Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 544 - Vigorous Steve - True Cost of Using Pharmacology

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

Stephan aka. “Vigorous Steve” is a YouTuber, bodybuilding prep & fitness coach, and fitness educator. Stephan started out as a rising coach in the bodybuilding scene in Asia, and has now established himself as one of the best coaches in the game, coaching and helping over 1,000 athletes across the world. Today's Podcast is sponsored by Marek Health! Visit https://marekhealth.com/powerproject and use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel discussed on today's show! Connect with Vigorous Steve: Website: https://vigoroussteve.com/ Instagram: @vigoroussteve YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/VigorousSteve Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off the Power Project Panel! ➢Eat Rite Foods: http://eatritefoods.com/ Use code "POWERPROJECT25" for 25% off your first order, then code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off every order after! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

All right. I'm really excited today because it's the first day we're kicking off with our sponsor, Merrick. Appreciate them for signing on with the Power Project. But, you know, something that has kind of annoyed me over the years is when, you know, my dad or an uncle of mine or somebody in the family goes and gets blood work and they come back and all they have is like their cholesterol done. And I'm like, shit, man, they drew blood. They went through all that trouble. It would have been nice if we had kind of a more comprehensive panel that included your testosterone, some of the hormones that are involved in checking your libido, some of the hormones that are involved in making sure you're able to still build muscle mass the way you were when you were young or still be able to burn fat optimally. It'd be great to know more.

And now with our company Merrick for men and women, there's a hormonal profile that you can go on their website and sign up for. And I think the male profile, there's over 26 different things being checked out. And it can give you some great information back. And not only are you getting those hormones tested, you're going to get those hormones interpreted, which is the biggest part of it. Because who the heck knows that much information? It's just kind of offhand about cholesterol, testosterone, cortisol, all the different things you're going to see. cholesterol testosterone cortisol all the different things you're going to see yeah and sema can you list off some of the like the highlight uh lab panels that people are going to receive with the power project uh panel from merrick health yeah it's total test free test

dhea igf1 shbg vitamin d magnesium iron insulin lipid panel um see your active protein there's there's a lot there is a lot but it's like literally all the things that you'll really need to know and then the cool thing is that if there's anything specific that like we might not have which we have it all that you'll probably need but if there is anything you can literally just add it into the test it's that simple it's on the page you can click add it in you're good to Yeah. What I really like about the panel that we put together is, you know, we have access to the most like high level people in this field. Right. So we kind of listed out. We told Merrick what we wanted to see. And then they gave us back a panel and we kind of got the OK from the powers that be, the higher-ups. And they said, well, this one's cool, but how about we do this? And then we got that back.

And then we came down to a good set of panels or labs in this panel. But we still, me and Nsema, we kind of went back and forth. And we kind of wanted some changes to happen. So that way we can give you guys the absolute best deal. Got the okay from Mark. And that's what we have for you guys today so the the power project uh panel um like mark said it consists of like about 26 different labs there's a lot of stuff in there but it is everything that you guys are going to need and um this all like with merrick it is a lot cheaper than some than if you were to to go to, I mean, your primary care, or if you were to go to any of it'll take you directly to our panel at checkout you

can use promo code power project and that's going to get you 101 off so this amazing panel that is already cheaper than everything available right now is going to now be only 399 dollars um i mean that i wish i had something like this back when I was doing labs every couple of months for my experiments and stuff. I mean, I seriously like this. This is an incredible deal. And like I said, we went back and forth between us and Merrick to make sure that we got you guys the perfect panel that has everything you guys need. Again, that's at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. Don't get sticker shock when you see the $500 price. That's just what everyone else gets access to. But because you guys are

listeners, you can use promo code power project. And again, that's going to bring the price down from $500 to $399. The biggest thing that Mark mentioned, when you go to another one of these websites, you're going to be able to get the labs drawn. You're going to be able to get the results and whatnot. And then they set you off on your own. With this panel, you actually get everything written for you. You get the explanation of what the hormone is, where your levels are, where they should be. And if they are not, they'll give you actual recommendations on what you can take. And this doesn't mean you're going to start pinning yourself day one. No, these are like over the counter recommendations. Again, this is something that I wish I had access

to, you know, about a year, two years ago now, I should say. Because yeah, once you get your labs, you kind of have to know somebody that knows what the hell they're talking about. And it's really hard to find that. So with Merrick and the power project, uh, we made all that easy for you. And again, it's just, it's, it's so simple. And we, you know, even if you feel right now that you aren't really in the need for like any like optimization, we'll say, um, this is the best time to actually get your labs done because now you can look back one day and be like,

oh, when I was this age, I felt this way. I felt great. I wonder what my numbers were. Well, when you do that, you can actually have something to look back on. So when you get your labs done later, you can be like, oh, I should probably figure out how to bump this number up and this number up.

But yeah, again, merichalth.com slash PowerProject. Add that PowerProject bundle to your cart and at checkout, use promo code PowerProject to bring that price down to $399. I'm excited about it. And it's a big deal. And I think along with today's guests goes in line really well. Vigorous Steve knows a lot about hormones and just all kinds of different different ways to optimize your health, basically to get in better shape. And, you know, it's not always about, you know, taking hormones, not always about, you know, hormone replacement. For those of you that have been confused by maybe the ad that we just kind of read there, it is a hormone replacement therapy or hormone optimizing type of business, Merrick Health. And that is kind of what they specialize

in. But it's not always, you know, just prescribing testosterone or just prescribing a Anovar or T3 or those kinds of things, they'll kind of mold to whatever it is that you need as an athlete or whatever you need as a, as an individual to get you to where you want to go. But let me tell you this, like, obviously, well, not obviously some people won't believe it, but I got my labs tested and I don't plan on like doing any hormone replacement therapy but it was a really cool thing because like there were certain things that that they mentioned that i should pay attention to like i think there is something uh so so if y'all don't know i smoke a bit here and there right um and that led to like a little bit of elevated prolactin and i didn't

realize that that was you know and it's not really anything to worry about, but it was something good to know. Also, they mentioned that I'm low on borons. So they mentioned that I might want to eat some raisins or dates to get that up, or I could actually supplement some boron. And the cool thing is that the doctor who I was talking to, and this was all in the lab review also, all the suggestions for the supplements I should take to get everything, literally normal supplements, was all in the lab review also. All the suggestions for the supplements I should take to get everything, literally normal supplements, was all in my lab review. He was mentioning how it's like food first. And then if you can't get it from food, you can get it from supplementation. And if there were really any problems, then the hormone, the HRT was stuff.

But they give you all the resources as far as the supplements or food you should buy to deal with shit they tell you also about you know different things you might be able to take to change the levels uh through uh some pharmacology but they also warn you like hey if we do that then this makes this happen and if we do that then we have to make sure that that doesn't happen and then you have to come back and get your blood. So they're not just like, Hey man, like here's how much testosterone you got to take. You know, they're not, they're not like pushers. It doesn't, it doesn't work that way, but it does give you access to being able to optimize your health. I think it's amazing. Cause you know, I grew up in a, just a totally different time. And it was like, Hey, just ask the biggest guy in the gym about steroids. And like, that's kind of how we how we did stuff. And you have to also keep in mind that, you know, these hormones, there, some of them are scheduled three drugs, like there's legality behind it. And this is a this is a legal way to do it and a safe way to do it a a way to ensure that you're not going to do damage,

that you're going to have a professional kind of walk you through it. And I just, I'm really excited about it because for many years I've been wanting to tell people like, hey, just go get this test. And now we have that ability. So it's really awesome. Good morning, guys. Morning. Good morning. How's it going? Good, good. It's a little late on this end but hey time zones right i like that background thank you that mic thank you i went uh i had to

go professional you know now that we're uh all on youtube frequently i have to do the setup a little bit more professional yeah what happened to the couch, man? No tank top. Yeah, so the couch got retired. The couch got retired. The tank top is coming back soon. Yeah, I basically got the green light today that I'm ready to get back on some performance-enhancing drugs. So the tank top will return shortly. Oh, the tank top's only out when the shoulders are capped, huh? Yeah, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Otherwise, they're just hidden, you know? They got to stay hidden until the caps come back. So how are you guys doing? This is not too early for you guys? It's a little early for us, yes. Okay, so thank you. Thank you guys so much for waking up early.

Because I was expecting you guys in your your own studio and then but i guess everybody's like okay maybe we'll do that later right pretty much yeah well uh it would be great to uh have you come meet us we're out in sacramento it'd be great to have you at super training at some point that would be really cool yeah yeah for sure i really hope these borders are becoming a little bit more lenient towards traveling um and i'm still waiting for my vaccination passport because here in thailand they vaccinate thais first and then the foreigners so it might be another six months before i can leave how did you get into being so well-versed in all these different hormones? It seems to be a complicated topic.

Did you go to school for it or did you just kind of learn the hard way? I just learned the hard way and then trial and error and made a lot of mistakes in my days. And then as you make mistakes, side effects manifest and then you learn the hard way. So over time, I just keep learning and learning and learning you know doing the research and studies talking to other bodybuilders who are more knowledgeable following guys like you or john meadows dr scott steventon right and you just pick things up and learn more and more and more and then at one point i felt comfortable enough that i would be able to do a youtube channel and I'd share what I've learned along the way. And I continue to learn because it's such an

interesting topic. I think this is a great place to start because we're seeing more and more young people just want to jump on these steroid cycles. And I don't know how smart that is for people to do. What is some of your take, you know, what are some of your experiences with the negative side effects? I'm kind of hearing more people have kidney problems, liver problems, heart problems, and then all the guys that ever take stuff, they're like, ah, it's not steroids. You know, it's, it's because I have this genetic disposition or genetics or whatever it might be. So what have been some of your own experiences and what do you think things are linked to the abuse and use of performance enhancing drugs? So there's like two camps, right?

There's a camp that takes performance enhancing drugs actually for performance and the strength sport athletes, the people that compete. And then I fall into the other category, the recreational performance enhancing drug user, because I don't compete. I never did a bodybuilding show. I didn't do a strength show. So I purely take it for recreational purposes. Now, the guys that fall into this category, they get inspired by the guys that

take performance enhancing drugs for their sport. And those dosages are usually a little bit higher because they need to be competitive. And then the recreational bodybuilder or lifter, like, okay, this guy's doing a gram of trend. I got to do a gram of trend. But in 99% of the cases, that doesn't pay off. So, right. And this is how you learned hard ways. If you read online on some of the message boards, the steroid forums, where only people are that follow bodybuilding and take steroids or do

strength sports. And they're, they're kind of one up in each other. You know, I'm doing 300 train. No, I'm doing 700. I'm doing a thousand pro and I'm getting great results.

No pictures, no proof, right? But this is the good old days when we all went to the steroid forums. I'm doing a thousand, bro, and I'm getting great results. No pictures, no proof, right? This is the good old days when we all went to the steroid forums. So then you feel incentivized. Okay, I'm going to give this a try. You know, 700 trend is okay for me.

Let's try a thousand on that experiment and last for two. Yeah, I see his eyes rolling already. So that experiment lasts for four weeks. And then you're like, you have next level trend rage, rage right it's not right rage but it's trend rage you have night sweats and man all kinds of side effects you know and high blood pressure on the leg press right so that's how you learn the hard way but but back then we we didn't have youtube or people who talk about it openly. And it's still an issue nowadays. There's a lot of guys that downplay everything, right? So I feel inclined now, after 20 years in the sport, 10 years drug-free and 10 years enhanced, and now drug-free again.

Well, there's always something in play. Then I feel I have something to share. Maybe the next generation, I can say, okay, if you want to go on performance enhancing drugs, start low and then build your way up as needed, right? We don't have to listen to the pro bodybuilders and what they're maybe 50% sharing. And then we hear through the grapevine, oh, 15 units of growth hormone and this much steroids. And so you just start somewhere and then slowly build up depending on how happy you are with the results and how you can mitigate the side effects but

now that it's so open i think a lot of kids are starting at 16 i started at 26 i was late to the party yeah i still did stupid stuff um i i think it's a learning journey for everybody you know amen i'm real curious about this because whenever i'm on social media and i see like like especially on fucking tiktok man especially on tiktok i be seeing some kids with with pages and they're like 18 and they've already hopped on or 19 or fucking 21 and they've only been lifting for two years i'm just wondering like uh from what you've seen what you've experienced, is there, first off, something that younger individuals need to watch out for? Because I feel like when you're so young

and you're developing and all of these things are going crazy in your body, as far as puberty and you're growing, that's not necessarily the place to add in all this pharmacology and chemistry. I feel like, yeah, like i highly agree what can what do they need to be watching out for because like it just doesn't seem smart at well it's not smart but like what do they need to be paying attention to well they need to accomplish a few things in life and and one of them is kind of figuring out who they are as a person right so if you're if you're very clear what you want okay i want to be a pro well hopefully you can look at your parents if they have amazing calves maybe you're set up to be an awesome pro

reality you need you need to have some sort of genetics to be a pro right so you see that on a lot of these guys you say i'm gonna go pro at 19 but some do right but it's a small percentage so i would tell everybody that's young figure out really what you want in life, but that might take a while. And then if you really want to go for it, get some guidance. Because there are plenty of guys out there with 10, 20, 30 years, 40 years of experience who can guide you through the process. But there's also something to say for, is it going to be a phase?

I used to smoke weed when i was in holland when i was 16 years old and smoke weed peer pressure right and i haven't smoked weed in in decades now so that was just a phase and i think steroids will be a phase for a lot of kids as well i mean i even saw that 20 years ago when kids in my school they were popping d-ball and anadrol tablets from their parents it's great and that was before social media right before we were exposed to this stuff the the dad was a a power lifter or something right and he had just the animal in the kitchen cabinet you know those those 500 uh d deannibal five milligram and the guy would just take it not knowing what it was sad this is creatine and it would blow up you know covered in pimples again come as you like yeah so this stuff will always be there and i and i

honestly think that nowadays with the oversaturation for information i i think the kids who want to make a bad decision can make that faster and the kids who want to make a bad decision can make that faster and the kids who want to make a good decision can make that faster also. Because I get these messages all the time and I help so many teenagers or 21, 22, 25 through their first cycle, but I make them earn it. Let's increase the calories. Let's focus on strength. Let's get all the health supplementation in place. Let's do blood work a couple times. Let's see if we can reach your natural potential first and then think about a first cycle. They have to earn it, at least if they come to coaching with me.

Preston Pyshko, MS, MS, MD, Interesting times right now. There's a drug for every single thing that you can think of. You mentioned maybe know what you want to do with your life and proceed from there. But the interesting thing about that is if you figured out what you want to do with your life, then you can kind of pick your pharmacology accordingly. Yeah. According to what you want to do. There's so much out there. There's stuff for studying, there's stuff for being leaner,

there's stuff for being stronger. I mean mean there's all kinds of different drugs there's something for everything you know for feeling sad feeling good it's it's very easy and and even with the commercials on tv and i know in america it's it's quite bad right where there's so many commercials and then you have this they talk the disclaimer like super fast to the point they're almost stumbling over their words right it might cause diarrhea that million other disclaimer notes that you can't even listen now i think pharmacology is such a huge part of our lives nowadays because everybody wants a little bit extra and i i honestly don't think that there's something wrong with that but there's a difference between reckless and abuse and then informed use and

right. Using something to put something into practice, but there's, you always try to push the boundaries, man. That's okay. This, this dose is doing something well for my,

maybe I want to double it. Let's see if I get more productive or, you know, better results. So you always push the boundaries. And even as conservative as I am nowadays, I still like to push the boundaries sometimes. Yeah. I like what you said about, you know, being able to accomplish something. I think that's huge, you know, that, or you should

accomplish something before you decide to hop on, figure out what you want to do with yourself. decide to hop on, figure out what you want to do with yourself. So for yourself, you said you don't compete. So why do you choose to take PEDs if it's not for that? Right. So when I was 26, I was already training drug-free for 11 years. So I started at 15. And then when I was 26, there was a huge economic crisis. It was 2009, 2010. I lost my job at the consultancy firm. Nice arms. I noticed right away. I know it's early.

I know it's early. You're stretching. So I was 26 and I lost my job. And I was like, okay, finally I can live like a full-time bodybuilder. And I want to know what the fuss is all about. So that was after 11 years. Yeah, I just wanted to see, you know, everybody around me was juiced to the gills. And there was a couple of pros.

I trained in the same gym as William Bonac. Maybe you guys heard of that guy. One of the top five bodybuilders in the world. You just see these guys mutate in front of you. You're like, you know what? I just want to see what the fuss is all about. So you go to steroid.com and some of those websites, right? Where you learn, or back then we used to learn that.

And they lay out all these cycles. So I decided, okay, we'll start with half with 250 milligrams of test and then see where that goes. And, you know, after 11 years of bodybuilding, I kind of got stuck. And honestly, I didn't really develop a great physique because I was always focusing on work. And the bodybuilding would be second or third. So was I a real full-time bodybuilder and did I reach my natural potential? No, absolutely not. I'm willing to admit that. I could have gained another five pounds probably if I did one year of a drug-free bodybuilding like full

time you know making all the meals and really dedicate to it but after 10 years you know you get a little bit impatient and um and then you open the floodgates like so many of us do and then it's hard to go back you know steve i want to ask, Oh, were you, were you, do you agree with something else? Um, you mentioned the idea of natural potential a few times and I, we, we've all had this, we've had this conversation a few times on the podcast because what I've been seeing on social media recently is all these, like, again, young cats, they're making these videos and they're saying stuff like, Oh yeah, well,

you know, you typically are going to reach your natural potential in three years or two or three years of hard training. There's really not much you can do after that. And what is your thoughts on that? Because no matter what, like I've been training for like 15 years now, and I've still over the years been able to make subtle gains and subtle changes in my physique. Like I got a DEXA scan done two years ago. And today I've managed to gain about almost two pounds of lean body mass, which is good. Right? So this whole idea that three years that you're going to reach your natural potential, what do people, especially young kids, what do they need

to be thinking about when it comes to reaching their natural potential? Well, how long does it take to get an education? It takes a little bit longer than that. And if you want to be a doctor, it takes 10 years and then you have your internship and a residency and all that stuff, right? It takes a while. And well, most of us, let's be honest, when I started performance enhancing drugs, I didn't know as much as I know now. So maybe you get that entry level bodybuilding first without the pharmacology and then learn as much

as you can about training, learn as much as you can about dieting, which I did have a good understanding of, and supplementation, right? And then before you dive into the PEDs, maybe you have to learn about how to use them correctly, right? And now there's more information than back then, but it's such a learning curve, you know? So I don't think you can reach that point in three years unless you go with a coach. Then you get the guidance, and then you still have to go through the experimentation process. But how many kids are financially secure enough to do the blood work

and hire a coach and do all the extra testing? I did the genetic analysis. I didn't have the money at 26. I have it now, but now I'm part of the fitness industry, which is weird because I always considered myself a fan, but now I'm suddenly part of the fitness industry. The finances alone required just to have a positive outcome regarding everything, the health and the cycle,

and kids are not financially secure or most of them are not unless the parents support it. And that happens also in the bodybuilding space where the parents just, they cough up all the bills. Surprisingly. Yeah. And then they, later on that, those kids turn pro get sponsors. And, but again, you know, you only hear about the ones that are successful and again, and

the kids that, uh, like the kids that were around me that ended up nowhere in the fitness industry, nobody hears about them. So you only hear about the success stories. So you get a little bit of a false perception of what is possible because I see people fail all the time in the fitness industry. So again, you really just get the knowledge. I found it right get get the knowledge i found it interesting uh when you first uh logged on and this fits pretty well with and sema's question you said you got the green light to get back on uh who did you get that green light from okay so uh i'll have to rewind a little bit um in october 2020 i went for a full physical and then I did an ultrasound of my abdomen and I was diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, grade one. So that's the

lowest form of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. If I have to pinpoint it, it's basically the bodybuilding lifestyle, being on steroids, not doing the blasted and cruising thing, not taking time off, justifying so you don't have this down period and lose all your gains or part of it, and just eating obscene amounts of food to grow and get stronger and having 5,000, 5,500 calories just months and months on end. And in cases of people who are obese, they don't train all the calories away. But bodybuilders or people who are in strength sports, we actively train all the calories away. So we maintain insulin sensitivity and we don't get fat because we're actively

turning all these calories slowly into muscle, but it all has to pass through the liver. Whether you're obese or a bodybuilder or a strength sport athlete, all this food is passing through the liver whether you're obese or a bodybuilder or strength sport athlete all this food is passing through the liver and it slowly accumulates over time and i never caught it because my liver enzymes would fluctuate depending on my training intensity so when i was diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease i decided to come off cycle lower my calories and right do whatever i needed to do to get that resolved. So that's now eight months ago. My testosterone came back to around 600 nanograms per deciliter. Now I have the fibroscan, which I just got. Let me see. So my non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is completely gone and there's

no fibrosis. So that's a green light. right? I did an MRI of my heart, a cardiac MRI that doesn't show any left ventricular hypertrophy, no head or heart enlargement. I have 74% ejection fraction, right? I'm still waiting for some additional results. But so far from all the ultrasounds and blood work and imaging, I'm basically in a, let's say, 99% perfect state of health, almost perfect state of health. And now I want to pursue my passion again because I've been training drug-free for the last eight months

and it's not the same, to be honest. It's not the same. Yeah. So the weird thing is like it almost it almost sounds like addiction right yeah go ahead go ahead i was gonna say yeah you were able to uh reverse some of the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease did you um have any symptoms uh that led you to go that route or did you just see some blood work and you were like oh i should pursue this further no so even even with my experience i did not catch it because my liver enzymes would fluctuate like normally you have um your liver enzymes your ferritin and triglycerides in the bloodstream they should be elevated in case of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease but i trained

so my triglycerides are low and I follow a pescetarian diet, so my ferritin is low and I don't have so much inflammation, so my ferritin is also low, right? So there's so many in the blood work, there's so many contributing and overlapping factors why particular markers related to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease could be out of range, but only my liver enzymes would be high and then low, right? And it would mostly go up and down depending on training. So if I would take a week off, my liver enzymes would come back right into range. So they're like, oh, okay, it's training related. Because these transaminases are also found in skeletal muscle. And when you train for hypertrophy,

they leak into the bloodstream, giving you a reading on the liver enzymes. So I didn't catch it. And then when I went in for a complete ultrasound for my abdomen, they detected non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So that's why I was always about the blood work to get it checked. And I got inspired by Stan Everding during one of those 10-minute walks where he said, I've got 100 blood works. I was like, okay, I can never be as strong as Stan Efferding, but I can get a hundred

bloodwork results. So I started doing it more frequently, but even then I didn't catch it. And it's weird because I've received so much bloodwork from other people. They also didn't catch it. And then they go for an ultrasound or a fibro scan, and then there's grade one, grade two non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So it's so hard to detect certain issues without proper imaging and that's expensive unfortunately usually like carbohydrates

kind of cause that right like uh isn't that uh kind of an insulin resistance type of thing or what's involved with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and what are the side effects of it so there's there's many causes and they still don't really know what the exact root cause is i think it's an overlap of particular thing it's the pharmacology involved with bodybuilding or the ones that i was exposing myself to high caloric diet like during the off season i would eat six seven hundred grams of rice on a daily basis and then use insulin to help with nutrient partitioning, right? And then sometimes I would follow a ketogenic diet with 150 grams of fat. I did a carnivore diet for a month, which raised my liver enzymes because I was eating

too much saturated fat, right? It was great for digestion, but the amount of saturated fat that I was eating, it was my fault. I was eating 5,000 calories before the carnivore diet, and it's very hard to eat 5,000 calories on a carnivore diet. I think that's a diet that's sustainable up to maybe 3,000, 3,500, and then you have to go the butter or the cheese route, right? So that was also my mistake, and I saw my liver enzymes raise a little bit from that.

There's a lot of saturated fat. So I just think there's so many contributing factors. And that's why non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is so common nowadays. It's apparently 48% of the population has it. And for us, it's hard to pinpoint because there's no real symptoms for bodybuilders because you would think insulin resistance because the triglycerides are high but we actively train we burn through our glycogen we burn fat so we keep the insulin sensitivity going what happens if that bike progresses like if non-alcoholic uh fatty liver

disease progressed and you didn't get it you didn't know about it and it just progressed what would have happened what kind of symptoms would you have seen how far could it and it just progressed, what would have happened? What kind of symptoms would you have seen? How far could it have gotten? Dr. So it would progress into NASH, which is borderline fibrosis of the liver. And then you would see impaired liver function resulting in jaundice or diarrhea or like real side effects. So in my case, I caught it early on, even though it was probably already there for two or three years. But I'm sure there's bodybuilders out there who don't do their blood work or don't get any imaging done preventatively. And they just let it progress for 10 years. And it could also be another cause or a reason why we see these bloated stomachs nowadays. These guys that eat so much food, and besides the growth hormone and the insulin, there might be a little bit of growth within the liver um just being a non-alcoholic fat liver disease or developed nash and that

might be irreversible once it turns into cirrhosis yeah right these these are a lot of things we don't even think about and i didn't think about it and nobody talks about it so it's like okay though this happened to me i'm sure it'm sure it's more common than people realize. So I'm going to talk about it openly and take everybody along the journey so that they can learn from my mistake and then also learn how I was able to resolve it. Because then at least the industry knows a little bit more. That's why I wanted to do the cardiac MRI as well. There's not many people talk about this, unfortunately. We're very open about the steroids nowadays, but the real consequences,

the long-lasting consequences over decades, even the people who have been exposed to steroids for decades, they're not talking about it, unfortunately. Right, which is a shame because that prevents other people from making the same mistake. How can people maybe avoid, you know, running into some side effects? Sounds like you, you know, do your blood work and you're pretty meticulous about

it, but maybe early on, maybe you weren't. And maybe that's what led to some of the situations that you ended up in. So what are, like, if somebody was to just, you know, literally use like hormone replacement therapy and just kind of optimize their hormones. In your professional opinion, you studying this stuff all the time, do you think somebody would still run into some problems, some health issues? Honestly, I don't think so

because testosterone replacement and growth hormone replacement, so that's a true therapeutic dosage, not the dosages that we label under the hormone replacement right we're at we're at like 1500 nanograms per deciliter in the total testosterone and we take three units of growth hormone we call it hrt but that's not hrt i i call it uh hrt for bodybuilders but let's say you do true medically supervised trt and you needed it medically because your testosterone was low and you wanted to bring it up. Unless you really eat like an asshole, then I don't think you'll get non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But like if you expose yourself to limited or just natural amount of, natural is the wrong word,

endogenous amount of hormones, I don't think you're running a risk. But if you want to push the boundaries a little bit, including the food and not cycling off completely or pushing the boundaries with higher dosages, right? 1,000 milligrams, 2,000, whatever. Yeah, I think you're running continuous risk and it's just the food volume, the sheer food volume that you need to move mountains of weight. I mean, the force feeding and the chicken wings before bed and all that stuff is also pretty known in powerlifting, right? Power shoving, they call it.

So, I mean, how many guys have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and also don't know it? I think I've received so much blood work and ultrasounds and fibro scans over the last couple of months. It's almost alarming how many people have this. Yeah. So if I can inspire anybody, get some imaging done. And hopefully it's not too expensive, right? Because everybody has a different healthcare system. Like here in Thailand, it's not too expensive, right? Because everybody has a different healthcare system. Like here in Thailand, it's affordable.

I spent today for a cardiac ultrasound, cardiac MRI, fibroscan, and all the medications that are required, $1,600. So would you say that the… Very little. Yeah, because you said the bodybuilder TRT. Would you say that's above the 1, 1500 nanograms per deciliter for test, and then below that might be actual optimization, or does it just vary from person to person? receptors and when the testosterone is in the blood, it basically is not doing anything. You need it on the muscle tissue or on the brain or wherever there's androgen receptors.

So the testosterone levels in the blood, it does not represent the risks of how you feel, your health and all of that kind of stuff. So some guys need 600, like I have 600 nanograms per deciliter now. I feel good. But I felt better on 1500. Right? So, and I'm sure I'll also feel better if I push it up to 999 at the top of the reference range. But then I can call myself, I'm on TRT. But it's way more than I ever produced naturally. It's way more. And then you get into 1500, 2000.

Some guys feel good at 3000, right? Because I have so much muscle mass that there needs to be more testosterone present. So I think if you can manage all of your health parameters and you don't get any negative effects from whatever dose of testosterone you're running, short term and long term, then you're on a sustainable dose that you could consider hormone replacement. And it's different for everybody because there are guys that don't respond to testosterone. They get adverse reactions.

Their blood pressure goes up. They get bald. So many, so many things that can go wrong just from exogenous testosterone use. But the only way you know is through experimentation. Right? Yeah. You know,

I think you're, you mentioned something earlier and i was as you were talking i was like uh because i wanted to see how you look right now since you said like right now you're not taking much stuff and then i went to when you were bodybuilding and there's a visit no you're still big don't get me wrong you are still big but when you were on some stuff like i was like holy shit like really had some good days yeah like don't know i have no disrespect you are still big you are still very big um but i have a question now like you're mentioning how like training enhanced is super different and you're enjoying like yeah you're training natural

it's it's like what is the biggest difference there and then also i'm curious about this when somebody does come off of stuff, let's say they come off of everything. What type of muscle can they expect to maintain? Because, um, you know, like most people, like Mark has mentioned this before, like most people that do hop on stuff because of how good it makes you feel. A lot of people end up just being on it for the rest of their lives. Like losing all of that, I feel like can have an effect on how you feel about the way you look and all of that so like just can you can you explain kind of the differences and maybe what people can expect to maintain if they don't stay on drugs so i'll give you a sneak peek this is what i was able to

maintain this is about half what I used to have. That's mentally is that tough, right? I'm lifting 75% of the weights. So it's tough because I was on cycle or I was blasting and cruising for nine years, right? I did three cycles. First cycle PCT, then traveled. Second cycle I PCT'd and then I went on my third cycle which lasted nine years so you set such a new high standard for yourself regarding training right how you look physically how you feel emotionally because you do respond differently to particular situations right I'm sure we all can agree that traffic is a little bit different when you're on steroids compared to uh but you know sometimes if you're on steroids for 10 years,

you don't really notice, you don't feel the difference anymore. So now that I came off cycle, I realized, okay, so this was what it feels to be normal, right? I do get tired and I do get winded in the gym, right? And I can't train for two hours straight without, you know, just keep going and going and going. Right. And so I feel mortal, if anything. And not that I felt godlike on steroids, but I felt I was able to accomplish so much more. Right.

In the gym, that is. Right. And business-wise, my business is just continuously growing so that it has nothing to do with business or relationship. Right. Or emotional well-being but it's if you're an athlete and you like to train it's a huge difference and honestly i'm surprised i was able to maintain something because i thought i was going to implode after coming off steroids and then i had that crew the down period where your testosterone is like you know 100 nanograms per deciliter then you do

your post cyclecycle therapy. It goes up a little bit and then it slowly creeps up. And now I've been training it, well, the same weights, same intensity. And the only way I could increase that is by increasing the food. And then in the back of my head, I was like, okay, Steve, if you increase the food, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease might return. So I'm kind of maxed out right now. So that's why I'm excited to go back on hormone replacement, even though I don't medically need it because my testosterone

came back to 600 nanograms per deciliter. So that's for me, but some guys, they don't recover their test. They need to stay on hormone replacement because it just doesn't bounce back. Their fertility doesn't come back, you know? back. And even if you come back to 500 nanograms per deciliter, maybe it doesn't feel sufficient. I know guys also that came back way higher than me, but it doesn't feel sufficient because you're so used to this superficial logical dose of androgens. So I think everybody just, like, you guys have gone through PCT?

Mark, you've gone through PCT? Mark, you've gone through PCT or? No, no, not you, right? You still need to. You mean like just like coming off and recovering and stuff like that? Right. Did you ever go through that process? Yeah, a couple of times. Yeah.

Yeah. So there's always in the back of your head, I could get so much more out of my aspirations regarding fitness if I just take a little bit. And it's almost like an addiction, honestly. Because I've been thinking about hopping back on for the last eight months. Yeah, it's interesting because you're mentioning that your hormones are coming back and that you've been off eight months. I think you could probably make some really good progress the next three, four months without going back on. If you think about it from a logical standpoint, because now your levels have just come back. And I think, you know, for me personally, it's so hard for me to even tell or comprehend because I've been on for so long, it's hard to tell what I've kept. And I also was just like, I was, you know, in my early twenties, I was a fucking machine before I ever touched anything. You know, I was fast, I was strong. I was able to do all kinds of stuff. So I, it's so hard for me to tell if I come off everything, I personally kind of think

that I nearly lose everything, but I don't really, I wouldn't look like I lost everything because, you know, at a natural body weight, my natural body weight's 210, 215, maybe even 220 pounds. And I'm 230 now, um, while being on stuff. So the difference in the body weight isn't that huge, but the difference in the body composition would change. But I could probably work my way into looking similar. I would just be smaller and I just maybe wouldn't be as strong, but I think I can gain some of that back. My powerlifting stuff is hard to equate anything to because the overall size of my body was so different. You know, it's 330 pounds at the height of my powerlifting career.

So it's kind of hard to judge. But from what I've seen, and I would like to get your opinion on this um do you see people holding on to their gains i know there's a lot of people who are like i'm just going to do like a cycle this summer and uh i just want to you know get a little more jacked and can you hold on to it or do you lose almost all of it what are your thoughts i've seen one person in my life that holds on to their gains. Genetic elite lives here in Thailand. Thai guy. He does like a cycle for the world championships for weeks.

I can't mention his name because the world championships is a drug tested federation. So I can't go into detail. Yeah, unfortunately. So he prepares for like four or five weeks leading into the show, then comes off, doesn't do PCT, and maintains everything. Stays shredded, shredded glutes without anything.

Genetic elite. Everybody else, including myself, a shadow of your former self. I don't know any, unless you did one cycle, you gained like two pounds and then you come back. Okay, you can maintain the two pounds that you built, right? But if you went on for a decade or longer and i my my heaviest was 88 kilos so that's about 200 pounds drug free and that was chunky right and now i'm 205 pounds 210 so i'm a little bit heavier a little bit leaner i'm stronger now than i used to be drug free like quite quite a bit, quite a bit. It's been 10 years, so I can't really remember how much I was lifting,

but I do know that the most of the main lifts I am stronger than peak drug free. So, and that's later. And that strength was built on cycle, but I'm significantly weaker compared to being on. And I honestly think if I just do a little bit of hormone replacement for myself, I would get back a decent amount of what I built. And you could just go, that's the idea. That's maintenance, right?

I want to restore what I had previously on cycle, but at a fraction of the dose. So I don't have to expose myself to unnecessarily high levels of androgen. So it's basically, again, hormone replacement for bodybuilders. What would you say to some of the people that might be listening that are utilizing a little bit at the moment and they're thinking about doing more and more, would you kind of advise against it or do you think people just need to kind of go for it here and there? Honestly, I think you need to go for it sometimes, but you also need to modulate your health.

Yeah, because sometimes you have aspirations and you have your long-term health, and sometimes there's a little bit of sacrifice involved. Really? Because I honestly think unless you do real hormone replacement, I don't think you can do anything over that, I want to interrupt you for a second. Cause I think that's a really, really good point. And people do this all the time.

People might think what you just said is crazy. Cause we're talking about using steroids or using drugs, but people do this all the time. You mentioned earlier, somebody studying to be a doctor, people sacrifice their health all the time. They're like, fuck it, man. I'm going for my phd i'm not going to sleep i'm just going to study study study i'm going to get to my goal

and even when they do get to their goal and even when they do become a doctor their foot is still on the gas pedal and they're like when i'm 35 or 40 i'll figure it out i'll fucking relax a little bit more i'll you know take some days off of work but right this is the way all of us, maybe not all of us, this is the way many of us think. So it's a lot more common than maybe people think. I think there's always some sort of sacrifice involved when you want to be successful. Right now, my business is booming. I'm working every day until 10 o'clock. That's sacrificing my relationship.

And then when you want to accomplish something else with business, maybe there's a lot of studying involved, and maybe you need to take an Adderall or a Modafinil or ruin friendships because you can't go out. And then when you want to have fun, you go out to the club. There might be some recreational drugs involved which sacrifice your health. You have a great time. But the next day, you feel horrible, right?

And even with alcohol, which is generally accepted, go inject your liver enzymes the next day. You're sacrificing your health when you go to the bar. So I think, unfortunately, like everything that's exciting in life, it will take some sort of toll out of you, including the dangerous sports and driving motorcycles and driving fast cars. At risk to reward. And I think sometimes it's just required to get ahead because that's what competitions are for.

Competitions, you want to see the strongest, the biggest, bigger, harder, stronger, faster. And yeah, there's some pharmacology involved sometimes. And I don't think that's inherently wrong unless you end up dying over it, right? And then it's a little bit too much. So you have to do a little bit of a blood work analysis and imaging along the way. But I think nowadays it's more understood and accepted

than it was 10 years ago 20 years ago when we always see what were the magazines this perfect physique what we would think is an imperfect state of health and now it's a little bit more open and we actually do see people passing um so that hopefully that makes everybody a little bit more cautious because happens way too much you know sometimes, sometimes you scroll through Instagram, you see another black and white picture, and you're like, here we go again. What about blasting and cruising versus staying on a, I guess I'll say optimized.

That seems to be a good common, I guess, name. But yeah, because you said you blasted and cruised for, I think, 10 years or so. Yeah, nine years. Yeah. So would you say that that's kind of one of those things, like if your health markers are in line, go for it? Or is maybe, yeah, cruising or not cruising, but just being at a lower dose for longer might be the better approach. So I feel that like a real hormone replacement, a lower dose, there's like a dose-dependent response similar to endogenous testosterone production

where let's say you're producing a certain amount of testosterone, you're at the middle of the reference range, and you're gaining, when you reach your true natural potential, a pound to two pounds per year. And then let's say you go on hormone replacement, you raise your serum concentrations a little bit, you keep that exactly stable, you don't make any adjustments. Then at one point, you'll still gain one pound or two pounds per year. So it will be easier to maintain.

So what I did, blasting and cruising, okay, you blast, you go on a higher dose. Hopefully you do that in the context of being a full-time athlete. I don't see there's a reason for anybody to blast if you don't have everything in place to actually put those steroids to work, right? So let's say you're living like a true athlete and you're putting those steroids to work and you have everything in your life designed to make the most out of it, then when you go back to a cruise, a lower dose is required to sustain most of your accomplishments. But you will probably not reach these accomplishments without raising the dose.

So I don't think that, let's say if I were to go on hormone replacement my entire life, right, at the age of 26 till now, I don't think I would have looked like that, let's say if I were to go on hormone replacement my entire life, right? At the age of 26 till now, I don't think I would have looked like that, like in the pictures or lifted, you know, heavy weights, right? So would I have a job in the fitness industry? Probably not because I would never feel inclined to learn more beyond hormone replacement. So yeah, I think, I know I'm a health health guy but i think it's sometimes just required you know i coach people for bodybuilding shows and their dosages are not moderate you know so are they winning yeah you know um there's something uh i was curious about because you mentioned you kind of alluded to it a little bit about fertility.

And I know all of my questions seem to be doing seem to be trying to scare people out of it. And to be perfectly honest, especially for the young cats, I am trying to scare them out of it. But one thing I will say is that I'm really happy that like you yourself, Mark, a lot of what you guys talk about is getting constant imaging, getting constant blood tests, because as much as this stuff is expensive, like for example, your, your, your fatty liver stuff, if you weren't paying that money to get those tests done, which most people don't do, you wouldn't have caught that. So I'm happy that people are understanding what it takes to do this stuff safely, but now I want to scare them again. So as far as the fertility is concerned, and you mentioned, it's funny. I had a client when I was,

when I was 22 training people in person, I had this guy come to me to train him. Right. And he's like, yeah, I want to get leaner. I was like, okay, cool. Let's start. And three months later, I'm like, why first off I'm trying to caliper his skin and I couldn't separate his skin from his muscle. So I didn't know what was going on there. And then number two, he didn't drop any weight. His body didn't change at all. I'm like, what the fuck is going on with this dude? And then he finally told me, he's like, yeah, when I was younger, I did some stuff. I was running some stuff. And I was like, okay, well go to the doc, get yourself checked. Let's just, just, I don't, I can't work with you. Like, by the way, I wasn't giving him drugs or anything. I was just training him normally. I didn't know why we couldn't get results, but he went to the

doctor. He came back to me and he was like, ah, well, doc says I can't really have kids anymore. Um, and because of some shit that he did, maybe he didn't do a PCT, that shit or whatever. But like he, he was like 25 at the time and he was told that he couldn't have kids. So as far as fertility is concerned, number one, what could happen that could lead a man not to have kids? What could happen that could lead to that? And number two, what do people have to do to avoid that from happening? Well, ideally, you want to do a testicular ultrasound before you get started just to see if your testicles are functioning as they should be before you even touch steroids.

I didn't do that. Because again, the information was not talked about. So I did that recently. Interesting experience, needless to say. Just to see if there was any fibrosis, right? Because I did turn off my testicles for a decade, even though I'd run some ACG or HMG intermittently to sustain testicular function. I was not using that the entire way through. So I was a little bit nervous because I married and at one point I would like to have kids. So after I did my post-psychotherapy, I did some imaging on

the testicles and that all appeared normal. And yeah, I know you want to scare some people, but my fertility came back also. Yeah, but I do see that a lot of, it depends on what you run also in your individual response. So let's say you're on a lot of training, right? A long time. Let's say you're actively competing and you're just running training year round. Sounds horrendous, but people are doing this, right? People are doing this. And there's so many androgens, like potent androgens in your system that also activate a progesterone receptor that you just get very impaired fertility. You're not using ACG or any other preventative measure to sustain testicular function. And maybe you shut it down permanently.

And I do know guys that can't have kids. I mean, there's a lot of pro bodybuilders who are 40, 50 and don't have any kids. And that's a big sacrifice, in my opinion. Just some guys don't even get to the Olympia. They compete for years and years and years and they don't win a pro show. But now they can't have kids right and the problem is pros are also not open about the dosage they'll downplay it which i completely understand because they have sponsorships that they have to worry about which pay decent

amount of money so it doesn't pay off to be honest and open and of course general population would cringe but if you run very high dosages for long periods of time and you don't incorporate an ACG or an HMG or other methods to sustain testicular function, yeah, I think it's a risk. It's absolutely a risk that you will shut yourself down regarding kids permanently. But then you hear stories of guys having kids on cycle also.

So I think individual response really determines on what you can get away with. And if you get like the short end of the stick, because that happens also. Maybe I was genetically predispositioned to develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And it doesn't matter what I've done in my life, I would have gotten it anyway. And obviously I don't suffer from hair loss, but there's other guys that are on steroids and they get bald their first cycle. So I think regarding the fertility, if you have something in place like an ACG or HMG or maybe Kispeptin 10 or Granadarilin, even though it doesn't really show that it's too effective to sustain fertility. If you keep something in place, at least you run less of a risk, uh, for

permanent infertility than without it. But in my case, I did it intermittently and I was able to get 150 million sperm per milliliter, uh, with good morphology and good motility. Uh, yeah, that's awesome, right? But I also see blood work where it just doesn't return, and there's zero sperm, zero. And I can't even do an analysis because there's nothing to analyze. And I'm like, you know, and then they go off for a year,

and they run a very expensive, expensive fertility protocol. It doesn't come back. Yeah. Scary. Scary. I've seen some videos. Many guys did get kids on cycle. Go ahead, guys.

I've seen some videos that you've shot and I found them to be really fascinating because they're so specific, answering questions about answering questions about, you know, different cycles about, you know, for people to get big or different cycles for people to get leaner all the way into things that could change the game for obesity in terms of these. There's some drugs out there now that really help a lot with appetite suppressant. And I wanted to kind of get your take on some of the different drugs that are out there and whether you think those are, I mean, everything's got a drawback to it, I guess. But how do you think the effectiveness of some of these everything's got a drawback to it, I guess, but how do you think the effectiveness of some of these drugs are and do you feel they're fairly safe? Well, unfortunately, no drug is safe. So let's get that out of the way first. So we're talking

about the gluco-on-like peptide one receptor agonists. There's five different kinds, but the three most common ones are liraglutide, dulaglutide, and semaglutide. So liraglutide has a relatively short half-life, would be daily administrations. Dulaglutide acts for five days and semaglutide for about a week. So that would be a once a week administration. The good thing about liraglutide and semaglutide is that they come in pens where you can dose according to how many milligrams you want. But the Dulaglutide comes in a single administration. It's literally like those war movies where they have the morphine injections. It's like a huge click and it shoots the full dose. That's what Dulaglutide also does. It does

a full 1.5 milligrams, and it collects it. You don't even have to do anything. Just jab it, and it will start injecting. Yeah, it's crazy. So they made it for convenience. So the way these peptides work is they mimic a natural pathway that stimulates or simulates eating through the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptors. through the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptors.

So when you eat, there's a hormone is released, and then it releases some other hormones, and it gives you satiation. So these drugs, they promote satiation in a similar effect that you would get from eating food, but you didn't eat food. So you constantly feel that you ate. And when you do eat, you don't feel like eating because you already feel full, so you constantly feel that you ate. And when you do eat, you don't feel like eating because you already feel full, so you eat less. And when you eat too much, you get freaking nauseous. So it's another way to stimulate appetite.

So there is evidence that it can cause thyroid issues and pancreatic issues. Both of those cases were either in animal studies or in people with type 2 diabetes, in which cases they're usually prescribed because those people eat too much. In most cases of type 2 diabetes, they give themselves this disease because it's usually a lifestyle, right? Too much saturated fat, too many calories, too many processed sugars, not enough activity. So in those cases, liraglutide, semaglutide, or dulaglutide are prescribed, and that helps to control their appetite in an attempt to resolve the type 2 diabetes in combination with physical activity. So for us as bodybuilders who people want to lose weight, you can use this medication at very low dosages, far lower than what are prescribed for people who type 2 diabetes to control your appetite.

Now, from all the research that I've done, I would prefer to take a GLP-1 receptor agonist over an Adderall for appetite suppression, or Clenbuterol, or some of these SARMs, right? So instead of stimulating your brain to bits and lowering your appetite that way, you have the Phentermine, the Modafinil, the subitramine, right? There's a lot of these stimulatory appetite suppressants. I would prefer to run a very low dose of GLP-1, the lyroglutide or semi-glutide and just not feel hungry. And then control my caloric intake that way.

And it's so effective that you just forget to eat. Will there be any long lasting effects? I'm not sure. I did check my lipase and amylase and blood pork markers, which are related to the pancreas, and they didn't change during the duration that I was running these compounds. So when I was trying to resolve the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, I used Leroy Glutide for six weeks every day just to keep my appetite down so I could be in a sufficient caloric restrictive state to get non-alcoholic fatty liver disease out of the way. But I feel it's highly beneficial, but the problem is they're so expensive. They're really expensive compounds.

Semiclutide is $1,000 per pen If you go through the medical, uh, yeah, yeah. The growth hormone is cheaper. So it's, I don't think it's available for everybody yet. Maybe in the future. I, I'm always looking for something that alternative that maybe might have potentially have a better effect than what for general rerunning. And I discussed with Leo on longevity. I'm sure you guys are familiar.

And Derek from Replace More Dates. We discuss on a daily basis more beneficial with less negative side effects compounds that could have efficacy in the future. Is my internet still okay? Sorry, I got a little bit of a… Did I drop out? Yeah, we're good. No, you're good.

Yeah, we're good? Okay. I just skipped around a tiny bit. No, it's fine. Sorry, okay. No, no worries. All right. So we always try to look for something that might be a little bit more practical and safer than what we have previously. So we can evolve and maybe have less side effects along the way. But most of the compounds are already known that we generally use. You mentioned, you know,

clenbuterol and some of these SARMs and stuff. In my experience, I did have, I did see some success on SARMs, but I feel like with the effect that it did have on my blood work, it was questionable if it was worth it or not. And I was curious to hear your thoughts on SARMs themselves, whether or not, because like Nseema has been pointing out, people are getting on much younger and it's a lot easier to just take a pill than to take a pin. So I think this is another opportunity to educate people and let them know

like, Hey, Andrew, maybe, maybe share with them what was wrong with your blood work and also did your blood work change? Did you get it checked again after that? Yeah.

And so, and so as I try to like deter people away from it, this is going to bring them all back. Um, so I mean with, with my testosterone, it was low before it was really low after, and then it came back. So that, that, that's one of the things, um, all my, all my other health markers, cholesterol, lipids,ids, I'm not too knowledgeable with the terminology of everything, but it's safe to say that everything was really healthy. Stan Efferding, he had mentioned that these are like some of the healthiest labs that he had ever seen. And he told me not to get on SARMs because it's going to do this. And then I got on SARMs and it did exactly what he said. So my test went from like a mid 400 nanograms per deciliter down to 150.

I forgot which is the good cholesterol. That one went down, the bad cholesterol. Yeah, so my HDLs went way down. My LDLs went way up. So my triglycerides were all over the place. Oh, really? down. My LDLs went way up. So my triglycerides were all over the place. Um, my, my hematocrit was already high and I think that's due to like a little bit of sleep apnea, but yeah, but after, um, after I, and all I did was, um, Osterine, but I did it for 14 weeks, but I never went over 30 milligrams per day. So I kept it at about 20 for a majority of that time. Um, I did MK six, seven, seven as well,

but my hematocrit was like, it was really bad. Um, I had somebody look at my labs and they're like, your labs are very similar to this person that's currently on trend. And when I heard that, your labs are very similar to this person that's currently on trend. And when I heard that, I was like, Holy, like, wow, that was not worth it. Um, but again, did you get the results of trend? Did you at least get the strength in the, not even close.

At least I wouldn't assume, but that, that could be just due to the fact of not being an experienced lifter. Although at this point I had been lifting for about seven years. So it wasn't like I was brand new. However, I was brand new to training correctly. Before all this, I was training on my own. And then once I started working with Mark, that's when I started progressing the absolute most. So I did have a lot of time doing, you know, a lot of time in the gym doing my own thing. And at this point, I think I was 33 or maybe even 34. So, you know, like I said, my test was low. It was really low. And then I got on testosterone pellets. So the implanted the, you know, on my hip. So then it jumped up to like 1200 and I felt great. Uh, and then, uh, I came off of that, had my baby. And so now it's just like all my, my labs right now look great. And so it's, it's tough to say like, don't do it because you know, X, Y, and Z. But then, you know, again, like I said, my labs came back to looking very, very good.

You know, we're actually working with Eric. In most cases. We're working with Merrick, yeah? Yeah, we're working with Merrick right now. And, you know, the doctor told me he was like, either you have a really good diet or you have great genetics. And my dad has really bad cholesterol. And like he, you know, it's probably due to his poor diet, but he actually, the doctors told him that he naturally develops a lot of cholesterol and he had triple heart bypass surgery. And if you look at him, he looks like a healthy, you know, 60 year

old man. But now that's one of those things that I have to now write in my medical history or my family medical history is like cholesterol and so again with all that in mind my labs looked terrible right after i got off but now i'm kind of like looking pretty good so it is a tough thing to say you know don't do it because you know it's gonna mess you up but it eventually you'll be okay. Right. So what I think with these compounds, whether that's the ostrein or the steroids, yes, they will mess up your labs, especially if you take them for longer periods of time.

But the body is quite resilient. So if you don't really miss, like you really didn't destroy your health, the body will come back. Most of my blood work is great now, right? Even after taking steroids for 10 years. But so I do think that the body at one point will bounce back, right? Regarding health. It just might take a little bit of time. So when you discontinue particular compounds, slowly the health will improve.

But maybe while you're running into your health is not optimal or it's horrible because you're running a high dose. I do a very potent stuff. But when it comes to the SARMs, like from my experience, let's say you have 10 milligrams of a compound to use. I feel that for the same amount of results, let's say you compare Anivar to Ostrin. From all the blood work that I've seen, 10 milligrams of Ostrin will ruin your blood work more compared to 10 milligrams of Anovar. But 10 milligrams of Anovar will give you much better results. So why would you not just go with Anovar over the Ostrin? Even though Anovar is more difficult to source, there's less gray area websites, but is there quality control in the SARM scene?

Not really. So that way you run pretty much the same risk. And ANIVAR is at least medically prescribed, right? There's compounding pharmacies in the States that produce ANIVAR in pretty high-dose tablets, I will say. But there's so many compounds we can choose from. So why not choose the compound that is used medically, that's FDA approved, that we can get pharmaceutical grade if we do our best and spend a little bit more. And then there's also a lot of research.

We can go to PubMed or Science Direct, type in oxandrolone, Anivar, and get a million studies back. If you do that for Ostrin, there will be no studies. There will be clinical trials because it's not FDA approved yet. So I think until these SARMs are FDA approved, I would just wait. Personally, I would just wait because I don't think they'll be able to replace the steroids because otherwise every pro bodybuilder would have adopted it. And most guys would say the same thing, it works, but not to the point that I needed to compete.

Otherwise, it would have been adopted already. There's compounds that are classified as SARMs, like GW1516 or MK677, which aren't really SARMs because they don't have an effect on the androgen receptor. They go through different receptors that secrete growth hormone, but they're classified in the same group. But the SARMs which are not actually SARMs, they might have some benefit, but the androgen receptor modulators,

which are not as selective as we want them to be because otherwise your testosterone would not be so low. What would be perfect, right? You know, selective estrogen receptor modulators that act like an estrogen here but block the estrogen there, right? If SARMs would do that, if they block the androgen receptor in the pituitary and act as an androgen or act on the androgen receptor in skeletal muscle, it would be perfect. Your testosterone production would stay the same, right? And you would gain more muscle because there's no negative effect on your natural testosterone production. And you would gain more muscle because there's no negative effect on your natural testosterone production.

But every SARM, the Ostrin, the LGD, the YK11, they all downregulate testosterone production. And then the lipids skew and you get some gains in the beginning and then your gains taper. Like I got weaker when I used Ostrin. I was squatting comfortably and then I lost reps every week. I started losing reps. I'm like, okay, and then I lost reps every week. I started losing reps. I'm like, okay, never mind. Yeah. But that's my personal experience. But some people get great results from it.

But I would not risk the changes in blood work over other compounds. Yeah, I got pretty good results. The whole experience was fun, honestly, because it was the first time taking anything. And, yeah, I got bigger. But it could have been just due to the, uh, the motivation of being on something. Um, you know, my diet was already kind of in check, but then it was like, no, we're trying to gain. So I just kept eating a little bit more as much as I could. And then the MK definitely helped. Um, but you did mention a Carterine and, uh, that's, that's one that,

I mean, I have, I have it and I'm just, I stare at it every once in a while and I want to dive in. But, you know, that one rat study with the cancer, you know, it always, I'm just like, you know, like, no, like, we'll just go into a deficit. We'll be fine. Like, we don't need the extra boost. It's not like you need it, right? Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. And again, there's so many other methods to burn body fat a little bit faster over the

carterine. I will say that I used carterine to cure my non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Yeah. Wow. It rapidly sped up the process because you take it orally, it goes into the liver and then potentiates some fat loss through the PPR gamma and delta pathways. But it's not something you want to run long term. Definitely not.

No. So definitely something for show prep is what you mean then? That will be the case. They're easy to acquire, but the problem with that is let's say it does cause cancer right let me maybe 10 years from now the gw1516 is proven to cause cancer in humans um a lot of people would result to that over the columbus roll nowadays because it's easier to source and gives far less side effects immediately. Like none of these crazy heart palpitations, no cramps,

no insane sweating, right? So maybe 10, the sample size of people who are using it now, up until this point, we haven't heard anybody develop cancer from carderine. 10 years from now, we don't know if that still holds up. But so far, so far, so good. But anecdotal evidence will tell. Some of the old diuretics that bodybuilders use, they also were shown to be highly problematic.

So time will tell if particular compounds will hold up. So I would prefer everybody to be cautious. But then again, yeah, sometimes in the scene of a contest prep, it might be beneficial. That's something really cool to think about. I'm actually curious about this. What stuff did old bodybuilders use commonly that we found nowadays, oh, that probably wasn't the smartest thing to use or like well just what kind of stuff were there because that that yeah what were they what was the what is the diuretic yes there was a diuretic that

that acts on a cortisol receptors also I can't remember what the name is because I don't have an experience with it there was a diuretic out there or an anti-estrogen that acted as a diuretic that then was shown to be a kidney problematic and then people didn't know about ibuprofen they would run that quite long and got some kidney issues as well right and and some of the older drugs that were used like the animal for example and that nowadays is not really favored anymore in the context of bodybuilding. So as things change and then new compounds come out like Dehydrobaldenone and Ment, Trestelone, and then guys prefer that over, this is better now. We don't run Baldenone anymore. We do Dehydrobaldenone.

So the compounds always change. so the compounds always change but i think most of the compounds that were used long time ago they still hold up but maybe they're used in a different context right and i think the dnp nowadays i there was a little bit of a stint with that but yeah i don't i think that stint is over with dnp i don't think anybody's running they're doing dnp experiment and they realize how toxic it is, and then they're like, okay, never mind. Do you think that we're going to come back to people doing cycles again? Or do you think that there's maybe like – because it doesn't seem like people do cycles anymore,

but it does seem like it makes sense to where – I know guys used to do like 10 or 12 weeks, and then they'd come off for a few months months and they'd go back on and so forth. What are your thoughts on that? I think everybody has to decide for themselves. Because I did a cycle for 16 weeks, then I PCT'd and traveled for a year through Asia. And then when I came back from traveling, I was skinny fat. And so I went back to the gym. Yeah, yeah well street food for a year and then no workout so i did not look

the part anymore i lost all my gains uh just like now so i started going back to the gym i i went back on cycle and that lasted a little bit longer so i think as people get some experience with this post cycle therapy and then realize they lose some of their gains, or the training is no longer enjoyable, or they have a body image issues where they look in the mirror like, hmm, I really don't look good anymore, right? That's also something you have to learn because it's a giant roller coaster if you do cycles on and off. And then at one point, you might take the plunge and said, you know what, I'm going to go do this plastic and cruising thing that everybody else is doing. I think that's a natural progression. But some guys, they go on cycle and they stay on cycle for 10 years or

maybe their entire life. Like I always considered it to be a lifetime commitment, but I also wanted to see what a post-cycle therapy was like. But if people want to do cycles like 12 weeks on PCT, then three months off and then cycle again, yeah, of course they're in there, right? Yeah. But how long that will last, that approach, I'm not really sure if that lasts their entire life. I think everybody will slowly lean towards plastic and cruising because it's less of a rollercoaster. It's hard to know if Arnold and Mike Mentzer and those guys it's hard to know if they were actually cycling or not anyway like you know

nowadays you know in body building it's very common for people to say I'm not on anything and then you find out they're on at least like one or two things they just say that they're not on you think it's not a full a full on cycle maybe back then maybe yeah similar I think like arnold you see

those pictures after the mr olympian he shrunk down significantly i do think they came off um and then and then just right they probably didn't even do a proper pct because that information was not out there i think so we just come off and then let their hormone levels decline. If you stay off long enough, right? I don't see it. I don't see it sensible. Let's say you do a 12-week cycle. You do your post-cycle therapy, which if you do it properly,

you let your androgens decline. That might take four, six weeks anyway, right? Before you even start the post-cycle therapy. anyway, right? Before you even start the post-cycle therapy. And then you do your ACG or your incolmaphene and tamoxifen for four, six weeks. So it's already three months. Then you need to stay off three months just to give your testicles some time to make some sperm again and produce some testosterone again. But a lot of guys, they do a cycle, post-cycle therapy cycle, two days apart. So they're off for like a day. So does that really count as going off? I don't think so because the tamoxifen and the enklomiphene or enklomit, they still alter your testosterone production. So you didn't give

yourself adequate time. And for me, I was 10 months, six months now without anything. When I say without anything, I was still using growth hormone. So that's where the bodybuilder comes in. I'm off. It's actually off plus something else. Trey Lockerbie 00,00,00 Nick Neuman Trey Lockerbie 00,00,00 Nick Neuman Every time we have somebody like you or Tony or Tony huge, or just, just somebody who knows a lot about like pharmacology, it always, I always like internally laugh at how, how complex this stuff is. And, and cause when, when I see some people talk about it online, I'm just like,

you don't seem to know what you're doing. Like, like it's just, it's just like you, you, you, you explain all these things. And like the, the, the, these things are some of the reasons why I'm just like, I'm good. Like, I'm so good off of this. Cause it's, it's, it's a lot to do. And one big thing, I think that not a lot of people think about is you've been spitting out like some prices here and there, some dollar amounts of what some of this shit costs. I'm just like, this sounds like it could be pretty pricey. So I'm curious about this, man. Like, what do you think? And I know everybody takes different things and different things have different prices, but you know, let's just say a guy wants to get pretty big. Maybe he doesn't want to be Mr. Fucking Olympia, but let's just say he wants to look pretty, pretty jacked and get pretty big.

What is like maybe the minimum cost of the minimum things that an individual is going to need to do along with the cost of the lab work that he's going to do? Just just can you give people an idea of just the monetary investment if you want to do this safely? Not just if you want to get your drugs and take them, but the tests and all of this. What are people what should people be thinking about? I need to have this much money put away. safely not just if you want to get your drugs and take them but the tests and all of this what are people what should people be thinking about i need to have this much money put away i made a video about this called the sinkhole uh the bodybuilding sinkhole of money it's a sarlack pit from star wars where it just rains money on top and i think i came to a calculation of like $15,000 a year or per month, depending on how much you're running. Some guys spend $75,000 on their drug bill and their bodybuilding and their physical therapy and their blood work.

I calculated everything, the food, the gym membership, the drug bill, the physical therapy, because we need some deep tissue massage. And then the ultrasounds, the imaging, just to put some money aside just in case right calculated that over the entire year and i think at the top level from 75 000 i spend about i think 20 25 000 a year just for the bodybuilding that's including the food and no it's a lot of money yeah it's a lot of money but the potential in the fitness industry is also quite high. So, well, it's an investment, right? Like, every time I do blood work and make a video about it, and I'm open about it, you always get backlash, unfortunately, right? Why would you expose yourself to all this stuff? Well, because it's my hobby.

And every time I invest a little bit of money into this blood work for my own well-being to put the hypochondriac at bay, and I make a video about it, it results in business. And I have 32,000 subscribers now. So whoever wants to watch that video, they benefit from the information that I share. But let's say you don't make money off the fitness industry. Yeah, then $25,000 a year is a huge sinkhole of money. Some people earn that much right after taxes so it it really depends on what you want and if you're making money off the fitness industry

because there are people who are making 200 000 a month off the fitness industry right or more so yeah right so for them it's a marginal increase but the guy that is a recreational lifter and just goes to the gym to have fun and maybe wants to be a little bit jacked. Okay, let's say the testosterone costs and the blood work a little bit. I think if you put $500, $1,000 per month aside, you can develop a very, very good physique. And that's including the food, the gym membership and and the blood work, and all that stuff. And the steroids, and the health supplementation that are required. But it will cost you money. Even hormone replacement will set you back $100, $150 a month. And then if you do that under guidance, it will be more expensive. If you want to get a script from a pharmacy and get some medical supervision, you will spend more. It's not cheap. It's not cheap, you know.

It's not cheap. So you should at least be financially secure before you get your hands dirty because the bills will be way more than you think it will be, especially when you get older and then suddenly, oh, I have to think about my fertility and my organs, even though I didn't think about those things when I started. Yeah, I didn't think about it. You know started. Yeah, I didn't think about it. It's a learning journey for all of us. You mentioned DNP earlier.

That's the drug that burns fat like crazy, and it's been shown to be very toxic and dangerous and things like that. And bodybuilders are going to kind of creep into all kinds of stuff, no matter how dangerous it is. But what are things that are maybe less dangerous that you've seen be effective for fat loss? Because I know there's a lot of people that listen to the show that want to lose fat and try to make progress in that way. So what are some of your thoughts on that? So the cheapest and the least toxic method to drop body fat is fasting. You just stop eating. Just stop. It's okay. Yeah, right. You'll be hungry. It sucks. And it's uncomfortable.

But when you look at the fat loss on a week on DNP compared to a fat loss on a week on fasting, you'll probably lose the same amount of body fat. But on fasting, you're only hungry. And on DNP, you're melting from the inside, and your blood work will be horrible. And after fasting, you will be better. And it's so much cheaper also because you don't have to modify your entire diet. And Tony is in Patio, right?

So he's only two hours away from me. And I always have the discussion because Tony at one point point was selling DNP and he still uses it sometimes I'm like how can you use this in Thailand it's scorching hot so I got him into fasting three years ago and now he does that too sometimes and I think he gets the same results but he would prefer to take the dmp because it's easier um and of course something to say for that also but i've been i fast every three months for a week like a water fast year i fast for like five and a half days yeah just water fast yeah oh okay yeah i do like i care about health it it helped my digestion so much you know i i did a carnivore diet experiment it helped my digestion i do fasting it helped my digestion um right colonics helps the digestion also a little bit when when applied properly so like i i try to optimize the body a little bit

more besides the the lifting and and fasting is part of that because living in asia and eating street food for a while yeah yeah, that ruined my digestion. Yeah. Listen, when I traveled for a year and I ate whatever was available two or three times per day, my digestion was wrecked. I saw the most beautiful things. I saw the Chinese walls and the Gobi deserts and all kinds of silly places, but my digestion was wrecked and it took me years to

resolve that and fasting was one of the ways and again it's it you give yourself a break from all these 5 000 calories so i honestly think that the fasting uh delayed the progression of the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease that i still ended up getting but i think i would have had it way worse if i didn't do this fast and so i still do that. Yeah, and I think that's way more beneficial than DMP who was going to raise all your oxidative stress and your body temperature and you get into this weird electrolyte balance and your thyroid hormones just unregulate.

So no, no, no thanks. I did experiment with it. Yeah, but that lasted four days. So I prefer everybody just to do fasting, even though it's tougher. But that lasted four days. Yeah. So I prefer everybody just to do fasting, even though it's tougher. It's a lot tougher. I'm really happy you said that just because Mark's done a long-term fast, like a water fast, but every now and then I'll do maybe like a 48 hour. I haven't done a 72 hour yet. I'm planning on doing that in maybe a month or so, but I'm really happy that you mentioned that because maybe a little bit harder, but like you get used to it, you'll realize actually like half the way in that it's not that bad. It gets easier

the longer you do it. So I'm really happy you mentioned that, man. Thank you. Thank you. I got inspired by Dr. Jason Fung. Maybe you guys are familiar with him. He has diabetes. Right. Yeah. So I was going through the YouTube and you see him talk about fasting and how it can cure type. And I was like, okay, I'm going to try that. Let's do a week from the beginning.

And of course, it was very, very tough. But I've gone through multiple diets. So I know the mindset of just turning you know, turning off the appetite. And I found it very beneficial. And it also creates some character that you can't get anywhere else. Right. So the longest thing, the longest fast I did was two weeks with a one-day refeed in between. Well, yeah, so six days and then one day eating.

You know, I like to go out with my wife. So she was like, hey, we're not going to not go out for two weeks. So let's go. Okay. So we went out one day and then I did another five days. But I feel that the one week fast is beneficial over the two week or the two fasts close together. How was your experience with fasting, Mark? I'd love to hear it. Yeah, I like fasting quite a bit. I utilize a lot of intermittent fasting. I utilize kind of a longer-term fast here and there. I did a modified fast that went for seven days.

And it wasn't like a full, fast but the first uh three days was was pretty much a fast and and then the last uh two days you have about you know 500 calories or something like that but uh yeah it was an amazing experience and it was uh got to be pretty hard around day around day three um just because like I wasn't paying attention to like what day actually ended and so like I was like wait I got to make it through the fifth day it doesn't end on the fifth day you know it doesn't end the beginning of the fifth day and so the third day was kind of a drag but for the most part it really good. I leaned out a lot. The hard thing with any sort of fast, any kind of fasting really is to try to pretend that it never happened.

And that's one of Jason Fung's rules is he says, you know, the key to any type of fasting is to pretend that never happened and not make up for the calories. And so that can be a difficult part of it. But I know people that use all kinds of different strategies with fasting, and I think it's a great way to pick off some calories. I do think it's a good way to kind of recalibrate for sleep. I think it's a good way to recalibrate for your digestion. And it's just something I think everyone should consider doing at some point, whether it be just someone doing 12 or 16 hours or something like that. I think everyone should at least look into it and try it out for themselves. Did you, did you, were you able to sleep okay?

Did your sleep improve while fasting or did you find it more difficult to sleep as the fast was going along? Because that's what I suffer from. Like on day three and four, I don't want to sleep. I'm just awake because I'm in such a deep state of ketosis that it's difficult to fall asleep. And many people have that issue. Did you have that issue as well? I actually slept better while I was doing it.

But yeah, as the hunger kind of built, my energy levels would kick up a little bit more here and there. I think for me, actually, the further that I eat from going to sleep, the easier it is for me to stay asleep. It might take a minute for me to fall asleep because, yeah, I might be like, damn, I'm kind of hungry. I might think about it a bit. But in terms of staying asleep, it seemed to improve that quite a bit so what i found that is almost just as effective not as effective for the digestion but effective regarding um detoxification fat loss and just giving your digestion a break is fasting mimicking, where you basically just eat

vegetables, right? Or a very low caloric intake. So I did that for six weeks straight with a weekend refeed. And that's how I was able to resolve the non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. But that was also in a contest of using this appetite suppressant called liraglutide being the GLP-1 receptor agonist. So I had five days I can do without. But if you do this weeks on end to resolve medical conditions, yeah, some sort of appetite suppressant is probably desired. But I've always done it without up until five days. I do five and a half days.

So let's say Monday morning to Saturday morning. And then, or what is it? Sunday evening to Saturday morning, right? If Monday, uh, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whole days that you don't eat. And then, um, Saturday, I usually just continue with my regular diet being a ketogenic meals because then you, right. You don't get this, this weird hunger sensation afterwards. I know a lot of guys, they break their fast with fruit,

and then it cascades into some sort of carbohydrate mania. So I always just go back on a ketogenic meal plan, and then maybe Sunday I'll eat something a little bit more adventurous. But like you said, you just continue with your regular diet after the fast is completed. Have you noticed when you fast, whether you're on stuff or off stuff, have you noticed, because a lot of people think that you're going to lose a bunch of muscle, and some people, like with me, they'll just say, oh, well, you're on shit, so of course you can

fast. But in SEMA, he goes a different route with what he does and he does fine. He doesn't seem to be losing any muscle over there. What's been your experience? So if I do a fast drug-free, you lose fullness and glycogen in both cases enhanced for drug-free. You lose fullness, you lose a lot of glycogen, a lot of water, right? The scale drops down dramatically. But I don't feel that I really lose strength. I lose a little bit more strength now compared to being on stuff when I would fast.

But it's usually, it comes back in a few days. Like, and I usually schedule a deload when I want to fast. So I'm in an overtrained state or it's time to take a break from a week of grinding in the gym anyway. So I'd stop eating, stop training. And then I usually pick up right where I left off.

Maybe one rep less, but the weights are the same. Yeah, the weights are the same. But we've been training for such a long time. So that also plays into it. I think the guys that have maybe a year or two of training under their belt and then do a week fast, yeah, they will lose all their gains because it's not hardened. Those gains are not hardened yet under the weight or on PEDs. So I think the longer you're training, the less of a negative effect it has on your performance and only benefits. So I feel it's highly beneficial and it's such a freebie.

It's such a freebie. It's such a freebie. You just don't eat. Right. What are some things you've done to improve sleep? Have you found anything that's been really effective in terms of helping you sleep? Not to be honest. I sleep usually pretty good. So I've never really had to incorporate much.

Nowadays, I run a little bit of melatonin before bed on days that I work late. So after this podcast, I will administer six milligrams of melatonin just to clock out. And then I can go to bed. But I don't do that every day. So like recently, I work a lot more. I have clients, all this business stuff that I have to manage. I work a lot more. I have clients, all this business stuff that I have to manage. So when I work late until 9, 9.30 and I want to go back at 10, I do run a little bit of melatonin, but I found that it works very well if I just stop all the work at around eight,

then I have about two hours to unwind and just kind of calm down and relax and turn my brain off naturally and then go to bed at 10 o'clock. Just try to sleep according to the circadian rhythm the best possible. And I also found it very easy to make myself tired with the strenuous workouts and then you're just fried at the end of the day. That puts me right to sleep also. So to be honest, I've never really had a need for sleep aids because I can always sleep well. I just need to manage my day properly. Otherwise, after this, I'll probably be super awake. So I'll need some

melatonin to put me to sleep. But that's pretty much it for me. Yeah. It's not very exciting for sleep. Sorry. But I feel it's more than enough. Trey Lockerbie Do you suggest anything to any of your clients that may have like other than melatonin to your clients that may have like real issues sleeping as we know like sleeping is one of the biggest thing if you're not getting good sleep and you're trying to gain muscle you're trying to lose fat like you're you're kind of skipping over something huge right so um is there anything else that you suggest lifestyle factors etc that'll make a pretty big difference for some people yeah there's some low-hanging fruits like again what i do is turning off the phones and the

computers and all that stuff so i don't get um like stimulated in the mentally so i just try to unwind mentally let the work just kind of go away and then not expose myself to blue light and it helps a little bit also but sometimes I end up looking at some TV, watching some TV, so that's a little bit of blue light. I just slowly turn the lights off to kind of simulate the circadian rhythm because if you're always behind the computer screen or watching a television or keeping the lights on, you're not really allowing the circadian rhythm to set in. So I just slowly start turning the lights off.

That worked quite well. Some guys just have difficulty sleeping. You know, there aren't too many androgens to keep you awake also. So maybe you have to space. Yeah, really. Maybe not take pre-workout oral steroids if you train in the evening because those oral steroids will still be active after your workout and then you're a little bit stimulated. Cutting the coffee to 4 p.m., right? Let that metabolize. And then there's things you can look into like melatonin

or 5-HTP, which is a building block for serotonin or in combination with vitamin B6, which then converts the serotonin into melatonin. Of course, you can't use this if you're running a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor or any other antidepressants. So you'll have to see what you can use. And then there's GABA or Phenobot, but you should not use that every day because there's some withdrawal symptoms, especially with Phenobot. But I think a lot of people, they just stimulate their brain a little bit too late in the day and it's difficult to turn everything off. But I found that worked very, very well for me, especially when I had a lot of clients, like the phone would just nonstop, messages, messages, messages. So I would just put the phone would just non-stop you know messages messages messages so just to put

the phone away eight o'clock and just let myself calm down and then go to bed and maybe read something yeah as boring as it sounds but it yeah i think the mental mental things helps quite a bit have you taken anything that uh has worked really well for strength um that's not necessarily like a steroid because i know there's some things uh that can stimulate the brain a bit and can stimulate like the central nervous system have you personally utilized anything like that or suggested anything like that to clients i think the most most beneficial thing i noticed as a pre-workout was alpha gpc which is a choline donor. So it helps with neurological

drive and focus. A lot of people in the nootropic space just space out their alpha GPC over the day, maybe have 300 milligrams multiple times per day. But I found if I took that before the workout, 600 milligrams, it would just give me an insane drive and mind muscle connection that I would otherwise not have. Augmentine sulfate came before that. I think that's also found in a lot of pre-workouts and especially combination of augmentine sulfate and alpha GPC. I found that it gives you an acute response in the gym, right? If you overdo it, you start grinding your teeth a little bit.

So there's an effective dose and a too much dose, and then you're still a little bit too stimulated afterwards. I found modafinil, same thing. But it's also not something you want to run every day. I don't have access to Adderall here because it's highly illegal in Thailand. So I unfortunately don't have the experience, but it might be the same as modafinil. There's so many compounds that can increase your workout performance besides the steroids.

There's so many. There's a pre-workout mushrooms called Peak O2, and I found it to be beneficial. So quick question, because I've heard you mention AlphaGPC before, Andrew. So quick question, because I've heard you mention AlphaGPC before, Andrew. Is AlphaGPC illegal in any sense, or is it just like something chill? Because I'm very curious about that. It's just a supplement? It's like the creatine of nootropics.

Oh, ho, ho. Let me give this a shot. Okay. I like it. Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago, acmetine sulfate really came to the market. And then alpha GPC came out a little bit later. And I prefer alpha GPC over acmetine.

But of course, on leg day, a combination, if you're trying to set some personal bests then a combination might be beneficial and it's not something that you really get used to or that you need to do a post psychotherapy for so that's why it's commonly found in most of the popular pre-workouts and derek has a supplement line called gorilla mind which has agmatine sulfate in the pre-workouts and alpha gpc in the nootropics so i just take both before like day and then i have a killer workout yeah yeah what's a uh what's a proper dosage of alpha gpc because i've seen a lot of nootropics also have that and i'm a dork for nootropics but i've always seen that they

don't have nowhere near enough but i don't know what enough actually is. But I just know it seems like in that one little capsule, there's just no way they can compact enough of alpha GPC to make it effective. I think like 300 milligrams is already effective. And then in the context of a pre-workout, maybe 600 milligrams. I went up to 900 milligrams one time, but I did not notice a dose dependent increase in performance. So for me, I feel that 600 milligrams alpha GPC is like the max dose that I can get benefits from during the workout. And then it depends on which workout I have. If I have a quad day, I do 600 milligrams. If I have a chest day, I do 600 milligrams because I want to increase those body parts back. It's already developed.

So 300 milligrams is enough or I skip it. I heard some people use 1200 milligrams. Personally, I would say that's okay. That might be overkill. So I think everybody, you can just start low 300 milligrams and see if they need a dose increase. Right? So same with agmatine sulfate, maybe 500 milligrams is enough or 750. I've had up to 1500 milligrams agmatine sulfate, maybe 500 milligrams is enough or 750. I've had up to 1500 milligrams agmatine sulfate plus 600 milligrams of alpha GPC before a quad day and those turn into legendary leg sessions. Did you get exhilarated when you're done? You're like, oh my God, good job.

Preston Pyshke. and you're like, oh my God, good job, you know? So. Some people would utilize. It's a workout with a lot of fun. Some people utilize like Cialis and stuff like that before a workout, right? And it's supposed to pump in some of the other muscles, right? Yeah, don't have any girls around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the leg press is okay.

You can hide it. But front laterals, no, you can hide it but front front laterals no you can't hide that stuff um so yeah no sweat yeah for the pumps it's definitely yeah exactly so cialis usually works for the pumps i can't say that it increases strength um but it helps to control your blood pressure so if you're're doing, you know, heavy deadlifts or leg presses or whatever that raises your blood pressure, Cialis might actually protect you against that. It might also give you a tomato phase,

which is not due to the high blood pressure, but simply because of the capillaries expanding. Like every time I, John, I love you, John Meadows, you're the best guy ever. But every time I see that guy train, I'm reminded, I got to take my Cialis before the workout. And I'm not insinuating that John is taking Cialis, but it just reminds me, like, yeah, I get the same red face when I do heavy sets,

you know, because it just opens the capillaries, and it protects your entire body, the Cialis, that way. But it's just a side effect. That's what I always got. So people always laugh. Why do you have a tomato face? Protecting myself with Cialis against high blood pressure. But the pumps are very, very good.

Yeah, especially if you have a little bit of sodium, some electrolytes pre-workout. In researching all this you uh in researching all this you must have come across uh some performance enhancement in the bedroom i'm sure as well uh is there anything you could share with us uh in that regard uh yes have you guys been watching all my videos or no i've seen i've seen quite a i've seen i've seen quite a bit of your stuff and I'm familiar with Leo's stuff and with Derek's stuff a lot. And yeah, I definitely have checked out quite a few of your videos. So I don't think I've gotten into any of that.

I've seen you talk specifically. One of your videos was about like stubborn body fat, which I found really amazing because a lot of people when they talk about stubborn body fat, they usually just say, Hey, like being a caloric deficit, which is definitely, uh, there's definitely truth to that, but you had like real specifics. Like if you have fat over here, take this, if you have fat over there, take that. But I also just figured that, uh, you must've stumbled upon some stuff in this realm since you've been studying performance enhancement so much. Yeah. It's performance enhancing drugs for the bedroom. So I actually got the idea from Tony, who talked about Tony Hulch, Dr. Tony Hulch. So he mentioned something about PT-141 like a while ago. And I was like, what the hell is this? Yeah, it's like melanotan. So I started researching a

little bit and I couldn't really find the source up until recently. So this PT-141, it acts on the melanocorticoid receptors, similar to how melanotan makes you a little bit darker. It acts on melanocortin receptors. Sometimes I mix up particular receptors. It acts on the ones that make you tanned, also make you nauseous, and might also give you an erection. And then PT141 is a little bit modified. It only works on the melanocortin receptor that gives you erections, like libido, and a little bit of tanning and a little bit of nausea. So I'm like, okay, this sounds great.

I'm going to run it every day. Then over the course of three weeks, I still got a tan. So there's like a phase in my bodybuilding, in my videos, where I just got tanned and it was an ugly tan. Because I stayed inside. I'm working behind the desk all day, helping with clients, making YouTube videos, that kind of stuff. So you got this horrible, muddy tan that I got. and my libido was great my wife was very happy right we would

time it perfectly and then over time I just got darker yeah right right it has to go somewhere right um so so I got tender and tender and after all she's like i like the paler husband this is right your libido was good before and the the extra libido boost does not warrant you turning this muddy color and then in the comment section people start you know so steve you're getting intense no man i'm staying inside all day but this pt one for one is it's hilarious right like if i had a beautiful tan it would be okay but it was ugly and people just started making fun of me so so the libido boost that you get from it is actually quite good one milligram you know a couple hours before you want to get busy um and uh yeah but i would do it infrequently i could just imagine the youtube comments just because I know what fitness YouTube is like

they're like Steve this shit's turning you into a BBC Steve like that's what YouTube is going to say that's what these YouTube kids are going to say if I had like two BBC's like the 10 and the BBC that would be great

I didn't have to go to the beach and then put it to work but i got neither i got um i got the libido and a little bit of a muddy color that yeah didn't even come close to a nice natural tan so so for that experiment ran its course and now i have one file left in the fridge for a rainy day. You know, weddings. Wedding anniversaries. Two hours.

Yeah, so that will be a combination of Cialis and PT141. Have a good night. Yeah, absolutely. What about just getting bigger and stronger? What are some things, like what are the common cycles that you've seen be super effective for somebody that's listening that wants to slap on 20 pounds, but wants to maybe do so in the safest way possible? It's so hard to give general recommendations.

The more research that I do and the more blood work that I've seen over the years, everybody responds to a particular comp. I wish there was a black and white answer, honestly. I would just say test and primo. And it holds up for most people. But some people get very high hematocrit levels on test. And then adding the primo on top will shoot their hematocrit through the moon. So you can't give

a blanket statement like that. And then because some guys still get an adverse reaction. Some guys do very well on tests and Nandrolone. Some guys do very well on tests. Some guys don't do well on tests. They need only Nandrolone. So what I would say is if you really want to gain 20 pounds, you got to treat it like a full-time job and then use the blood work to support your decision-making process regarding which pharmacology you're going to use, which is, I know it's such an annoying answer, but yeah, that's, that's, if you want to do it safely, if you want to get that, those 20 pounds with a minimal side effects, then, then that's how it has to be. Unfortunately, right. You start somewhere and then you, as you do your blood work and introduce compounds,

you keep the ones that your body agrees with and you throw the ones that give you intolerable side effects or are effective up until certain dose and then give you intolerable side effects. Yeah. I wish, I wish it was so easy, but let's say you put 20 bodybuilders in the room and they all gain 20 pounds. You have 20 different cycles and of course, 20 different blood work results. For me personally, I would say like my short list of PEDs that I still want to take is very, very, very short. Test, Primo, Anovar, maybe GH, maybe insulin. And those probably already off. So that's about it. And I think I can gain 20, 25 pounds with those three. Of course, there will be muscle memory, but I've done this with clients,

you know, they want to gain 20 pounds, just three compounds, and their blood work is pretty acceptable. Is it good? No. Not the same as before, but it's as good as it can be. Yeah, because, again, we always have to sacrifice a little bit to get those results. What you said in the beginning of that is to try to treat it like a job. And I think, you know, anyone that's looking to really, you know, do anything drastic with fitness, you know, looking to slice their body fat in half or looking to increase the bench press by 50 pounds or looking to gain 20 pounds of muscle or whatever it is that someone's goal is, you do have to treat it like a job and maybe for some they don't want to ever dive into treating it like a full-time job but um you are going to want to consider it and think

about it and put your best effort into it as much as you reasonably can i think it's important yeah no i highly agree because if you do treat everything else as a job then the pharmacology needed to get you towards your goals are so much lower. And it's the drugs that over time make you sick, right? Especially if you are not sick, but diminish your health a little bit. It's not necessarily diet or the hardcore training. Okay, you might get some injuries from the hardcore training. But I feel that the pharmacology is always the most unhealthy part of getting towards your goals.

And you can do it without it. You can develop a great physique without it. But if you want a little bit more, I would treat it like a full-time job and then sprinkle a little bit of PEDs on top to sustain your health in the short term and long term. But the key is treating it like a job because that's how you get most of the results. I'm sure you guys see it so you do some consulting for people right um do you uh do you work with any female uh athletes as well and then you have them on like a hormone protocol also or no i used to because my wife was competing so i would have i've helped a lot of women in my years but i've to be honest i've kind of lost interest because my wife was competing. So I've helped a lot of women in my years.

But to be honest, I've kind of lost interest after my wife stopped competing. So she competed at the World Championships, Asian Championships. Yeah, right. A lot of women came to me because they wanted to look like my wife. And my wife was a relentless man with her work. She was so regimented, right? And that's why she would always win.

Yeah. She, she won pretty much everything every time she competed. Wow. And then all the women would come to me. They wanted to be like my wife, but they didn't want to put the effort. And over time I got a little bit turned off from that.

So I stopped coaching women this year, basically. I still did last year, but I just stopped taking as many female clients. But I do offer consultations once in a while, but I don't want to do it full-term time anymore. And maybe I got spoiled because I saw this relentlessness with my wife, and now I'm comparing all of my female clients to this insane level of dedication that is required to be phenomenal as a woman without virilization.

Because again, the women, if they expose themselves to performance enhancing drugs, it's so easy to undo your voice or get the clitoral enlargement. Yeah. And that's in many cases irreversible, unfortunately. And that's the last thing I want is if a woman comes to me and they have these very high aspirations, which require a certain amount of drugs, then I'm guiding them towards this journey of masculinization. And I don't really feel comfortable with that anymore. So I kind of let it go. But I do offer consultation sometimes with women if they're

interested. I recently made a couple videos basically discussing everything that I feel is relatively safe for women to do based on everything that I've learned over the years. But I like to work with guys that are like me. Bodybuilders.

Meatheads is fun. Have you ever worked with any older clients or anybody that's like really considering like the the long game the longevity of it all um i asked this question because i actually just seen a um a former guest on the show uh had tweeted out that he was only going to put on a little bit amount of muscle because he wants to live as long as possible, kind of insinuating that the more muscle you have, the less you're going to be here. So I'm curious if you ever, you know, how much does that come into play

or if you've done any research that can, you know, I guess debunk that thought of the more muscle you have, the less time you'll have. Well, there is some evidence that like a caloric restriction and having a lower body fat levels or body mass in general, because it's less strain on your heart, has been associated with longer life. Now, let's say you turn into 110, right? And at 110 years old, you look back in your life and you realize you have not lived. You have not reached any of the goals that you wanted. You didn't lift any crazy weights.

You didn't look crazy in the mirror, right? You didn't get all this attention. You didn't accomplish anything in the fitness industry. It sounds like a very boring life to me. So I would rather live a little bit shorter with a little bit more muscle and a little bit more experience and, and, and some recognition and being able to transfer some of my knowledge to other people and help them in a sense, then do everything correctly, preventatively, and then sit on my porch at the age of 110, um, full with regrets of things that I didn't do. So, but that's just me. full with regrets of things that I didn't do. But that's just me.

So I would rather have a little bit of gains, man, and enjoy myself and take the good with the bad. And now I went through this bad period to get myself healthy, but I got myself healthy. And now I feel that I'm ready to pursue that journey again. Will it take years off my life? Probably. But I think at the end, I can say I had a pretty freaking awesome life.

I think something that people don't really tend to think about, especially when it comes to when you see a lot of, I think they're called centurions, just very old individuals who are small and who aren't holding very much muscle. First off, the whole physical culture is still relatively new. When we really think about it, lifting weights consistently over years is still a new thing. People didn't really do this normally in the 30s, 40s, 50s, and even the 60s, right? So I think that we're going to start seeing a lot of individuals who have muscle, who are older, because like, for example, if our body's used to holding this much muscle, and obviously as you get older, you're going to hold less and less, you're going to lose a little bit of muscle here and there. But if you're used to staying physical,

if you're used to working out into older age and your body is used to that, it's holding its correct amount of muscle. I think there should be no issue with living to be very, very old. I just think we haven't seen that much because there aren't that many people who have done stuff like us in recent years. So- Dr. Justin Marchegiani I think the pharmacological stuff is new too. With people having healthy practices and the pharmacological stuff is new too. With people having healthy practices and the pharmacology that we have around, it's just going to be a matter of time before we see people that are... I mean, we're seeing people now in their 50s and extending into their 60s where they're still in really good shape.

It won't be long before we see people in their 60s or 70s and so on. It's just going to keep prolonging i think yeah i mean i look at robbie robinson he's still in pretty good shape um right and he's still going strong i think he has sickle cell anemia so that but it's a genetic issue um but i i see it more frequently you know guys that are in very good physical shape and and perhaps took a little bit of performance enhancing drugs or still took them. I think, like you said, I think it's a matter of time, maybe 30, 40 years from now, when all of us are turning a little bit older and we're somehow able to sustain a decent amount compared to the previous generations. I think we'll see that as we all age. Now, of course, I made some mistakes in my past that might not set me up for the best route in the future,

but maybe the generation that's getting into it now, they can probably make better decisions regarding their pharmacological journey than I did. And then later on, they'll have a better outcome, you know, when they're still jacked at 70. Or maybe there's new drugs to keep them going at that age. The peptide scene is always increasing. when they're still jacked at 70, or maybe there's new drugs to keep them going at that age. Dr. Pompa Kutu compounds coming out that might extend life later on. So hopefully they won't be too expensive that you have to pay your, you have to pay your pension for it. Right. That's a whole anti-aging scene.

It's so expensive, man. It's really, really pricey. When do you think you'll get back on stuff? Tomorrow. Yeah. Listen, I've been training the last two months or something. I feel that I've kind of plateaued. And I know, again, I can increase my calories, but I don't want this

non-alcoholic fatty liver disease to come back. And I don't want to fall into that old lifestyle where I'm just eating and eating and eating and eating and eating. So if my MRI results come back 100% and I talk with my cardiologist, I'm starting 125 milligrams testosterone per week plus 100 milligrams of Primo. So that is not hormone replacement. That's not really a cycle either. So it's basically a baby cycle. And that will be it for as long as I can get results from it because I think the muscle memory will kick in and I should be it for as long as i can get results from it because i think the muscle memory will kick in and i should be able to sustain my blood work pretty well on that on that dose and that will be it for now 125 million testosterone why even bother

yeah that's what a lot of people say but listen, my test is like 600 in the morning, right? 600 nanograms per deciliter. And then it kind of tapers off later in the day. So even going on a little bit of test, even if it doesn't raise it much, it will still stay stable. And of course, the primo on top. And if it's not sufficient, I can always increase the dose. I can always go on 250 and 200 primo. the dose i can always go on 250 and 200 primo but the last time i ran 250 tests and 200 primo plus growth hormone plus insulin i was 115 kilos so that's how much is that 250 pounds 255 pounds and i i have no desire to be 255 again so yeah. I'd rather be like

225 lean. Maybe 210 even. So I don't think I need that much to get there. I just need to be lean and then do my daily cardio. I don't need steroids to do cardio, right? Would growth hormone and insulin do a lot even without

testosterone and primavolin? Yeah. You'd still gain a lot of size probably, right? Yes. Yeah. Like with younger guys that come to me and they don't want to shut down their HPTA but do want a little bit of boost,

there are methods to increase their nutrient partitioning a little bit with some insulin or increase their growth hormone levels a little bit with some insulin or increase their growth hormone levels with exogenous growth hormone, and they get good results. They get good results and they just ride out their endogenous testosterone being 600, 700, 800 nanograms per deciliter. Of course, at one point, they will go back on steroids. And I was running growth hormone for most of the time during the post cycle therapy and

a little bit afterwards and i i used a little bit of insulin here and there during leg day and it makes a huge difference well at least for me some people say it doesn't an individual response or uh diversion tactics i'm always not really sure what it is you know trying to divert people from saying that insulin doesn't work or, you know, it really didn't work. That's the fitness industry. But yeah, there's, you don't always need to go on test if you want to, you know, have some performance enhancing benefits. Awesome having you on the show today. We really, we really appreciate your time. Where can people find you?

today. We really appreciate your time. Where can people find you? They can find me on Vigor Steve YouTube channel, and it's pretty much the same everywhere. So that's on Instagram at Vigor Steve, Vigor Steve.com, Vigor Steve YouTube channel, right on Podbean, it's Vigor Steve on Spotify. They just type in Vigor Steve and I'm sure right on Google and you'll get to me. Thanks so much for having me, guys. It was a pleasure. It's good to talk to you guys about fasting and everything that we talked about. It was my honor to be on the show.

Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate having you on and I appreciate your YouTube channel. I think it's great. I think people that are checking this out today, they should go and investigate and look at the content that you have because you've got great information that could really truly help people and prevent them from kind of hurting themselves with all the different things that people are getting interested in. They're not sure exactly kind of where to start and I think your videos are a great place to start. uh they should definitely check out your content have a great rest of your day yeah i actually i tried to mute myself i muted sorry about that no problem guys thanks so much for having me and i hope to do this again. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you too. See ya.

That was vigorous. It was. Honestly, I think he was... We've had a lot of guests on that are very knowledgeable on that stuff, but I think that he was the most... He didn't just have a lot of knowledge, but he also had a lot of advice

in terms of doing it in the safest way possible. Like the amount of tests that he was suggesting that people need to get, you know, the, all of these things that I personally don't think most people are even close to doing. I think that he gave people the most detailed rundown on if you want to do this, this is what it really does take. And I, I really appreciate that from him. do this this is what it really does take and i i really appreciate that from him yeah i think we should do a full full-on follow-up episode uh regarding what he said but yeah no everything was great um i see why the guy has a big following on youtube he knows his shit i think you know uh there is this like kind of cascade right now of young people you know dabbling in uh There is this like kind of cascade right now of young people, you know, dabbling in taking performance enhancing drugs and stuff. But I do think that the good that will come of it is there are more people talking about it and more people talking about it openly.

And what I'm seeing a trend in is just people talking about much more reasonable dosages. Like I was kidding around with him when he said one hundred twenty five milligrams. much more reasonable dosages. Like I was kidding around with him when he said 125 milligrams, but you know, it wasn't uncommon years ago to, to take, you know, 500 or a thousand milligrams of testosterone a week. I mean, that was just pretty much what a lot of people did. And then on top of that, they were taking other stuff, you know, two or three other compounds and just dumping in tons of stuff. And the problem with that is, I mean, it's problematic in multiple ways, but one of the biggest issues with that is just you're not allowing yourself to even see what a little boost will do. You're just kind of starting out this big bang and you

have no idea like what that's going to do for you. And obviously it'll get stronger, it'll get bigger that way. But anyone who's just kind of starting out or thinking about it, it's like, why not? Like he said, you can always take more if he needs to. But to try to rewind and to try to undo the clock or to try to unring that bell later on is difficult. And for him, he had to come off for a couple months and he had to go through some different things. And those are all things to consider when someone is considering going on stuff.

And I think one of the issues we see with some of the younger folks is they're just not really thinking about it much at all. They're just thinking about the positive gains that they're gonna get. And they're not really considering any of the possible negative things that could happen. And it's just, it's unfortunate because, you know, you really want to have your training in check. You want to have your nutrition in check and you

want to make sure that you're paying attention to your health. You know, I guess it's fair for me to say, even though I started at 25, which is fairly young, you know, I had a long, I had a lot of lifting that was done previously. And I had my nutrition in check. Like I got myself in good shape. I got myself, I figured out how to get myself strong. I figured out how to, you know, make myself a halfway decent athlete. I had to really study and like kind of learn a lot of stuff and I guess almost even earned the right to think, hey, I want to take this to the next level and let me see what that's going to look like. And you might not have to

research and investigate as much because nowadays you can, you can find other resources that have that information. So it's kind of cool. You don't necessarily need to study it day in and day out, but, uh, you can go to different, some different YouTube channels, listen to some different podcasts, gather the information that you need, and then you can make it, uh, a, uh, a smarter decision rather than just kind of like haphazardly jumping into it and then ending up with a bunch of side effects that you've just were totally unaware of. Yeah. And also, you know, he talked about it and we've talked about it in the past, but blood work.

And, you know, again, just to bring them back up because they did sponsor today's episode, but Merrick health, you know, this is going to be the easiest way for you guys to, you know, if you are going to dabble, you know, this is going to help make sure that you have your markers in line to really know exactly where you stand. Links to Merrick down below, but yeah, it's just merrickhealth.com slash power project for the bundle that's going to cover everything that you're going to need. And, and again, promo code power project,

uh, to take the, uh, $500 price tag down to three 99. Hmm. And all you little teens out there who are thinking that you only, you know, develop your peak physique after three to five years of training.

Yeah, no, you don't. So take that, keep training. It pisses me off, man. You know, you, you you do um stan and i talked about this quite a bit before i've talked with many other people like you do kind of get most of what you're gonna get

um kind of early you know three in a three to five year pocket you know but that doesn't but yeah but but it doesn't mean that like anything stops. It actually, what also happens is you actually acquire a lot more knowledge in that time period and you can start to make gains later on. And you can also make, there's different kinds of, of gains that you can make because like it's never ending. Like there's more plates all the time. There's always, there's always more reps that can be done. There's always more sets that can be done. And as you start to train longer, you know, we'll always be interested in bench squat deadlift, but you'll always be,

you'll always have interest in different things within strength, you know, dragging the sled, doing walking lunges, doing the bottoms up kettlebell things that you're doing. And you're always going to find like new and different ways to, to challenge yourself. So you can make progress literally forever. I mean, I just did some deadlifts the other day, but I did a deadlift that I haven't done in years. And I did like 10 sets of five or six reps on a reverse band deadlift. To me, that was like progress just because I have

not done that particular exercise in forever. So it's like a, you know, it's a, you have different PRs at different points in your life and different at different body weights at different leanness. You know, you can kind of compare your lifting now to when you were mainly just concentrating on powerlifting. And you can compare that to mainly when you were just bodybuilding. And they're all different because now you're a jiu-jitsu practitioner. That's your main focus. And if you go in the gym and you were to deadlift 735 or something, you could say that's a PR for now at this body weight,

because you, before that you were two 70 or whatever, and you were competing in powerlifting. So there's, there's different, they're all different, but there's still, still progress. You could still make a lot of progress as you keep going. Absolutely. It makes no sense. And there's so, yeah, there's so many different ways you can make progress, different body weights. You could be a certain strength at a certain body fat percentage. Like I look at that a lot too. Like, like, have I ever been this lean and strong before? Nope.

Like that is a PR, you know, the last, like I was this strong when I was a higher body fat percentage. So it makes sense. After you guys are done, I want to brag about our podcast real quick. Cause I just pulled up some rankings and I have some pretty insane shit to mention. It's kind of wild going on. All right. you talking about this is pretty sick i i went to our apple podcast chart rankings on chartable and the united states of america in terms of fitness were number eight as far as all this podcast but hey check out check this out this is wild

that's number eight or you guys in there too i'm like number 40 and andrew's number 26 oh but um yeah you're number eight you're number eight, you're number eight. But this is, this is some stuff that I didn't realize. Like, first off, we're listened to all over the fucking world, but in China we're number seven as far as fitness and a wait up, there's, there's, there's more, like there's a lot of other really dope rankings, but we are the number one fitness podcast in Finland. We are the number one fitness podcast in romania we are the number one overall podcast actually we're the number one health and fitness and fitness podcast in the fucking cayman islands and as far as all the podcasts in the cayman islands all podcasts in the cayman islands we're

number 19 we're also like really high ranked in a bunch of other countries but i was just like what the fuck is going on the the Cayman Islands? Also, Papua New Guinea, we're number one in terms of fitness. So we're really high in other countries. None of it surprises me. It's all very deliberate. That's why we have so much ethnicity going on in the show.

Do you think we can go on tour to the Cayman Islands? Maybe. Somebody will know us there. Oh my God, it's a power project. somebody will know us there oh my god it's a power project we're number 12 in Canada in terms of fitness but yeah we have a lot of really high rankings we can't walk down the street

in Cayman Islands alright I gotta poop okay well alright well let's get out of here that was awesome. Thanks for those in SEMA. And thank you everybody for that has been able to rate, review the podcast. Um,

if you downloaded the episode, if you've written a review, um, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. And it's, it's a free way for you guys to say thank you. If you feel inclined to do so for any of the podcasts that we've done.

Um, yeah, just iTunes, um, rate review. I believe it's going to be've done. Yeah, just iTunes, rate, review. I believe it's going to be down in the podcast show notes as well as the YouTube description. There's going to be a link for you guys to be able to rate and review. And again, shout out to Merrick Health for sponsoring today's episode.

MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject, promo code PowerProject at checkout on the PowerProject bundle. That'll save you $101. Please make sure you find the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter. My Instagram and Twitter is at I am Andrew Z at the Andrew Z on Tik TOK and see where you at. And see my in Yang on Instagram and YouTube.

I didn't see my yin Yang on Tik TOK and Twitter. Mark show today, guys. Strength is never a weakness. I'm at Mark's Millie Bell. Catch you guys later. Bye.