The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - More Plates More Dates ｜ EP 168

00:00:00.000 What happens if you're a man with regular levels of testosterone and you give yourself a little

00:00:05.480 boost? From like an actual testicular health aspect, you're essentially shutting down the

00:00:09.920 signal to them in order to minorly elevate your levels just for some hopeful improvement. I know

00:00:17.440 like there's some women who get pregnant and then they're just kind of like calm and happy and like

00:00:21.760 just like pregnant. Yeah. And I just went like batshit crazy. If you're not literally dying,

00:00:27.520 good luck getting anything in canada like you better show up to the er like physically having

00:00:32.180 a heart attack yeah or else you're not getting anything so okay i can get behind that

00:00:37.140 derek nice to meet you thanks for coming on my podcast you as well thanks for having me

00:00:47.640 um how did you like what's your background for people who aren't aware or familiar with you

00:00:54.100 can you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do?

00:00:58.660 Yeah. So my name is Derek. I started a YouTube channel in 2016, as well as a accompanying

00:01:05.820 website, which I'm probably most well known for. The channel name is More Plates, More Dates. It's

00:01:10.920 kind of centered around men's self-improvement for the most part, but it's kind of just like

00:01:16.380 a catchy name I came up with at the time that I thought was memorable, kind of funny. And since

00:01:21.500 then it's kind of branched out into multiple different areas and my interests have evolved

00:01:26.120 since then to be more focused around biology endocrinology pharmacology performance optimization

00:01:34.060 longevity just a bunch of different areas like that and I guess secondarily I'm most known for

00:01:41.140 my preventative medicine platform as well as supplement company but mainly it's the channel

00:01:47.240 which, you know, I produce a bunch of content around, I don't know, just how the human body

00:01:53.300 works, nutrition, optimization, stuff like that. And yeah, it's kind of a high level overview.

00:02:00.320 Hopefully that is a sufficient summation of what I do, I guess.

00:02:05.000 Yeah, no, that works. Okay. So what do you think the main focus for men should be

00:02:10.940 for overall health or say the top three focuses for men?

00:02:17.240 High quality sleep, for sure. I think a lot of people are burning the candle at both ends and

00:02:23.780 are not really dialing in. Either their circadian rhythm is out of whack, they are not getting to

00:02:30.840 bed at an adequate time, and then also not following a regular schedule. And then even

00:02:34.480 when they're doing that, their sleep, even if it's eight hours, it's oftentimes segmented or not

00:02:39.180 high quality enough to actually break the rewards out of it that they could otherwise be getting.

00:02:43.220 And that's massively impactful on many different hormone systems.

00:02:46.680 Most notable, I think that most are aware of is how detrimental it is to testosterone

00:02:50.480 levels in men.

00:02:51.640 So I would say that's probably like the biggest low hanging fruit.

00:02:55.500 Cause that's the only like restorative time of the day where your body can actually deal

00:03:00.340 with, you know, cancer cell proliferation, recovery from your workouts.

00:03:04.980 Um, also mental health massively impacted by quality of sleep for sure.

00:03:10.100 Um, so I would say that's like the biggest thing.

00:03:12.040 And then secondarily to that, as you are well aware, diet quality, hugely impactful for sure.

00:03:20.420 I would say a lot of people are very focused on macronutrients like protein, carbs, fats.

00:03:26.320 They count their calories.

00:03:27.280 That's kind of like the extent a lot of people go to, even those who are trying to be mindful of their health.

00:03:33.800 But a lot of times people overlook micronutrient density of foods as well as mineral intake and things that go.

00:03:40.820 I don't know, like there's a lot of people that will use like low calorie alternatives or sugar

00:03:44.820 free alternatives, but then they're totally void of any sort of nutritional value whatsoever,

00:03:49.340 other than like, oh, it's high protein and no sugar. So therefore good. Not always the case,

00:03:54.880 because a lot of these vitamins and minerals are like cofactors for different things in your body

00:03:58.600 that are necessary for optimizing performance, vitality, et cetera. So there's that. And then

00:04:06.180 i guess exercise third like what was the original question was three like main thing yeah so that's

00:04:14.580 probably the best i could pull out of my ass off the top of my head huh sleep okay my sleep has

00:04:20.000 been garbage for about two weeks and i feel like i don't feel good because of it i just i don't

00:04:25.020 know i got into this like just into the going to sleep at two o'clock in the morning just just

00:04:31.140 like normally my sleep schedule is on point it's like 10 o'clock early in the morning and then for

00:04:37.240 a couple weeks i had so you know i'm on this carnivore diet yeah and i had these amazing

00:04:43.840 sausages made so i had like meat meat shipped somewhere and i had these sausages made and i

00:04:48.860 guess they went through a meat grinder that had other things in it and it just screwed up my sleep

00:04:53.200 and i've been it's amazing how much you need to optimize sleep what what could people do or what

00:05:00.200 if they have interrupted sleep um like i guess as far one of the main things is people waking up to

00:05:09.280 go to the washroom in the middle of the night so that's one of the biggest interrupters for sure

00:05:15.520 that could be mitigated through electrolyte balance so having a sufficient balance of sodium

00:05:22.840 potassium calcium magnesium a lot of people are not really focusing on mineral intake and their

00:05:28.700 electrolytes, um, as well as just being very mindful of how much water you're drinking before

00:05:34.520 you go to bed. Like I'd say that's probably the number one, like actual physical impediment to

00:05:40.120 staying asleep as people waking up and having to go take a piss for sure. Um, but other than that,

00:05:45.780 like actual sleep quality, caffeine timing, definitely huge. A lot of people don't consider

00:05:51.220 the half-life of caffeine is five plus hours. And depending on how old you are, you are your

00:05:56.240 metabolism of the caffeine gets worse and worse over time so eventually it takes longer to work

00:06:03.100 its way out of your system and that you know afternoon coffee that you had on top of your

00:06:06.720 morning coffee could be screwing you up you know later into the night when you think you know you

00:06:12.180 just assume the caffeine's not in your system because you don't feel you know upbeat and

00:06:15.340 energetic anymore but in reality the residual effects are still preventing you from getting

00:06:19.460 that really deep sleep um and there's a bunch of other things too but i mean those are probably the

00:06:24.920 two main ones off the top of my head to be honest so are you a fan of uh high salt what about high

00:06:34.120 salt well i mean just a lot of salt consuming a lot of salt you talked about electrolytes

00:06:38.520 so are you a fan of like extra electrolytes for optimization um it depends on the individual like

00:06:44.600 i wouldn't just broad spectrum sweepingly say everyone should be adding salt to their diet

00:06:48.680 necessarily because a lot of people can have you know go into elevation of blood pressure when they

00:06:55.480 have added salt salt to their diet when they don't necessarily utilize it but yeah that could be

00:07:01.160 impactful for sure for actually uh avoiding excessive urination you know and i think

00:07:06.600 caffeine also does have a mild diuretic effect so if you are loading up on caffeine you can imagine

00:07:11.080 that that's gonna make you urinate more as well so things to be mindful of for sure so what's your

00:07:17.960 background in like do you have educational wise or education wise do you have um education in

00:07:24.760 nutrition or or anything like that or that's the interesting thing is for me a lot of people think

00:07:30.680 like i remember joe rogan for a while thought i was a chemist because i had i don't know this

00:07:34.660 like rumor started that i was like this meathead chemist um and a lot of people wonder exactly

00:07:39.060 what i do but i had a undergrad in marketing and totally useless by the way like i would not

00:07:44.600 necessarily recommend it for anybody. Yeah. But, um, yeah, my education formally is just on the

00:07:52.600 business administration side of things, but, um, nothing really relevant to what I'm passionate

00:07:58.120 about or pursue nowadays. And mainly my education is self-taught as well as through collaboration

00:08:04.600 with other individuals that I respect and, um, you know, find mutual benefit in, you know,

00:08:11.260 educating each other keeping up to date on the newest literature of endocrinology whatever it is

00:08:15.840 and through my preventative medicine platform as well we have a lot of doctors who I kind of

00:08:21.540 indirectly get to absorb like a sponge a lot of their findings through their work with patients

00:08:26.560 directly because they talk about stuff in clinical chats all the time there's meetings all the time

00:08:31.620 I can kind of indirectly absorb information through them as they work with patients in real

00:08:35.880 time and then I'm also just like a huge nerd and I just read studies all the time yeah okay so

00:08:41.160 tell me more about this platform. Okay. It's called Merrick Health and essentially it is

00:08:48.160 targeted for broad spectrum optimization. So it's not like a typical, I'm sure you've heard of TRT

00:08:54.340 clinics. TRT is becoming like a very, very popular, almost trendy fad nowadays where a lot of people

00:09:00.080 are haphazardly jumping on testosterone replacement that may otherwise not even need it. But our

00:09:05.540 platform tries to, I kind of differentiate it in a way that it's focused on optimizing all things

00:09:12.180 from a natural angle too, and then also assessing other kind of diagnostic metrics that could

00:09:18.660 evaluate, you know, things from your lipid health, you know, for cardiovascular disease risk, you

00:09:24.520 know, things like cancer markers. And essentially when you come into our clinic, you find you'll get

00:09:30.400 teamed up with somebody a provider who will kind of evaluate your diagnostics and then make targeted

00:09:35.940 recommendations for optimization from a health perspective vitality optimization perhaps hormones

00:09:41.400 and it's kind of just like uh okay yeah it's like basically ties in exactly with what i'm most

00:09:47.120 passionate about and i can actually like impart that information to people who follow me that's

00:09:52.820 very cool yeah so my husband watches quite a bit of mind pump okay for about for about six months

00:10:00.860 he was like my testosterone's low it's definitely low testosterone and i need to get on testosterone

00:10:06.700 and i was like i don't know i'm so skeptical i don't know very much about hormones i know quite

00:10:11.480 a bit about nutrition and from having the autoimmune disorder i know quite a bit about

00:10:15.020 i know some anyway you can define quite a bit but i know some things but i don't really know

00:10:21.320 anything about hormones and i was like i don't know injecting testosterone seems like if you

00:10:26.540 don't need it first of all seems like a bad idea and i know that there are a lot of people

00:10:31.740 on it and there are a lot of people who say there are benefits to adding in testosterone

00:10:37.160 what happens if you're a person with like a man with regular levels of testosterone

00:10:43.160 and you give yourself a little boost um well it depends if you give yourself a little boost as

00:10:50.320 you push yourself a bit higher than what you are naturally essentially yeah you know you're

00:10:54.620 essentially shutting down your entire um not your entire reproductive system but from like an actual

00:11:02.620 testicular health aspect you're essentially shutting down the signal to them in order to

00:11:08.300 minorly elevate your levels just for some hopeful improvement in cognitive sharpness you know

00:11:16.540 muscle building potential, et cetera. Like oftentimes I think people are misdiagnosed

00:11:22.460 through poor lifestyle and diet habits, and they will haphazardly jump on T because they have a,

00:11:28.920 they go into a, you know, a lab corp or whatever it is. They get a testosterone test done. They

00:11:33.940 transiently through one snapshot in time at one moment, they had a, you know, 250 total testosterone

00:11:39.800 level. And then they interpret that as, oh, I must be low T perpetually. And it's negatively

00:11:44.940 impacting my life. I need to get on TRT, but there's all the low hanging fruit, even that we

00:11:50.520 addressed at the beginning, those were just a couple of things. Those things are so impactful

00:11:54.580 on testosterone production that if you overlook those and jump right to the drug route, you could

00:11:59.200 be overlooking things that could get you back to a healthy state, otherwise without the necessity

00:12:05.640 to rely on these hormones. So I think a lot of people, some people do need it for sure. And

00:12:10.240 there's like absolute utility in it and it's very very effective when it's needed and warranted but

00:12:15.560 a lot of people i think haphazardly get on it and may not otherwise need it and then they end up

00:12:21.200 reliant on it for their entire lives okay okay so what what ended up happening with my husband is

00:12:27.920 he was having tree allergies so he was tired and that was the end of the story and now he's not

00:12:32.100 having them so it that would have been a brutal a brutal reason to get on for sure yeah uh okay

00:12:41.280 so you said reliant so is there actually no way to get off of it once you're on it so if you were

00:12:46.940 a healthy functioning male with good testosterone levels prior if you got off within like a reasonable

00:12:54.060 time frame like you know there's not really a reasonable time frame for replacement because

00:12:58.840 You're supposed to be replacing what you otherwise don't have.

00:13:00.920 So it's like you're essentially, you know, using something you're you're artificially

00:13:06.480 shutting down your system that otherwise didn't need to be.

00:13:09.880 And you could get back to your natural function

00:13:14.600 dependent on the duration of exposure.

00:13:17.080 So if you've been doing TRT for like 15 years or something

00:13:20.280 and you technically didn't need it when you started it, are you going to be able

00:13:23.320 to recover to natural function if you then decide, oh, I want to try and come off?

00:13:26.720 it kind of depends because again it's almost like there is a use it or lose it kind of

00:13:33.020 thought process that goes into different organs in your body so if you shut down the signal to

00:13:37.680 your testicles for a decade and a half and you have like shriveled atrophy testicles and then

00:13:43.180 you try to recover to baseline it's not as simple as just pulling out the testosterone and then

00:13:48.060 everything just works correctly perfectly like you're going to deal with a very very arduous

00:13:52.640 recovery phase whereby you might end up hating your quality of life so much on that recovery

00:13:57.800 phase that you just end up staying on the on the testosterone now for some people though if they

00:14:03.460 were totally healthy like for example your husband if he was to get on test didn't need it and then

00:14:09.160 was like you know what it's not for me came off after like three months or something he might

00:14:13.760 have like a transient phase where he kind of feels shitty well it's kind of like leaving his system

00:14:17.440 and then his normal pituitary is kicking back in but in that he'd probably recover to baseline

00:14:23.840 within relatively short order once the drug had works its way to assist them yeah okay so that's

00:14:28.640 not like massive risk if you're testing it out no but i would definitely caution against testing

00:14:36.800 yeah okay um how did you how did you go from a youtube channel like a popular youtube channel

00:14:44.000 to running that kind of massive business did you did you have a change like did you have a plan or

00:14:50.880 is this something that just kind of happened and you went with it um you know i much like a lot of

00:14:57.920 businesses that people find themselves in i i very rarely believe that people especially in

00:15:04.300 the social media space really predicted where they'd be five years ahead of schedule when they

00:15:08.340 first start. So for me, it was, I didn't even know if I should be making videos when I started

00:15:14.700 online. Like I literally just started writing articles. Somebody told me, suggested I should

00:15:18.320 also do videos with it, started making them. And as my content evolved and whatnot, you start to

00:15:23.320 look into different ways to monetize, especially things that you're passionate about. Cause after

00:15:27.060 a while, when you start making money, you realize you're, you know, the money part can only take you

00:15:31.680 so far. The passion is what's going to actually like drive you for years. So for me, this was

00:15:36.960 like the perfect overlap of monetization and what i actually am highly interested in and it sort of

00:15:42.480 just evolved naturally like uh i found myself seeing some of these platforms popping up across

00:15:47.760 the usa and i was just seeing the haphazard cookie cutter protocols that you know providers were

00:15:53.580 putting people on just to basically make a markup on medication essentially a lot of these companies

00:15:58.640 exist simply to be like net like almost similar to like the pill mill stuff you heard about back

00:16:04.480 in the day but like on the testosterone front a lot of these companies would basically just

00:16:08.680 you know evaluate your blood work but not even really care what it says and be like here's legal

00:16:14.060 steroids you go you know here you go have fun and that is not i thought there was a major hole

00:16:20.160 in the industry for like an actual preventative medicine approach that is looking for optimization

00:16:25.180 from optimization from a dietary perspective sleep hygiene optimization um you know hormone

00:16:32.240 optimization if warranted and just like a broad spectrum overview approach so that's kind of where

00:16:37.660 i came into it yeah it's cool um coming from canada there aren't as many terrible here oh it's

00:16:45.540 no i are you in canada yeah i'm on the west coast oh yeah ha i left canada i'm in miami now oh lucky

00:16:54.500 yeah sorry i don't mean to like laugh at you i didn't know you were from canada so is your company

00:16:59.180 based in canada no okay no it's us based that yeah yeah canada is a rough one to try and break

00:17:06.400 in there because there's a lot of uh like i i don't know who watching has had experiences trying

00:17:11.360 to even get a basic blood test when you're not like 70 years old but if you're not literally

00:17:15.400 dying good luck getting fucking anything in canada like you better show up to the er like

00:17:20.240 physically having a heart attack yeah or else you're not getting anything so okay i can get

00:17:25.200 behind that no it's it's shocking it's shocking yeah it's free but then you get what you pay for

00:17:31.120 yeah that's one of the things i'm very very um optimistic about expansion into canada because

00:17:38.340 that's something i've and partly what motivated this whole thing to begin with is i've been so

00:17:42.420 frustrated with the medical system in canada for a number of years that i was like why is it that

00:17:47.760 i literally have to drive over the border just to get a blood test fucking absurd so for me um you

00:17:53.420 know being able to give that access to my parents to my friends to myself you know that's the kind

00:17:57.880 of stuff that i want people to be able to get a proactive approach to longevity optimization etc

00:18:05.280 rather than have to physically like show up having a heart attack to get some help so oh okay i like

00:18:11.900 that yeah it's it's crazy moving to the u.s uh i've had it's just there's so many options it's

00:18:19.920 amazing like i found this company online that i'm giving a shot because i've got i'm allergic to

00:18:24.760 everything which is why i'm on this diet because i like i've got food allergies i've i have

00:18:28.680 everything and i found this company that does sublingual immunotherapy so they'll give you

00:18:34.640 like tiny little doses of like oak and ragweed cockroach dust like everything and so i'm going

00:18:40.220 to try that out for the next couple years to see if i can reduce the food allergies and the food

00:18:44.460 sensitivities so i think there might be a cross reactivity issue with the severe environmental

00:18:49.880 allergens causing the food sensitivities i'm hoping so if you have these sublingual like

00:18:55.260 micro doses of of random stuff like what is that doing evaluating if you have a allergic response

00:19:01.760 and then like well what what you do is you do an allergy test so they do a prick test

00:19:07.180 right and then and then decide you know show what you're allergic to and then they mix that up

00:19:12.660 in this drop and then you take the drop and it's supposed to desensitize your system oh wow um yeah

00:19:18.420 it's really interesting they're doing it for for people with peanut allergies they've been doing

00:19:22.440 this for a little bit um because you have a kid with peanut allergies they can just die

00:19:26.400 right if they're if they don't have the epi pen so you can give them tiny tiny bits of

00:19:30.780 tiny bits of peanuts sublingually and so they have this tiny little immune response but you

00:19:36.420 can train their immune system over like a two or three year period it takes a while i think they

00:19:41.240 see results after six months and slowly reduce sensitivity that's crazy that's like uh have you

00:19:46.820 ever heard of those guys who intentionally expose themselves to like snake venom or like some random

00:19:52.480 yeah it's that okay huh wild i didn't know that was like an actual therapy crazy yeah yeah it is

00:19:58.260 uh it's called immunotherapy you can get it in shots too but there are these companies popping

00:20:03.520 up i think there are three of them now in the u.s where you can go online and order immunotherapy

00:20:07.800 drops so if you have tree allergies you can get this mixture that slowly desensitizes your immune

00:20:12.380 system and the results are like it's theoretically it works it looks like it works so um fingers

00:20:19.860 crossed i can one day eat other things than meat we'll see seems unlikely yeah that would be nice

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00:22:09.040 company you have that that uh employs doctors which is very cool um what's your plan with that

00:22:16.580 do you have a growth plan or are you kind of staying where you are um yeah so right now it's

00:22:23.740 more so just brand exposure and bringing more people to spread the message showing up to

00:22:29.460 different um there's a lot of different kind of like conferences when it comes to like there's

00:22:36.040 kind of the optimization niche of the scientific community like a lot of the the ben greenfields

00:22:43.020 and like uh of the world and then there's also like the clinical side with like the peter retias

00:22:47.520 and the hubermans and whatnot and yeah i don't know just like branching as far out as i can

00:22:52.620 and trying to spread uh knowledge and also you know at the same time you know bring people into

00:22:58.820 what I consider to be high quality medical oversight. So, you know, for me, it's more so

00:23:04.720 just continuing to make content surrounding the, I don't know, issues that we face from like a

00:23:10.480 hormone balance perspective, anything health optimization related, and then bring in like

00:23:15.700 minded individuals who want to also impart the same message, further educate themselves as well

00:23:20.580 as others in the process. And yeah, you know, I would like to get an international, but it's

00:23:27.240 obviously a very very large undertaking to when it comes to licensing and all the different you

00:23:32.680 know ram i don't know like legal loopholes when it comes to medical stuff so in the near future

00:23:38.760 hopefully canada is on the to-do list and then it's crazy that you can like as a canadian that

00:23:45.640 it was easier it's so much easier in america to do business it's crazy like i can't get over it

00:23:52.460 but that's nuts that you'd, I mean, I suppose most of your audience is probably American versus

00:23:57.020 Canadian, is it? Yeah. Yeah. The corporate structure stuff as a Canadian sucks when

00:24:01.800 you're in the States, like trying to establish like the companies that hold the companies that

00:24:05.140 do this, but overall, like everything in the States is just superior overall. And, um, like

00:24:09.980 even before I had, even before I had all this stuff, like I used to literally pay for blood

00:24:14.980 work, drive over the border to Blaine, Washington and go to a lab court myself, get my blood drawn,

00:24:20.660 get it emailed to me and then like interpret the results like that was how i had to get blood work

00:24:25.300 back in the day because you would go to a doctor here and just say can i get my cholesterol checked

00:24:30.320 and they'd say no and they get mad at you because it's like you're trying to tell me what you need

00:24:37.640 go fuck yourself get out of my office brutal that's yeah that seems pretty accurate yeah no

00:24:44.200 you don't need that yeah i can imagine what you dealt with growing up with trying to figure out

00:24:48.920 all your stuff and probably the amount of doctors that shunned you or told you you're crazy or or

00:24:54.120 you think you need this test like you're you know i'll i know what's correct i'm the doctor you know

00:24:59.400 get out of here i still have oh my gosh i still have anger issues from that i was like lividly

00:25:03.720 especially when i ended up putting the autoimmune disorder into remission with diet then that just

00:25:08.520 like it blew me away right especially after the medical system experience in canada i was livid

00:25:16.360 like livid with anger for probably two and a half years because at that point um i'd had my ankle

00:25:22.520 replaced in canada they'd installed the replacement slightly crooked so i'd solved the autoimmunity and

00:25:28.360 i didn't have that anymore and i was in chronic pain from a ankle replacement i probably could

00:25:32.960 have avoided yeah and i i was anyway i'm not really angry anymore but i'm not very trusting of

00:25:40.760 doctors i'm sure the canadian medical system didn't help with that at least the silver lining

00:25:46.340 to it though is the information you have now that you can then impart on tens of thousands of people

00:25:51.720 like even my one of my business partners his wife was on antibiotics during her pregnancy and then

00:25:58.900 she ended up like wiping out her gut microbiome essentially and it kind of like presumably

00:26:03.760 impacted their kid in a very significant way so they have a toddler right now um or an infant i

00:26:09.280 guess i don't know when you become a toddler what the difference is age-wise but he's like one

00:26:13.360 and his his gut is just a disaster like anything he eats and his entire like face goes red

00:26:20.800 everywhere becomes red and he tries to like scratch his face off because he's so uncomfortable

00:26:24.600 and they have to put like mittens on him to make sure he doesn't scratch his face off and

00:26:28.240 yeah so like some of the information that um you you know paul saladino some of these uh you know

00:26:34.760 the autoimmune experienced individuals who have kind of got their stuff into remission via this

00:26:41.700 kind of like wild out there, you know, elimination diet, you know, that information was not available,

00:26:47.680 you know, 10 plus years ago. So you had a lot of like babies being put on corticosteroids long

00:26:53.160 term, which is going to like significantly hinder their growth, you know, and impact them in so many

00:26:57.420 bad ways. So like even now that they're trying to see if they can do some sort of elimination

00:27:03.320 style diet while they rebuild his gut microbiome and then kind of reintroduce more diversity as

00:27:08.820 gets older kind of thing yeah they should do it um i was really paranoid so my daughter's five

00:27:15.220 and i was really paranoid about her like microbiome just everything allergy is like

00:27:21.140 everything to do with her because i was sick from such a young age and then i was on antibiotics so

00:27:25.680 often i was like my microbiome is probably messed up which means she's gonna be messed up and like

00:27:31.440 what can i do about that and so i didn't start like i did um meat only when we were first

00:27:38.600 introducing foods um and then introduced like one food at a time and waited and that worked

00:27:46.660 really well and she does have like she has environmental allergies and she's got a host of

00:27:51.360 sensitivities but we were able to like avoid them because we just did one food at a time

00:27:56.660 now do you know if it's like obviously i'm sure you've researched this heavily but how

00:28:01.820 much of it is genetic versus epigenetic like i know and maybe i don't know if this is even a

00:28:08.180 question you can answer but i know for example if somebody is obese like self-inflictedly obese when

00:28:15.240 they are pregnant and have a kid you know they could pass on some of that to their child and put

00:28:20.380 them in a worse kind of baseline position and they have to deal with those issues too does that have

00:28:26.140 any sort of crossover from like i think you mentioned both of your parents had autoimmune

00:28:31.420 issues to some extent yeah my mom my mom actually recently got diagnosed with lupus which she's

00:28:38.160 not on medication for it she she's on the same diet as me but that explains like arthritis and

00:28:43.100 some organ issues and like some eye issues so lupus and my dad had um psoriasis and alopecia

00:28:51.100 at one point um gum disease like just not like not great for both i have a brother he's totally

00:28:58.700 fine i have no idea how that happened estrogen is very impactful on autoimmune issues so typically

00:29:05.720 you'll find that for example hashimoto's thyroiditis is an autoimmune issue that attacks

00:29:10.600 the thyroid and in general it's very very majorly affecting women relative to men and it's because

00:29:16.760 of estrogen's impact on the on the immune system seemingly so women are wonder that's that's really

00:29:23.320 interesting okay i have a question i don't know if you know the answer to this though um a lot

00:29:26.840 of the people i've spoken with who've had autoimmunity and are on like the lion diet or

00:29:31.000 or the carnivore diet um have gotten significantly worse or got worse whatever their problem was

00:29:37.960 after having children and for me i actually put myself into remission on a very restrictive paleo

00:29:44.600 diet so it was super clean i was eating like 25 foods which i thought was restrictive um but i

00:29:51.240 didn't have any symptoms and then i had scarlet and that's when i went over to the meat only diet

00:29:56.600 because my autoimmune flared up do you know anything about pregnancy exacerbating autoimmunity

00:30:02.360 um i would imagine the massive fluctuation in hormones from a progesterone estrogen aspect

00:30:09.240 throughout that process would have very significant implications on that how they would go to like as

00:30:16.440 far as the metrics of hormones before pregnancy during and then after and reaching baseline i

00:30:23.720 I couldn't tell you off the top of my head exactly what in general they do, but I would

00:30:28.040 imagine, and this is kind of where the utility of having baseline blood work comes in and

00:30:32.200 why I recommend anybody get like an extensive panel, regardless if they're going to go on

00:30:36.760 TRT or not like anything, because if something goes awry, being able to look back and see

00:30:41.920 what was my baseline when I was healthy and what is weird and aberrant now can be very,

00:30:47.780 very helpful for actually like owning in and figuring out what might be screwing you up.

00:30:51.560 So from like a hormone metabolism aspect and just balance of everything, like I would imagine

00:30:56.280 there could be something there for sure.

00:30:58.040 Like I know postpartum depression is, um, I believe lack of progestogenic activity from

00:31:02.900 the changes in progesterone activity in the body.

00:31:05.800 So having that crash or be non-existent or, you know, decrease, whatever it may be, could

00:31:12.900 be something that leads to like anxiety, depression, mood swings, just like a lot of major issues.

00:31:19.120 And, um, they've actually developed drugs around trying to like replicate the same things

00:31:24.580 that you get from like adequate amounts of natural hormone production from progesterone,

00:31:29.420 for example.

00:31:30.200 So, um, yeah, there's definitely, I would imagine something very impacted by the hormone balance

00:31:36.460 side of things after for sure.

00:31:38.300 And that's where, you know, a good, uh, elaborate blood test I think would be highly warranted

00:31:43.680 compared to a baseline beforehand.

00:31:46.340 Yeah, that's a very good idea.

00:31:48.260 Yeah. Regarding progesterone, from what you know about the topic, is that not enough progesterone

00:31:54.920 to begin with? Or are those like downstream problems, like it's not getting converted

00:31:58.300 properly or something? I believe it's not enough in general. Typically, people who have conversion

00:32:05.920 issues are people who are using drugs that impact enzymatic pathways. Like for example,

00:32:11.600 guys who use finasteride for preventing hair loss. There's an enzyme called 5-alpha reductase. And if

00:32:18.240 you inhibit that enzyme despite the fact that you're preventing the hormone dht from wreaking

00:32:24.360 havoc on your head you're also preventing the conversion of different progestogenic metabolites

00:32:29.800 like allopregnenolone is a very very owned in on one that has like angiolytic activity and is very

00:32:36.860 very significantly implicated in like depression outcomes and whatnot and if you don't have either

00:32:42.700 a sufficient amount of the substrate to produce those metabolites so progesterone being the main

00:32:46.960 thing off the top of my head that I could think of that's impactful on that. Or if you're using

00:32:51.200 a drug as a male to inhibit that enzyme, then downstream, yeah, it could be problematic. But

00:32:56.480 from the female side of things, I would imagine progesterone, lack thereof, is probably the main

00:33:02.800 needle mover on that side. Hmm, interesting. I had a pretty miserable pregnancy experience.

00:33:11.640 and i i know like there's some women who get pregnant and then they're just

00:33:15.680 they're like they still have pregnancy hormones but they're kind of like calm and happy and like

00:33:20.500 just like pregnant and i just went like batshit crazy and i could feel like i could feel hormones

00:33:28.740 and i was like that doesn't feel like me and it was just it was bad and it felt like something

00:33:34.520 was wrong and i had this and i know some people have miserable pregnancies but it felt like

00:33:38.840 I went crazy in a way that wasn't something was like off um and I was wondering if I spent

00:33:46.340 I spent the years like age 12 to 23 on antidepressants um which can really increase

00:33:55.580 your progesterone levels um and I was wondering if being on that for like a decade during my

00:34:02.140 developmental years screwed up my brain enough that just some of the pregnancy hormones just

00:34:07.600 don't make me feel good i can hardly take any medication now without it making me feel

00:34:11.700 like terrible in a side effect way that normal people shouldn't really have

00:34:16.460 like antihistamines anything kind of make me crazy um yeah yeah the ssri side of things um

00:34:26.680 like as far as female endocrinology it's definitely not my like wheelhouse and again i'm not like a

00:34:32.700 you know a clinical specialist or anything i'm just a guy on youtube ultimately at the end of

00:34:36.740 the day. So don't take this as medical advice. Anybody watching, this is why you would get a

00:34:40.380 high quality medical provider. But from what I have seen, I think, I think SSRIs, like even from

00:34:46.660 a quick Google search, they seem to impact allopregnenolone solely and do not substantially

00:34:52.500 affect the brain concentrations of progesterone or dihydroprogesterone. So, you know, it's,

00:34:59.460 it's tough to say too, because some people, the way they partition certain hormones, like down

00:35:04.560 certain pathways to different metabolites it's different proportionally and different tissues

00:35:08.740 have different like you know receptor expression from that amount of hormone like even from

00:35:13.760 the testosterone side of things some people are going to get more of an effect even though they

00:35:18.340 have less testosterone on a blood test than another guy because of the way the receptors

00:35:23.100 interact with the hormone so it's tough to say you can't really predict broad spectrum just because

00:35:29.180 you have a heightened level on a blood test or a heightened level based on what it's supposed to do

00:35:34.760 that that's going to yield the exact effect you're looking for especially when it might have

00:35:39.300 like backhanded consequences on upstream things that are going on so you know like extra you know

00:35:47.640 selective serotonin reuptake inhibition i can't say for certain what it did that you know might

00:35:54.360 of impact nobody knows either yeah nobody nobody knows um we went i talked to some eastern european

00:36:00.020 doctors and they said they have brain scans that say that they change that you could see it on

00:36:04.500 brain scans like decades of ssri use and i was like wow that's definitely not something that we

00:36:09.200 have here at least they don't say that yeah i think there was some like uh study that came out

00:36:15.400 recently that said ssris are like i don't know they they used to be thought to be lack of serotonin

00:36:22.440 was thought to be the cause of depression and then recently they were like no that's actually

00:36:27.280 not the case yeah not at all yeah yeah like there's no evidence that serotonin plays yeah

00:36:33.660 that type of role or lack of serotonin plays a role in depression it's like oh yeah all these

00:36:39.760 people on serotonin increasing drugs but sometimes it's hard to tell too when it's like because

00:36:44.660 again when you circle back to the low-hanging fruit discussion it's like how many people on

00:36:48.920 this earth are getting six hours of sleep perpetually have to get up under slept drive

00:36:53.520 to a job they hate and there's so many like different factors from a lifestyle perspective

00:36:57.580 that are so deleterious to all of the hormone systems and then they'll blame you know they'll

00:37:04.340 rely on a drug or this or that and then they're wondering why they they're feeling a certain way

00:37:08.560 it's got to be because of the drug or not because of the drug when in reality it's like the baseline

00:37:12.740 infrastructure that holds up like the tower so to speak is just not even set properly to begin with

00:37:17.840 so it's kind of hard to say for certain like owning it on one specific thing oh it was definitely this

00:37:23.640 when we have no idea about all the like weren't you on Adderall at the time too when you were

00:37:28.420 trying yeah I was on tons of things so like I imagine that fucked your sleep up brutally at

00:37:33.360 the same time so we have no idea for sure but I would imagine that has like it's all it's like a

00:37:38.520 vicious circle effect like sometimes you'll take a drug to correct an issue that was caused by some

00:37:43.160 lack of foundational principles from a lifestyle perspective and then that using that might fix

00:37:48.520 something acutely but on the backhand fucks up the baseline stuff and then it's like yeah i i had

00:37:55.080 things perfected like i did i mean the adderall really helped but i i was on man i was on like

00:38:00.340 seven medications like immunosuppressants that i injected and like antibiotics in canada because

00:38:07.060 they only prescribe extended release adderall as far as i know too which is so it's like if you

00:38:13.860 look at the half life of extended release adderall and trying to get a high quality sleep when you're

00:38:18.820 on like a very very long extended window literal amphetamine just the function and then you know

00:38:28.020 you might be having caffeine on top of that because people you know how many coffees they

00:38:31.020 have a day or whatever like trying to get high quality sleep with that in your system it's like

00:38:35.220 essentially impossible i would say yeah so yeah it was it was crazy i used to take do you know

00:38:40.840 gravel yep do you know yeah so i took gravel to sleep at night which is like for people listening

00:38:47.080 is like benadryl yeah so i take adderall in the morning and then i take a couple of like gravel

00:38:51.740 at night and then just repeat but i did figure out like the perfect combination of medications

00:38:58.880 to keep me functioning enough that i figured out how to get off of everything and fix it with diet

00:39:04.060 so like i can't say it was all detrimental because it did put me in a position where i could at least

00:39:08.480 like function enough that i thought okay how do i get out of this like as soon as possible

00:39:13.440 no but yeah again i think it circles back to the it's almost it was shitty that you had to go

00:39:18.560 through it but it makes you more i don't know in a better position to impart that wisdom on people

00:39:24.260 who might be on the laundry list of the entire catalog of drugs right now and maybe don't need

00:39:30.300 it or whatever i i wouldn't trade it like during the experiences i think i probably i'd be like

00:39:35.320 i remember like you know even praying like how do i make this stop but now that it's over it's like

00:39:40.800 if i hadn't gone through that yeah i wouldn't be able to tell people about it and lots of people

00:39:44.260 have reached out and it's helped them and i'm fine now plus i don't think i would be as like

00:39:50.380 i'm a fairly disagreeable disagreeable person and i don't know what i would be like if i hadn't had

00:39:54.600 chronic health issues but i think it probably made me a more compassionate person especially

00:39:59.540 towards sick people like i'm not very patient i don't think and i have a lot of compassion for

00:40:05.300 people who are sick and i don't know if i don't know if i would have that otherwise so i'm

00:40:10.500 definitely grateful for that yeah i think there's a lot of people who are quick to judge somebody

00:40:14.660 who's overweight or somebody who has an issue but they have no idea what might be underlying

00:40:18.900 and leading to that problem to begin with like maybe they're dealing with some like very significant

00:40:23.620 obscure as hell issue that then leads to all of these like byproduct you know manifestations of

00:40:30.920 like a not as great cosmetic appearance or whatever it is and to be judgmental on that is like

00:40:36.000 very common and unfortunate so it's good that you went through that for sure overall i think

00:40:41.540 how do you feel then about um the fat acceptance movement um i think uh it's not good because

00:40:50.440 being obese is unhealthy. So I think that shaming somebody who's fat is not good, but I think it is

00:40:57.300 not something that should be celebrated, which is the main issue that I see in social media is a lot

00:41:03.080 of these companies. It's kind of like hard to even, you can't really blame them because at the

00:41:08.120 same time, so many people are obese that obviously if you're going to make clothing, for example,

00:41:13.140 you're going to make them for obese people too, so they can fit it because that's a giant

00:41:17.140 demographic of your, you know, customer base. So are you going to put, you know,

00:41:22.500 not feature them in advertisements? Like at some point you're going to have to market to those

00:41:26.120 people because they exist and they have to buy clothes just like every other person.

00:41:29.380 But then if you put out an ad with an obese person who's like in fitness apparel, you get

00:41:33.440 shit on as a company for trying to like promote fat acceptance. And it's like, it's a weird,

00:41:38.080 like double-edged sword. Cause I think on one hand, the companies are very aware of this too.

00:41:41.840 And then it gets like media hype and attention and clicks. But on the other hand, it's like,

00:41:46.120 these people need to wear clothes so it's like um i think in general the the kind of um the

00:41:53.280 celebration of obesity which is something that happens in social media and tiktok culture and

00:41:58.540 stuff is uh toxic because it definitely does reinforce bad behavior that ultimately i think

00:42:04.660 it's not even the debate that it's not healthy to be holding excessive amounts of body fat

00:42:10.820 um but at the same time it's kind of like you know that double-edged sword like i said because

00:42:15.600 some people do have issues that lead to these, you know, problems that may be less controllable

00:42:21.760 than the next guy who just has like a lack of willpower or because some people just are lazy

00:42:26.200 and fucking suck at following a diet. Like, that's just how they are. And then there are

00:42:31.200 some people who legitimately have epigenetics passed on from their fat as hell parents that

00:42:36.520 led to like poor satiety, appetite signaling feedback systems and whatnot. And they're

00:42:41.960 perpetually dealing with heightened levels of hunger compared to the next guy who just feels

00:42:46.360 satisfied off of a thousand calories less per day. And then is that person just like, you know,

00:42:52.680 a worse off a person who just has low willpower or is it that their literal brain chemistry is

00:42:57.800 wired differently than this person? You know, it's definitely a very interesting discussion,

00:43:03.000 but I think more compassion needs to be taken to it from both sides of the spectrum.

00:43:08.660 i like that i like that i i agree too i think that encouraging it and saying that it doesn't

00:43:15.560 cause health problems is an issue um but there just needs to be more education about how to get

00:43:20.500 out of that like i would have but it's also tricky dealing with people who are in a kind of a health

00:43:25.940 crisis i can remember i never had someone come up to me and go oh you know maybe you should try an

00:43:31.880 elimination diet because maybe your body's inflamed maybe you're having allergic reactions

00:43:35.680 like i never had that conversation yeah um but whenever anybody did mention any type of kind of

00:43:43.040 alternative approach to health i can remember being angry at them like in an inappropriate way

00:43:48.560 it was like how dare you tell me that my problems are solved that easily and i had like severe

00:43:53.760 problems um but it's hard to speak to sick people who've been trying things for a very long time

00:44:00.400 and then saying oh well maybe you just didn't try this properly yeah yeah like telling a person who's

00:44:06.240 fat just like you idiot just eat less like sometimes it's not yeah like even though that

00:44:11.440 is ultimately will make you lose weight like there are other complications that can lead to

00:44:16.960 you know maybe if you dealt with the same hormone signaling as that person maybe you'd be fat too

00:44:21.360 like you don't you don't know for sure you know so yeah because some people literally will have

00:44:26.000 like uh for example if they had an autoimmune issue that was attacking their thyroid and then

00:44:29.920 then they have a lack of thyroid hormone output that regulates their metabolism and then no matter

00:44:34.680 what they eat you know their actual metabolism is at a lowered set point than the next person

00:44:40.100 they can't necessarily control that inherently just through lifestyle changes or like how much

00:44:46.500 exercise they're doing necessarily and they might just have less t3 than the next guy or crash t3

00:44:52.220 because their thyroid has been destroyed by this autoimmune issue for years you know telling that

00:44:56.660 person just like eat less and exercise it's not as simple as that or a guy with crash testosterone

00:45:01.040 being like just get in the gym lift some weights bro like it's a bit different when you literally

00:45:06.200 have no motivation no drive crash testosterone your libido is non-existent sleep quality is

00:45:11.940 terrible you know it's definitely a nuanced uh discussion interesting okay i definitely had that

00:45:20.000 maybe i should go through some of your blood tests i kind of like uh all my symptoms went

00:45:24.740 away with the diet and then I was kind of like goodbye medical system I've seen you enough

00:45:29.900 although now I'm trying this sublingual immunotherapy for environmental allergies so

00:45:35.460 we'll see what that does but I definitely have the like can't stop eating I don't have that on

00:45:40.800 the carnivore diet but I had that and I have like excellent self-control like I'm on this diet now

00:45:47.840 I'm like hyper conscientious I think I have good self-control but I really had difficult times

00:45:54.560 stopping eating whenever i was eating anything and even now if i introduce something that has

00:46:01.000 a different ingredient that i'm just like switch into i'll just eat the entire thing so i don't

00:46:06.880 like i was never one of those people that could like have a little bit of like a cake or a cookie

00:46:13.200 or something it was always like now that's all i want and i'm starving yeah yeah some of those

00:46:20.120 foods i think are just like they're not even food at the end of the day so trying to judge your i

00:46:25.880 don't know ability to regulate portion control when you're eating something that is like hyper

00:46:30.200 palatable and isn't even isn't even an actual food item is not i don't think it's representative

00:46:36.120 necessarily of you know willpower or self-control but so you don't think anyone like is there is

00:46:41.000 there one person that can eat one cookie and be like i'm oh yeah i i definitely know people who

00:46:46.040 do do that and i look at them i'm like that's something wrong with them yeah yeah yeah some

00:46:51.080 people are fine with that my brother is like that just have a little bit of a cupcake it's like

00:46:56.120 what it's like cocaine yeah yeah i can't even keep it in the house yeah yeah yeah okay okay

00:47:02.840 well that makes me feel better uh so these blood tests you're talking about what what type of

00:47:08.440 markers should everyone just go get tested so that at least they have a baseline um yeah so we have

00:47:17.000 uh pre-designed panels on the site for both men and women from and depending on budget it gets

00:47:23.000 more comprehensive the deeper you go and some of them are like more elaborate to then be insightful

00:47:29.080 for if you were going to pursue something like hormone replacement if you're post-menopausal or

00:47:33.160 if you're a man with low t whatever it is there's more comprehensive metrics that are you know more

00:47:37.880 expensive and elucidate more stuff. But in general, from like a baseline perspective, I think

00:47:43.420 cardiovascular disease is still one of the number one killers. So getting a high quality lipid panel

00:47:49.060 that assesses your, you know, kind of potential for atherosclerosis, I think is definitely

00:47:55.200 warranted at least to see what your current diet model and lifestyle is yielding as far as, you

00:48:00.840 know, atherogenic particles and whatnot. I think getting like a basic complete blood count is

00:48:06.600 definitely reasonable. Um, thyroid markers, probably a good thing to check as well. Um,

00:48:11.940 basic kidney health, liver function, it's called like a metabolic panel. It's kind of like the

00:48:16.300 standard summation. I don't know. It's like a subcategory of pretty much every panel we have,

00:48:22.620 I think. So I've definitely checked that. Um, I guess in general, from a hormone perspective,

00:48:28.380 above and beyond the thyroid, getting your, it's called the gonadotropins. It's like your LH and

00:48:34.160 FSH, your luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, if you are a man, especially definitely

00:48:39.360 worthwhile to see how much signaling you have to your testes to actually produce testosterone

00:48:44.380 because some people, yeah, so getting not just your total T and figuring out how much

00:48:50.140 testosterone do I have, but also upstream to that, why do I have low T or why is my

00:48:55.220 T where it is, seeing how much of a signal you have from your brain down to your testicles

00:49:00.520 is worthwhile because then you can kind of evaluate, is it my testicles are non-responsive

00:49:05.460 to the signal or is it that I have a lack of signal? And then why is that the way it is?

00:49:10.100 And kind of getting a more comprehensive outlook as to why you are functioning the way you are.

00:49:15.640 And if it's a lack of sleep or micronutrient intake or whatever it is, because some people

00:49:20.220 who are low T, your diagnosis and what you get treated with will differ or lack thereof will

00:49:26.120 differ very very significantly based on do you have enough signal going to your testes but they're

00:49:31.220 just not responding to it because at that point you know that's where something like a intervention

00:49:37.000 with therapy becomes more warranted because it's like you literally have testicular failure

00:49:40.660 whereas for another guy who's low t because of lifestyle and his sleep sucks his diet sucks

00:49:46.140 whatever he might have low t but it's like his lh and fsh are super low too because he just is

00:49:52.440 everything from the baseline foundation is terrible. So that sort of thing is insightful to

00:49:59.020 see. Are you haphazardly getting on testosterone therapy? You don't need it. And if so, what could

00:50:04.000 you do to then optimize like the whole reproductive access kind of thing? So getting your LH and FSH

00:50:10.300 checked, I think it's definitely worthwhile. Total testosterone, but above and beyond that,

00:50:14.060 your free testosterone. This is like the hormone that is not like it's called free because it's

00:50:20.460 not bound to these like binding proteins in your blood that kind of like bring it around to target

00:50:25.140 tissues. And free is kind of the number that dictates how much is actually freely available

00:50:30.040 to do stuff and actual tissues in the body. So getting a total and a free is definitely worthwhile.

00:50:36.040 And all of these, it sounds really complicated. It's like how would, you know, people are probably

00:50:39.660 thinking, do I need to write notes or whatever? Like any good panel will have all of these things

00:50:43.840 in it as is. As well, getting a fasting insulin, hugely, hugely, hugely overlooked. A lot of people

00:50:51.140 are just checking fasting glucose, but fasting insulin is going to be very worthwhile to see

00:50:56.780 how insulin sensitive you are. And this is one of the biggest tie-ins to like checking pre-diabetes

00:51:03.580 risk as well as, you know, cancer cell development potentially. I think getting a fasting insulin is

00:51:08.160 definitely very worthwhile. Vitamin D, a lot of people are very deficient in vitamin D. I definitely

00:51:14.260 think that's worth checking. C-reactive protein, that's an inflammation marker that I think is

00:51:20.180 worth checking as well. There's a bunch of stuff like I could go on all day, but those are kind of

00:51:25.000 like the low hanging fruit, I would say off the top of my head. Yeah, I think that's a lipoprotein

00:51:31.940 little A could be part of a good lipid panel as well. But other than that, that sounds like a lot

00:51:37.760 of stuff and it's very very complicated to wrap your head around it's like holy shit i don't even

00:51:42.820 want to get this done because it sounds so complicated but that's where having you know

00:51:46.320 just a panel that's made for you everything's done and then somebody interprets it for you

00:51:50.040 who's qualified is definitely worth the money in my opinion that's cool yeah maybe i'll do another

00:51:56.100 one of those i'm going to be coming up on five years on this diet five years in december isn't

00:52:01.600 that crazy yeah it's crazy so i'll probably do maybe i'll do a bunch of blood work to prove i'm

00:52:07.460 not dying see what's going on what inspired you to do it was it sean baker or before that or how

00:52:13.460 did you arrive at it uh well i so initially i went down the like i was in biomedical science

00:52:21.420 and i was doing all these tests like blood tests just everything to try and figure out what was

00:52:25.360 wrong with me i did my family tree i got everyone to do genetics tests to see if there was some weird

00:52:30.920 gene thing that was going on um and I got to the paleo diet just to rule diet out like because I

00:52:38.580 didn't think it was playing a role and I wasn't eating that unhealthy I was eating a lot of like

00:52:42.200 chicken and broccoli and rice like so I'd gotten to that point and then I was like well

00:52:46.920 maybe I'll get rid of everything I could possibly be allergic to just to see so like

00:52:52.260 eggs and shellfish and soy and like nuts and grains and I really cut down as much as I thought

00:52:59.280 was like healthy and that basically put me into remission in like a month that was a paleo diet it

00:53:04.960 was crazy i was eating mostly like sweet potatoes and carrots and meat um but i was still eating

00:53:12.360 like some fruit like it wasn't like crazy restrictive um and then everything was like

00:53:20.780 pretty good i got off all my medication and i got a lot more sensitive to foods when i stopped

00:53:25.840 taking the SSRIs like stopping the SSRIs just like destroyed me and I didn't know what was

00:53:33.040 happening at the time because I didn't know that they could cause physical dependence so I stopped

00:53:36.880 take like I stopped taking Adderall and I was like maybe I'll be tired and I stopped taking some of

00:53:41.460 these medications but I stopped taking SSRIs and was just like I should feel better and I didn't

00:53:45.700 I felt much worse my food sensitivities went up but I had them kind of under control with paleo

00:53:51.440 and i got pregnant and then my autoimmune symptoms came back and i was on this like restrictive diet

00:53:57.200 that had worked before and it didn't work anymore and i was like desperate because my depression

00:54:04.080 came back my arthritis came back um i was itchy everywhere and i was like is it did i get better

00:54:11.240 in the first place has it always been like this and then i figured if i'm itchy everywhere i'm

00:54:16.140 it's probably not in my head and so i got desperate and i started cutting out foods again

00:54:20.680 and I went down to like meat and greens so I was literally eating like lettuce and meat and uh I was

00:54:27.860 like maybe I can drop the lettuce but I hadn't heard of the carnivore diet I was like I just

00:54:31.800 need to like have a baseline to not react and I can reintroduce foods and I didn't but I was

00:54:36.980 breastfeeding at that time and I didn't want to screw myself up because of scarlet um and then

00:54:43.920 one of my I like I sent somebody a picture of my lunch I was just eating chicken wings I was like

00:54:48.500 i'm doing this like again and somebody sent up me the video of sean baker on joe rogan and they're

00:54:53.520 like yeah this guy only eats steak and i was like okay i will literally do that right like i didn't

00:54:59.800 even know that was an option and i was getting some pressure from in-laws about my diet so i

00:55:06.560 and the baby and so i was like worried about being selfish i guess um and going on this crazy diet

00:55:15.980 but then when i saw sean baker and that he'd been on it for years and he was just so chill it's like

00:55:19.880 yeah it's fine just eat steak i was like okay so that that's what brought me to it and then i just

00:55:25.280 haven't been able to reintroduce anything without having like what appears to be allergic reactions

00:55:32.740 which got me to come to the conclusion that maybe i'm having cross reactivity issues like sometimes

00:55:39.920 if you're super allergic to trees you can have oral allergy syndrome to like apples and stoned

00:55:45.720 fruit stone fruit pitted fruit yeah fruit with stones anyway um and i have that and i was like

00:55:52.920 maybe it's a cross reactivity problem and that's why i'm hypersensitive to food proteins so what

00:55:59.400 do you think of all these like sub niches that are stemming out of the carnivore diet where you

00:56:04.920 have like the organ meat plus red meat and fruit camp and then like red meat only versus i saw a

00:56:11.480 a pretty critical comment of yours on a saladino podcast recently and okay okay so i i have an

00:56:18.880 issue i think i have a more like personal issue with some of the things saladino says because

00:56:25.660 i get the people who come to me to the lion diet which is literally just like ruminant animal meat

00:56:32.720 they're people who've tried everything else and when they start trying the diet they get confused

00:56:37.320 so they instead of just like just eat ruminant meat try to make sure your electrolytes don't go

00:56:42.660 crazy like and that's and then wait until see how you're feeling like give it three months and then

00:56:48.240 start to reintroduce food it's pretty simple for someone who's really sick and confused and

00:56:54.980 desperate to just just do this and then wait like calm down just make it through this and wait

00:56:59.660 and then you get people who are like oh no you got to do the you got to do the supplements you

00:57:03.540 gotta do the liver supplements liver supplements or you're gonna be like liver deficient you gotta

00:57:07.300 do the liver supplements and then it's like well no you should have juice in the mornings because

00:57:11.060 you need some extra glucose make sure you have like three tablespoons of honey before you go to

00:57:15.440 bed and it's just like i know for me i'm still whatever's wrong with me i'm still too sensitive

00:57:21.660 to introduce any fruit so people being like oh well no people always ate fruit you can eat oranges

00:57:26.260 oranges give me terrible arthritis so then you have people who are trying the diet for auto

00:57:30.520 autoimmunity who are like why isn't it working and it's because they're still eating a ton of

00:57:35.360 fruit or something and the point i was hoping the point of the diet is like eliminate everything

00:57:39.760 and then reintroduce otherwise you're never going to be able to figure out what's wrong with you

00:57:43.860 especially if you have an autoimmune disorder and then the the supplements like i'm a fan of

00:57:49.860 electrolytes i wish i had increased my salt and potassium in particular intake in the first eight

00:57:56.400 months of carnivore because i had like muscle cramps and i just dealt with them which was

00:58:00.660 unpleasant um but i don't eat organs i've been doing this for five years i don't like liver

00:58:08.600 the liver is disgusting and if you like gag when you eat it but and then they tell you you'll take

00:58:13.840 it in a pill it's like maybe you don't need to eat it if it makes you gag so no i'm not a fan

00:58:19.860 okay no it's uh interesting because one of the first like podcasts i saw about this stuff was

00:58:25.200 like i so i saw your podcast with rogan your dad's with rogan saladino with rogan and then there was

00:58:32.820 expected crossover with you and saladino and then kind of this all of these different like sub niches

00:58:38.800 started to like expand into different verticals of like this is the way to do it no this is the

00:58:42.820 way to do it and it definitely adds layers of complexity to it that can be overwhelming i think

00:58:47.640 for some people where it's like oh i can't i can't even start if i don't have a testicle or like

00:58:52.140 you know or if i oh my gosh that or i don't if i don't have like heart with me or whatever i don't

00:58:57.880 like that either it's like gotta carry around a spleen in my backpack when i travel like as if

00:59:02.520 being on the diet doesn't make you freaky enough you need to carry around organs um yeah i think

00:59:08.980 like my goal with the lion diet anyway is to give people a place to go if they need to figure out

00:59:15.100 their issues and then hopefully they can just reintroduce foods and and hopefully they don't

00:59:20.120 have to be stuck on the diet like I don't think I have a feeling that I'm not going to be stuck

00:59:25.420 on it forever I think I can figure out how to reduce sensitivities but at least it's a starting

00:59:29.720 point and then you can reintroduce so if you end up eating meat fruit maybe greens like whatever

00:59:35.780 else and that's what makes you feel good that's fantastic that's like where I was at before I had

00:59:41.760 a baby so like I don't have anything and I think that diet's way healthier than like standard

00:59:47.440 american diet so i still like what saladino is doing because he's saying here's a healthy diet

00:59:51.720 like yeah that's a healthy diet but for people with autoimmunity or like severe like multiple

00:59:58.240 sclerosis like something crazily bad um then it's frustrating to be like this is what's going to

01:00:05.160 help you because then they can sometimes give up well it didn't work so the carnivore diet's out

01:00:09.800 yeah when you see like liver king stories for example it's like overwhelming to even think

01:00:15.400 about how would i even prepare or source any of this shit because it's like you'll have like

01:00:21.960 bone marrow like in a in like a bowl beside him there's this other weird concoction and then

01:00:27.100 you know a bowl of testicles and this and that it's just like the process of even finding even

01:00:32.520 like high quality red meat like ground bison or whatever in canada is terrible it's actually

01:00:38.280 pretty hard to find um but then finding organs on top of that and whatnot can be definitely uh

01:00:43.720 could definitely tip somebody over the edge or it's like oh like fuck it it's too complicated

01:00:48.020 for me to even figure out how to find this stuff let alone start yeah especially somebody who's

01:00:53.000 like barely making it out of bed like with an autoimmune disorder they're like okay now i have

01:00:57.020 to drop all the foods i like and go into like food withdrawal and probably feel worse initially

01:01:03.560 and also figure out how to eat organs yeah ew one thing i would say just because it popped in my

01:01:10.440 head too is a lot of people who are dealing with this kind of stuff definitely look at what you're

01:01:15.020 taking as well not just from a food intake aspect but also like birth control oh my gosh yeah like

01:01:21.400 how impactful these things are on all bodily functions including autoimmunity for sure when

01:01:27.760 you're using like a synthetic ethanol estradiol with the synthetic progestin to like manually

01:01:32.460 castrate yourself it's going to be impactful on your food sensitivity probably so a lot of women

01:01:37.940 who are using an array of different things,

01:01:41.120 probably you're going to be looking at,

01:01:43.180 like it's very hyper-specific,

01:01:44.960 focused a lot of these discussions on

01:01:46.600 what are you eating that's causing an immune flare?

01:01:49.060 And then they'll forget the baseline foundation

01:01:51.520 of all these medications they're on

01:01:53.220 that are screwing with them too.

01:01:55.260 So it's not just the lifestyle from your sleep,

01:01:58.180 your diet, whatever, your exercise.

01:01:59.620 It's also what's all the other stuff you're taking

01:02:02.400 that could be impacting it too.

01:02:04.020 So definitely worth looking at that

01:02:05.520 because I think a lot of people,

01:02:06.500 they'll literally go years not even thinking about the medications they're taking and how those might

01:02:12.440 be impacting everything else and they look at you know the stuff that they think it must be like if

01:02:18.360 you even come to the conclusion that it's your food you're eating like you're already pretty

01:02:21.360 deep down the rabbit hole but then i think oftentimes it gets like hyper focused on and

01:02:25.960 then they forget about some of this other stuff too so i think that's actually so that that's

01:02:30.600 actually so true um i probably haven't spoken about that enough when i like from my blog and

01:02:36.140 everything i say okay you like eventually you have to get off of everything because and like

01:02:41.100 i told you earlier i can't take i can't take anything you know i can't take zinc without it

01:02:46.960 stopping me from sleeping like i really can't take um anything uh so but i was so i was on so

01:02:55.800 many medications and then diet helped me so much that it didn't like it didn't occur to me as much

01:03:04.660 my dad though he got rid of a whole bunch of health problems from going on the diet

01:03:10.780 and then getting off of antidepressants almost like literally almost killed him and then he was

01:03:17.340 put on a number of medications and it was just like diet's not working what's going on like he

01:03:23.020 has symptoms diet's not working and it took us quite a long time I think because he took SSRIs

01:03:30.200 for a long time and i was on them it took both of us a really long time to be like oh these this is

01:03:36.460 the medication that's causing these problems that's crazy and then a lot of doctors too they're

01:03:41.820 like oh you can experience some side effects but it's not like this side effect could ruin your

01:03:46.180 life because it's just this tiny little pill right yeah like especially in young girls i think it's

01:03:53.220 the worst because they're typically the first ones to get on essentially lifelong HRT through

01:04:00.140 a birth control pill or something similar to that. And they end up at like 15, 16 years old prescribed

01:04:06.040 what is literally going to be their androgen and estrogen they rely on for libido, this and that,

01:04:13.200 which is going to be suboptimal. But in addition to that, like that becomes such a consistent part

01:04:17.960 of your life you even forget it's an like a part of the equation a massively impactful one too like

01:04:24.220 the impact on testosterone free testosterone levels and suppression of it from birth control

01:04:29.200 is like astounding when you actually look at how much you are fucking up your hormones as a girl

01:04:34.640 who's on birth control it's like your free testosterone levels could drop by like 80 90

01:04:39.020 percent while you're using it wow yeah so like a lot of a lot of girls like i'm i'm sure you've

01:04:45.360 seen the literature on like impact on sexual uh like preference for like type of you know

01:04:52.040 masculine versus less masculine men or whatever that kind of thing yeah yeah so that is definitely

01:04:59.140 impacted heavily i think from how much like a lot of girls think they're just asexual and have no

01:05:04.980 sex drive but in reality they're like manually shutting down their testosterone levels didn't

01:05:10.300 even consider that link to okay i've thought about the link to even politically the link to

01:05:15.680 that and birth control like and the insanity that's kind of going on right now it's like you

01:05:20.860 wouldn't want do you know what percentage of the population is on birth control i looked this up

01:05:25.040 the other day i think it was 60 percent of women who can get pregnant are actively taking birth

01:05:30.820 control and 80 have taken it that could be wrong but i'm pretty sure that's what it is um it's high

01:05:37.240 whatever it is yeah which would impact mate selection like everybody's mate selection is

01:05:44.020 impacted in a more feminine man right yeah that's the choice that's crazy there's some data that

01:05:51.820 suggests it may not be as significant as you think in terms of mate selection but i definitely think

01:05:56.800 i mean it doesn't look that way it definitely there's something to be said though like regardless

01:06:01.360 if your hormones are plummeted it has an effect physiologically like at best case scenario you're

01:06:07.780 just like not impacted but worst case scenario and oftentimes like i'm pretty sure everyone knows a

01:06:12.660 girl who either had a side effect of some sort from the birth control or they're just operating

01:06:19.460 with a state of lowered sexual desire or lack thereof entirely and they don't attribute it to

01:06:26.020 the birth control they just think that's their baseline state because since they've been sexually

01:06:29.220 active, they'd been on the drug. So they just assume their entirety of their lives, essentially,

01:06:34.500 you know, I just don't want sex that much, or I just am not that interested in, you know, I could

01:06:38.060 go, you know, it's, they just overlook it entirely. And it's a very, very problematic thing. How,

01:06:44.920 again, like how haphazardly men are put on testosterone pales in comparison to how haphazardly

01:06:52.360 women are put on a synthetic drug. That's not even bioidentical. It's a synthetic progestin.

01:06:57.620 your body doesn't produce this progestin like this is technically actually an anabolic or it's

01:07:03.420 not an anabolic but it's a steroid it's derived from there's an anabolic steroid called nandrolone

01:07:08.180 that men in bodybuilding use they chemically tweak that drug because it's so suppressive and

01:07:14.380 cast like castrating at low dosages and created orderly bioavailable analogs of it that are used

01:07:21.380 in women for castration birth control like levonorgestrel um and a bunch of other synthetic

01:07:28.620 19 or derivatives and then they use a synthetic estrogen on top of that too ethanol estradiol

01:07:34.500 and you're just operating off of like this you're just like a pseudo castrated human essentially

01:07:39.200 for years oh my gosh yeah wow i haven't heard it that put put that way that's horrible it was

01:07:47.000 that's horrible um I was put on birth control because I had like bad skin as a teenager and

01:07:54.280 it was like this will fix your skin and then you're also on birth control yay and that was

01:07:58.300 like 14 and my mom told me I remember she goes she didn't like hammer it in like she should have

01:08:03.700 she she goes oh yeah when I was on birth control it made me depressed and I was just like well I

01:08:09.520 was on SSRIs already I was like I'm already depressed like who cares um which is a teenage

01:08:16.140 response uh and i think what it did it's hard to say because i was on so many like mind altering

01:08:24.340 drugs adderall ssris birth control like so many things that it's hard to say what that did

01:08:29.340 specifically but i i know one thing it did is it blocked me out from any emotional difference

01:08:36.120 during my cycle right so when i stopped taking it i was like oh i can actually tell when i'm

01:08:43.420 ovulating like I can actually feel that I feel different I act in a slightly different way and

01:08:49.080 I can feel it and I was like that's actually very cool like that's a very cool thing to experience

01:08:55.540 after it just being like okay you get your period once a month and that's kind of it or you don't

01:09:01.480 get your period right because there's birth control for that too every three months um but

01:09:06.720 that was really interesting and no one had ever I hadn't had a conversation anyway with anyone that

01:09:11.740 was like you know you should be able to experience these like waves in hormones and yeah it's messed

01:09:17.740 up yeah medical systems messed up similar to the discussion of if you're a guy who takes trt and

01:09:22.900 you don't need it how problematic is the recovery process going to be to get back to like a natural

01:09:28.820 function on the flip side no one talks about women who are on because a lot of women skip the

01:09:33.760 placebo pills too or they're not placebo the sugar pills in their packs and they just stay on like

01:09:39.080 straight hormones the entire time to skip you know bleeding because they don't want to deal with it

01:09:43.400 yeah so so that if you're on it for years on end shutting yourself down trying to get back to

01:09:49.960 natural function is not totally different than a guy who's been on steroids for years and then

01:09:54.840 it's trying to recover function too because you're both in a state of like pseudo castration and

01:09:59.160 then you're trying to get back to baseline after years of exposure you know your you know kind of

01:10:06.200 reproductive system has not been functional for a decade plus in some cases expecting you to

01:10:11.560 recover in short order and that it's going to be a smooth transition is often not going to be the

01:10:16.760 case yeah yeah that's pretty crazy yeah that's crazy yeah well okay i may be hitting you up for

01:10:26.840 blood tests okay for my five years on carnivore we'll see sure we'll see um if people want to find

01:10:32.680 you online and they don't follow you already where should they go i think the best place is probably

01:10:38.440 youtube uh more plates more dates or instagram any kind of any of the main social platforms i'm on

01:10:44.600 and then if they want to check out marik health for some of the hormone stuff we discussed m-a-r-e-k

01:10:50.840 health.com and you can just go to the just to get started if you want a blood test you don't have to

01:10:56.360 have a doctor look at it too you can just look at it yourself and make your own informed decision

01:10:59.720 If you want to move forward with medical oversight or not, you can just go to the lab test section.

01:11:03.840 There's pre-designed panels for men as well as for women.

01:11:06.600 And they've been audited by me as well as numerous other medical providers on our team.

01:11:11.700 And it's kind of just like turnkey done for you.

01:11:14.300 And hopefully it's going to be impactful on people's quality of life is what I'm hopeful for.

01:11:20.580 Yeah, that's good.

01:11:21.940 People can just like purchase the test and then bring it to LabCorp or wherever they want to go.

01:11:28.760 Yeah, yeah.

01:11:29.120 So you would purchase it online, then you would get a requisition form.

01:11:31.600 You could walk into a lab corp wherever you live in the States and then get it done.

01:11:35.340 And then from there, you could either have a provider or patient care coordinator go

01:11:41.260 over the test results with you.

01:11:42.840 And then if warranted, you know, proceed with some sort of targeted recommendations thereafter.

01:11:46.620 But there's no stipulation where you have to do all of it.

01:11:51.820 You could just get a blood test and see where you're at and kind of just have that baseline

01:11:55.240 panel for reference in the future if something goes awry, definitely something I would recommend

01:11:59.340 for majority of people. Cool. Okay. Thank you very much for coming on. Yeah, no worries. Thanks

01:12:05.460 for having me.

The Mikhaila Peterson Podcast - November 08, 2022

More Plates More Dates ｜ EP 168

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