or

01:10:50.240 juice patches there's a yeah i use it's a a lozenge uh coming called knick-knack naturals out of

01:10:56.160 washington okay so it's way cleaner i don't like the zins and there's like juice head those make

01:11:01.680 try to get in once and it just it just cooked my brain man i don't know what's in that some garbage

01:11:09.120 yeah i wouldn't go down that rabbit hole um so yeah knick-knack naturals is something cool so

01:11:14.320 they use xylitol uh right instead of other synthetic sweeteners um i mean periodically i'll

01:11:21.600 do low dose lsd honestly like before i film i'll do a microdose lsd and i find that it's actually

01:11:26.480 really good for cognitive clarity i've used that before too yeah it's pretty good yeah same thing

01:11:30.960 with like a low dose of like psilocybin as well totally yeah i think these tools i mean look at uh steve

01:11:36.960 jobs he was really big into psychedelics and all that and i'm not saying everyone go out there and

01:11:41.680 trip balls all the time but microdosing can be a nice way to just like get grounded you know figure

01:11:47.440 out your purpose how you're going to make you know as you say rich a bigger dent in the universe all

01:11:51.360 that so those are things that i use what do you think about hero strips like a like a hero's dose of

01:11:58.000 like psilocybin and psychedelics and stuff like that since we kind of touched on it yeah i think it works

01:12:03.040 you know i've only done one sort of heroic dose in uh february of 2023 and everything that i wanted

01:12:09.760 to clear up in my life and i went in there with a very specific intention came to be true so yeah

01:12:15.920 it's scary for sure like when you start to blast off you're like oh my gosh i'm losing control is that

01:12:21.040 three grams oh dude that's lightweight i know i mean people that's like starters dose yeah but i'm i don't

01:12:27.920 like to lose control like that so yeah it was wild did you have it facilitated like did you have

01:12:32.000 somebody guide you and all that sort of stuff yeah yeah i was in a yurt with this lady who does

01:12:35.840 this all the time and all the like you know sensation stuff that comes at you yeah yeah it

01:12:41.680 was just why i don't know i don't uh i don't particularly like that and maybe it was because

01:12:47.360 i had a bad experience with dmt one time i've only done that once the intentions of the so-called

01:12:52.560 facilitator were uh not the best of intentions uh you can ask jordan about that one so yeah that was uh

01:13:00.960 so anyway i think i'm a little bit i don't want to use the word trauma but like uh gun shy when it

01:13:05.920 comes to heroic dosaging dosages okay no i've done i've done them a few times and i've had them

01:13:12.720 facilitated most of them i think four out of the five times i definitely have facilitated it was a

01:13:17.840 great experience dmt i did once and i had a really good experience with that that was that was

01:13:23.760 that was interesting that's like a 12 to 15 minute rocket ship ride into like everything

01:13:29.120 yeah yeah we'll talk about that some other time yeah um okay so let's um so let's cover a couple

01:13:35.440 more things before we wrap up okay um i want to talk about mainstream medical advice and relationship

01:13:42.240 advice because it's kind of one of the topics that i talk about a lot too as well too but um a lot of

01:13:48.160 mainstream medical advice uh you know we saw stuff during you know the beer bug scamdemic and all that

01:13:54.720 sort of stuff like that but um how do you interpret mainstream media's published narratives on medical

01:14:05.680 advice when it comes to the stuff that you have coming at you because i mean you're a smart dude and

01:14:09.440 you've kind of figured out a lot of this stuff like like how do you deal with that yeah it's it's a

01:14:14.720 it's a great question um it's tough i mean most of what the mainstream media covers has a political

01:14:22.320 bent to it and sadly academia and science is now very political and so you have to understand that

01:14:29.440 uh there's a clear push towards a say plant-based agenda you know reporting that plant-based diets are

01:14:35.600 way superior to omnivorous style diets and all this and so you know the problem with most of the studies

01:14:40.800 that we either why do you think they're pushing that it's more money to be made i mean all these

01:14:45.440 uh bill gates uh there's a lot of uh venture capital VC funding for plant-based uh new foods

01:14:51.040 meat alternatives dairy alternatives cheese alternatives there's just big money it's more

01:14:55.440 profitable right like and this is not new and you know alternatives have seed oils in them too don't

01:14:59.920 they yeah and so since you mentioned cedar was i mean this has been the trend is to in this procter

01:15:05.680 and gamble back in the early 1900s like butter and tallow and lard were how we cooked and how we made

01:15:11.760 cakes pies pastries everything but it's more expensive than taking cottonseed oil and so that

01:15:17.360 the history of replacing butter with margarine then so this has been the trend is just continuing it's just

01:15:23.840 in a it's now instead of oil or fat it's meat and so we're doing that now because of technology so

01:15:30.000 this is not a new push uh big companies have been trying to do this for a long time you can make way

01:15:34.400 more money uh taking a waste product and repurposing it as food i mean look at the history of canola oil

01:15:39.440 in canada you know university of manitoba after the second world war just repurposed all the you

01:15:44.800 know canola into edible oil and it's yeah it was a military lubricant they wanted to use it to lubricate

01:15:50.400 military equipment and they're like oh we got all this canola oil left over let's let's re let's stop

01:15:56.800 telling people to take tallow and butter yeah let's call it margarine and spread this on your bread

01:16:01.920 instead and people fell for it man it's because like you know you get the whole indoor like you

01:16:06.080 know back in the day you know they said you know what was it like uh four out of five uh physicians

01:16:11.200 recommend smoking camel cigarettes you know for their it's like okay that story's been blown out of

01:16:16.800 the water right so it's like you know how do you trust the mainstream media you know when it comes to

01:16:20.880 the narrow narratives around medical advice and taking this or don't take that it's it seems like the best

01:16:26.880 thing to do is kind of like if they say zig then you zag like is that uh honestly rich i think so

01:16:32.400 like i mean going back to covid like i did the exact opposite of what i heard on tv or very early on

01:16:38.480 because the literature did not support what they were saying so yeah it's it's this is uh it's it's

01:16:43.520 propaganda you know people think that we don't have propaganda in north america and we think that oh

01:16:48.000 we're not like russia or this it's it's thinly disguised propaganda yeah you know it's funny i watched

01:16:53.440 this movie last night it's on amazon prime um it's with john candy it's called canadian bacon and it's

01:16:59.840 kind of a funny satirical take on you know government propaganda it's like you know the

01:17:04.640 american government is trying to wage war and finds up to distract the public on and they're like

01:17:08.880 oh let's create a war with canada sort of thing and it's like an ancient movie it's it's still funny

01:17:14.240 but i mean you can see the code in the matrix if i can put it that way nice um relationship advice

01:17:20.880 dude um you know we came across each other and you know we talked offline obviously about stuff

01:17:26.960 like around that but what have you learned about managing relationships women um you know what they

01:17:32.720 respond to what they don't respond to like you know it's kind of a final word final thought to my

01:17:37.760 viewers like what sort of comments do you want to add there yeah well i'm certainly not a pro at this

01:17:43.120 but i think um honestly maintaining frame is really important because you start they start to lose

01:17:49.280 attraction right away because you know um once the relationship progresses you know women want to

01:17:56.240 start and orion terriban talks about this in his book like you are driving your ship throughout life

01:18:02.000 you're successful this is why women want to come onto your boat as the passenger but at some point

01:18:06.480 they want to take over they want to the passenger wants to become the driver of the ship and that's when

01:18:11.040 the relationship goes south so maintaining your frame and um sticking and and it loving without too

01:18:19.120 much attachment i think this is where men we screw up is we get one itis the sex is good or you she's

01:18:24.080 hot or whatever we start to bend over backwards they have all the control and then they don't look

01:18:29.600 at you they don't they learn to not respect you you become unattractive the frequency of intercourse

01:18:34.800 goes down you're not as desirable so preventing that from happening and just knowing that hey you're

01:18:40.400 coming on my ship and if you didn't like my ship you you would have had your own ship and you

01:18:44.880 wouldn't have wanted to come on and be a passenger on my on my terms right so i think that is is

01:18:49.680 important um but really what i was kind of selfish when it came to intimacy before so i learned a lot

01:18:55.360 about the clit and arousal and and non-penetrative touch and like using that to spice up intimacy

01:19:01.680 because over time as you know women you know naturally they they start to lose interest in that

01:19:06.080 spontaneous desire so maintaining that spontaneous desire uh and learning how to get her mind uh into

01:19:13.760 intimacy more and so i think that's an important thing that i didn't know before uh you know going

01:19:19.520 back in the dating world after being married so there's a book by the gottmans fight right i think

01:19:24.080 we all have relationship quarrels uh but learning how to do that in a way that doesn't blow up the the

01:19:30.000 whole relationship um so those are things that i've learned but man relationships are are tough you

01:19:35.520 know they're they can be amazing but they're really tough and they take a lot of work too so yeah i've you

01:19:42.160 know i've i've found a few things you know in the last year or so and it's like um i find proximity

01:19:50.240 and um familiarity can be two of the biggest killers when it comes to managing frame and it's like the

01:19:57.120 closer you are to her and the more familiar she is with you and your habits the more difficult it's

01:20:03.200 going to be able for you to manage the relationship the frame and for her to have genuine burning desire

01:20:09.200 over over the long term so while women will tend to push for the stronger a more committed type

01:20:16.880 of relationship it usually goes somewhere like hey you know i have a great idea mike let's live

01:20:21.040 together sort of thing and you know it's like oh you're oh it's great you know i'll have more sex

01:20:24.720 all the time because now she's in the house and it's like yeah it doesn't usually go that way it's

01:20:28.720 it's it's it's like okay now proximity is increased now familiarity is increased and guess what

01:20:34.400 happens as a consequence of that is desire starts to decrease over time as well too so it's like

01:20:39.440 you know sometimes the very things that women don't like are actually good for her and the

01:20:44.320 relationship is what i've found so being able to say no and manage the relationship and sort of like

01:20:48.880 guide and direct that in the right sort of way seems to be you know the best way to go about it

01:20:53.280 there's no cut and dry you know solution to any of this but uh yeah i figured i'd ask you to because

01:20:58.000 i know that's like a interesting component of a man's life as well it's wild now i mean and the

01:21:04.320 temptation and i think the big problem for uh getting commitment for women is they're so used to

01:21:10.080 getting so much attention on dating apps because there's so many dirt bags out there that just

01:21:14.400 you know and so they have this illusion that they are a little bit more desirable than they actually

01:21:19.840 are and so that too there's just dating now is really tough you know so finding someone that has

01:21:25.520 like old school principles and ideologies you know in a way um and and truly values you and appreciates

01:21:32.000 you and doesn't want to be a little you i think is the key that's it so all right guys um where can

01:21:37.040 people find you mike where's the best place yeah high intensity health.com or high intensity health

01:21:40.960 on youtube all right so check him out uh he's got some great content i've enjoyed certainly uh you

01:21:46.560 know talking you online and offline and following your content so have a look guys hope you guys enjoyed

01:21:51.440 the cast i'll be doing more uh podcasts this year just you know not on a regular schedule i kind of

01:21:56.160 do them as i feel like it and as i can fit them in but uh thanks mike um stay on for a minute i want

01:22:01.920 to talk to you a bit offline all right guys if you enjoyed that podcast make sure you visit my website

01:22:08.080 at rich cooper.ca to learn more about my courses my book the unplugged alpha community or booking me for

01:22:15.120 private coaching also if you are a canadian with fifteen thousand dollars or more of credit card debt

01:22:20.000 and what you are doing right now isn't paying off the balances then visit totaldebtfreedom.ca

01:22:26.640 and hit get a free quote to see if you qualify to settle your credit card debt for less than you owe

01:22:31.520 today over the next 48 months make sure you check out the top pin comment on youtube for all the links

01:22:36.560 links mentioned during the show peace

01:22:45.200 you

Playing to Win - January 22, 2025

PTW # 100 - Mike Mutzel - @Highintensityhealth

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