Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Mind Muscle with Simon de Veer
Listening to Your Body, Plant-Based Paradoxes, and Navigating Protein Truths
Ever wondered how a simple Sunday workout could turn into a lesson about listening to your body? Join me, Simon DeVere, as I share a personal tale of an upper back injury that underscores the importance of tuning into physical warning signs. We'll explore a study on plant-based ultra-processed foods and their surprising impact on cardiovascular health compared to non-ultra-processed plant-based diets. This episode also cuts through the noise of current protein consumption trends, offering a clear, step-by-step guide to determine your protein needs without falling for fads.
Navigating the complexities of weight fluctuations, we'll discuss how creatine and carbohydrate intake can influence those pesky scale readings. I'll share insights on recognizing when to ease up on workouts to prevent injuries and emphasize the importance of good nutrition for recovery. Through personal anecdotes and scientific studies, we'll also delve into the benefits and challenges of sourcing proteins, especially under dietary restrictions, and how to strike the right balance of macronutrients to meet your health goals.
The conversation takes a serious turn as we address the rising use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) facilitated by social media. We'll look at the stark differences between responsible, well-monitored usage by top athletes and the reckless use by the general public, particularly young men misled by influencers. I'll reflect on the importance of transparency within the fitness community and urge for parental involvement to guide impressionable youth. Tune in to understand the critical connection between mind and muscle, encapsulated in our mantra: "There are no gains without brains.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast. Here's your host, simon DeVere, and welcome back to Mind Muscle, the place where we study the history, science and philosophy Find everything in health and fitness. Today, I am Simon Devere and there is nothing new except all that has been forgotten. All right, so, yeah, I just want to run down quickly. We're going to get into today a little bit of self-criticism right out of the gate. That's where I want to start.
Speaker 1:I saw a cool study on plant-based ultra-processed foods Good one that I think we should touch on, Noticing that protein is becoming a bit of a fad. I want to have some comments not only on that, but how to actually source the right level. I'm going to give you guys a quick, easy, step-by-step process to figure out your protein requirements, to kind of sift through the fad. Protein's important. So, yeah, I don't want the waters muddied on something that's pretty easy, pretty clear. I see it jumping the shark, so let's nip that in the bud. And then, yeah, last one, I actually caught an article in the Guardian natty or not, actually about kind of how much more common PED use is becoming with the internet. So I'll recap a little bit of that and have just some comments and thoughts on why I think that's an issue. But yeah, no, no, the first place to start. I'm actually coming to you guys from the tall kneeling position right now. It's a good spot to work on some hip stability. I can do some good hip hinging drills from there, but that's not the reason I'm here. Yeah, so it's funny because I think I started one of these episodes recently talking about a Sunday workout gone wrong. I guess this is going to be part two of that, because, for completely different reasons, I had a Sunday workout lead to an injury. So upper back is not feeling great sitting in the chair. It's been getting progressively better throughout the week. So, yeah, happy to report that a lot of the mobility drills that I tell my clients to do all the time are doing a great job helping my upper back come back around. But yeah, anyway, I wake up Sunday morning and I've already confessed I really like that to be a big workout.
Speaker 1:Morning. Did wake up, though, with just what I call bed injuries. Sometimes, depending on your sleep position, you might wake up with a hip that's impinged. Um, in my case it was kind of neck and shoulder. Um drank my coffee and I kind of had that thought that that I could kind of, you know, warm up and go stretch and go slow about the morning. There was no time restriction. I could just get to it, you know, when my body felt good. But, um, yeah, I said, fuck all that, let's do it right now. Um, went outside, uh, had a good workout in the sense that I hit all the numbers you know of the day, the, the program was intact. But then when I got done, I realized that my back was tightening up and so, yeah, no, no, pop, no, no moment that I could point to, but body just wasn't ready for it. So, all that just to set up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wound up, getting my, my neck completely restricted where I couldn't, couldn't look to the right, no fun being on the 405 when you can't turn your neck, being on the 405 when you can't turn your neck, but yeah, so anyway, it's been a frustrating training week from the standpoint of. It's just been nothing but rest and rehab, kind of nothing I can do but eat well and do mobility drills. But no, it's going okay, things are getting better and yeah, so I know tons of other people deal with this stuff all the time. So just, these are kind of the mantras of things I've been saying to keep myself going is that, yeah, since I can't train and I actually like training I just remind myself that my eating, that that, basically, is my training. So I just I hang my hat and I take pride in eating well. Food still tastes great, if you know. Take the time to prep it up and do what you need to do. But that's where I'm putting my pride and hanging my hat, not on the workouts. I'm making sure to just get in good, tasty, healthy food, that that allows me to kind of scratch the itch, to feel like I'm doing something.
Speaker 1:But no, it's doubly important because for my body to recover, I obviously need all of the right nutrients to make that recovery happen as efficiently as possible. I really don't need any extra inflammation, so I don't need to be. You know obviously you guys know you've listened to the show for a while that I'm not dogmatically against sugar, like I think the current paradigm is, but like this would be an obvious time when I'm not going to be having, you know, added sugars, that that's normally something that I would put after my workout. So, yeah, I don't have that. You know, propensity to process a little better and I don't need the extra inflammation that comes with just sitting around and eating added sugars. Um, so yeah, it's annoying on one front, but I can say that, you know, focusing on nutrition does work. Um, obviously.
Speaker 1:But I also recently mentioned how I've been doing this logging practice of just logging my bad food choices. So I was doing that ahead of the injury I'd kind of already removed most of my bad choices. I'd really gotten it down from being multiple bad choices in a day to maybe one or no bad choices in a day. So yeah, with literally no goal of weight loss, I've been training for strength and just eating like an adult, as I tell myself to. Yeah, that was actually just down five pounds on the scale without even intending weight loss. So just a little proof of concept that even when you can't train hard, you can actually make gains quote unquote you know, just in the kitchen, just with some intelligent planning. It has not been like a Spartan existence. I'm not even to the point of logging calories. Just removing obvious bad things I was doing is already making measurable results.
Speaker 1:And then actually, just while we're on this, I going to open up a couple other cans of worms, but briefly mentioned nutrients that are good for recovery. One of those, um is creatine, and we probably should do a full, deep dive on just creatine soon. But uh, creatine is going to be great, not only for muscle and performance, um, it's also actually going to help you recover from injuries faster. So fortunately I'd already been on the creatine for the strength portion of the program, so I've continued that, even though I'm not training, that's something that's going to be able to help me recover a little bit quicker. But that even just made the weight loss thing a little bit more interesting, because one of the side effects of taking creatine is actually pulling water into the muscle fiber. As that occurs, you typically gain weight.
Speaker 1:So seeing the scale come down while my body is holding water because of the creatine that I'm taking is even more interesting. It's certainly not miraculous. So the five pounds down to be honest, what we're probably seeing on the scale has mostly to do with fluid retention. Carbohydrates also cause you to store water. So when I was eating more of the treats and things, it would be expected that my body would be retaining water. By simply dropping that. Um, I have just merely probably shed some water, just didn't want to, like you know, put the idea out there that, like, I lost five pounds of actual body mass, um, through that. That's highly unlikely. What it's probably more likely to be going on is that my, my fluids are changing with, uh, getting out the the bad foods, um, but obviously that's going to help me again in the context of the injury, because that's that's not the type of inflammation that I'm going to need or that's going to help me. But, yeah, no.
Speaker 1:Last one that I will say just on this whole topic, though. It's really annoying because I woke up, knew my body was not feeling 100%. I'm a little bit type A and I want to get the workout done. So something I have to remind myself in that mindset is actually that that costs you more than you gain. Had I just gone a little bit slower that day but a little bit more flexible with when that could have come in, this entire injury could have been avoided. And how many training days has it been now?
Speaker 1:That was Sunday, yeah, so minus three workouts for me on that choice to really push it on Sunday. So, yeah, we're going to have to add this one into the algorithm and refine, iterate, but I admit to being a work in progress and sometimes you have to be honest and self-critical. So, yeah, there we go. Don't think it was great. Uh, you know, feeling like I had to push through some obvious signs that you know needed addressing. So, anyway, any any type a guys, girls out there, um, you know, be forgiving with yourself every now and again, uh, it might actually just cost you more sessions. That's the part that I think we can all connect to if we're wired that way. But, uh, yeah. So study that I saw in the last week want to switch gears.
Speaker 1:This was a cool one. So it was, um, a study that was actually controlling for a plant-based ultra-processed food diet versus a non-ultra-processed food plant-based diet. And you know, I'll admit this up front. I guess the reason I'm choosing to highlight this is this was proof of something that a lot of us had hypothesized for a long time. Definitely not alone in this, but anyway, without teasing it anymore, the results were basically that the plant-based ultra-processed food diet had none of the benefits of the non-ultra-processed plant-based diet. So, in more plain English, that's going to be like when you walk into the freezer aisle and there are those processed meat like products, when you go down the center aisles of the grocery stores and you see things like maybe you know, I don't know fried things in oil that that say plant based on the package, but all of those processed foods that you see in the store that are, you know, touting their plant-based credentials.
Speaker 1:So you know, study was done, two groups one was getting the ultra-processed plant-based foods. The other group was actually eating plants, as I would say, but for the sake of the study, this was a non-UPF plant-based diet group. And so let's see, I jotted down our results. So, first, in our so for every 10 percentage points increase in plant-sourced, non-upf consumption what Simonon calls plants that was associated with a seven percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease and a 13 percent lower risk of cardiovascular mortality. So, conversely, if we went to the plant-sourced upf that's what simon usually calls food-like products in the center aisles of the grocery stores, so the food-like products that have plant-based written on the package that diet, was actually associated with a 5% increase in cardiovascular disease and a 12% increase in cardiovascular mortality risk.
Speaker 1:So anyway, I just found this interesting because there are going to be a lot of people who are rightly going to be migrating towards eating more plant-based diets with the goal of reducing risk of cardiovascular disease or mortality risk exactly what they were looking at in this particular study. I think that's a big driver and if you are achieving that with processed foods, you actually may be achieving the opposite. I've already seen like the headline people doing what they do with this study, so obviously many people out there have priors on these issues. One that you may see is people saying that plant-based foods are bad for your heart health. They're going to not make that distinction between the ultra-processed food group that was used and the non-ultra ultra processed group that actually showed positive benefits. So anyway, if you do see any of those headlines, just you can kind of file away that. That's a source with an agenda, um, and but yeah so. So I think actually the the tldr too long didn't read that.
Speaker 1:The takeaway is that processed foods are bad for your health, even the ones that have health claims printed on the package, even if that health claim is on trend with other valid claims. Uh, in the health and nutrition sphere, processed foods are bad for your health. This is exhibit 1 million, um, but yeah, so, even if, if you are and this was just, I had no proof of this for a long time I have a number of clients that were talking about going plant-based. Whenever we had that discussion, my reminder was always this, and it was just quite simply that there's two ways you can go plant-based. You can do it in the central aisles of the grocery store. You can do it on the perimeter and at the farmer's markets, and I think the latter is the right way to go plant-based.
Speaker 1:You don't need to get a processed meat like patty to get plant-based protein. Chia seeds exist I love those in my oats, frankly, a pretty easy way that you can get some protein up. Black beans, lentils, chickpeas all of these things exist and I think are superior options to the processed options that have definitely dominated the conversation and and kind of quickly do wind up. You know filling up space in people's carts and refrigerators and and I don't actually think they deserve that space source. You know the real foods and and you'll get better results. No matter what diet you're, you're on, um, same holds true for, uh, meat eating as well.
Speaker 1:Obviously, processed meats are significantly worse, um than they're unprocessed, and that that's a whole separate discussion. But again, the common principle I think that that's been demonstrated again and again processed foods are not good If you have the option to get a less processed version of the same food, it's almost always going to be a good idea. But, yeah, one more study to just kind of proving that point. Next thing I want to discuss, though, is kind of piggybacking on the same idea, because, in a sense, this is another fad that I see in the grocery store, similar to plant-based, and what plant-based and this fad share is that they're both actually good things at their heart that that are now being sort of, you know, sucked up by this, this marketing apparatus, and the water's getting muddied, and people are just executing good ideas poorly, if you will. So, anyway, all that we're going to go from plant based over to protein.
Speaker 1:Protein is not a fad in the sense. It's just a macronutrient and it's super important, but it seems like people are really trying to make it one. At first, it was cool, because there was one time well, it was cool to see people embracing it, because there was one time like when I first started drinking protein shakes people would always tell me that it was going to turn into fat, and I needed to be careful with that. So we've come a long way. That's certainly worth celebrating.
Speaker 1:At the same time, there's a lot of silly things out there, particularly in your grocery stores, but even just ideas that I'm seeing float around. But yeah, no, the grocery store is wild. You walk around and there's, you know, the protein balls, the protein shakes, the bars. We've always had that. But now there's protein noodles, bagels, cookies, even coffee. Literally nothing is safe Next time you walk. You know, just look and see how many products right now are proclaiming, uh, protein, uh, even foods that are already rich in protein cheeses, yogurts, they they come up with, you know, extra souped up varieties. Uh, you know, choppers just really can't get enough protein, apparently, um, and yeah, actually, just, just, you know, before I discuss the, the reason I even just sort of struggle framing this as a fat is because, again, protein is really important.
Speaker 1:Uh, let's just do a quick history. Um, we have three basic macronutrients protein, carbohydrates and fat. So obviously protein is one of them. You could argue it's the most important because technically, you can live without carbohydrates. We've talked about that. I think the carnivores and the ketos and the low carb people really like that fact. They like that fact more than a lot of other facts that they don't like to talk about too, facts that they don't like to talk about too. Um, but yeah, protein is also the only macronutrient containing nitrogen. It's probably another fact that they like, um, and so you. So you literally can't have growth or reproduction without it.
Speaker 1:We've got the amino acids that we get, you know, from, from food, the essential amino acids, that that without them, no healthy hair, no nails, no bones, no muscles, no immune system. Protose this is the Latin, you know root it actually, you know it essentially, you know, derives from the idea that, like, protein is like the one or or the most important or the least common denominator. This was actually just a little bit of luck when they were naming it in the 19th century, because it they didn't know that at the time, but, but it is. The amino acids are present in all life, so they got kind of lucky with the name protein. But again I wanted to back up and say that protein is really important, and I think that's again how it's kind of become a fad, because that's the half truth that it is really valuable, and so saying that on face value, that protein is beneficial isn't surprising.
Speaker 1:What makes it surprising is that in the country I live in, it really isn't a problem that people are deficient in protein. There's a lot more pressing issues than people running around not getting enough protein. The biggest issue here is people eating too much food period. Um, not that we are deficient in anything, it's, um, just drastically misunderstanding the problem that we have in, you know, western countries. As long as that term is fine, so if you, at you, at least know who the hell I'm talking about, the term worked. But also, fats and carbs have, frankly, just been destroyed, and protein is kind of all that's left.
Speaker 1:We only got three macronutrients, and fats and carbs in recent memory have each had their turn being made to seem toxic in the public sphere. You go back to the 90s, when people were told to cut fat. The truth is, most people just started eating a whole bunch more sugar and salty snacks with low fat printed on them. They went into the same center aisles of the grocery store I'm saying not to shop today and bought the products that had the health claims of the day on them. Um, you know, people weren't jumping into these high carb diets that were based on whole grains and lentils. That never happened. Um, so when people got fatter from low fat, even though they actually never took on healthy, high carbohydrate diets. Low carb took hold and then people got scared of carbohydrates. Um, even though they actually never took on healthy, high-carbohydrate diets. Low-carb took hold and then people got scared of carbohydrates.
Speaker 1:No-transcript. Pollan got it from marian nestle. That's um. Yeah, michael pollan just made it popular. Marian nestle wrote it first.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, so what nutritionism basically pushes is this idea that the value of food can be reduced down to the sum of its measurable parts. Um, what this ultimately leads to is, you know, fixation on vitamins, nutrients. Um, in this context, we are talking about macronutrients. Macronutrient fixation has been an absolute disaster for public health, just as any manifestation of nutritionism as it gets deployed through food marketing has similarly been a disaster for health. This is why we have this cycle of food fads. It's to simply increase the number of food products and drive sales. Every single iteration of this, that's actually been the goal.
Speaker 1:For decades now, the food industry has gotten people to adopt this tendency of thinking about all the food that they eat and drink of terms of nutrients, rather than whole foods, whole ingredients, their whole complexity. In that context, every diet fad that we've been shouting down is a marketing campaign that is veiled and disguised as a scientific breakthrough in this nutrition paradigm. As we saw, it didn't matter whether we focused on low fat or low carbs or high protein. We wind up making the same old mistakes, no matter what form or thing is popular at any given time. If you keep engaging the processed foods, like we just discussed, that can even turn a plant-based diet, which should be good, into something that isn't so.
Speaker 1:Again, the main story that I want to highlight here in in protein becoming a fad is, to me, this is literally just the latest iteration of nutritionism, driving a trend that allows the perpetrators of our public health crisis to actually make even more money. Perpetuating yet again. Not another cure. Even more money perpetuating yet again not another cure Again. Even think, like we were just talking a second ago about some of the good plant-based protein sources that I actually like, and I just mentioned beans and lentils but now beans and lentils also have a significant amount of carbohydrates, and I've actually seen this become a really big block for people when they're trying to put together diets. If they've been in a certain diet camp in the past, a bean might be a carb to them bright, there's carbohydrates in there, but again, this is the problem when we start thinking in terms of macronutrients, nutrients, any of that is that you start labeling and you really do lose the nuance, complexity and the context of foods. You know, one other challenge that's actually quite easy to address if you can understand the context of foods or the plant based diet you know gets back again to the protein, where we're talking about protein here as well, but not all of this is something that's easier.
Speaker 1:Sourcing proteins from meat is that you have the full amino acid spectrum available If you have that option open to you. If you don't, now you have to start blending. But this is where now you need to understand context. One one blend that works really great to get a full amino acid spectrum would simply be pea and rice. But again, if you're doing your macronutrient focus and you have been told to avoid carbohydrates, you're actually going to have to now exclude one of the best pairings of plant-based proteins. And then peas are also not paleo consistent because that's Neolithic. I remember when I was down in that rabbit hole. So again, you buy into any one of these ideas and now what actually is a really great way to get a really solid plant-based protein becomes forbidden to you. I think a lot of other people would have a hard time with you know, if they were being really following their diets. Black beans and corn that's another way that you can also get a full amino acid spectrum from you know. Plant-based pairing Both of those, you know, depending on a lot of diets, are, you know, forbidden, and again, I think most people think of them as carbs. You know, forbidden, and again I think most people think of them as carbs. It might not occur to them that actually pairing them together could get you a full amino acid spectrum. So again, it really is simplistic and reductive to think about foods in the way that the food marketers try to get us thinking about them.
Speaker 1:So, all that being said, protein is important. A lot of people are worried. If they are getting enough, you probably are. But no, I'll stop with the jokes, but I actually want to tell you guys a step-by-step way to really figure out how much protein you actually need. The joke, by the way, was just that, again, in the Western world, everybody's getting enough protein. It's not really an issue. So that's why I was just saying if you're worried about getting enough, you probably are. That's something only people that are doing pretty well, are worried about. So the answer is almost always yes if you are worried about it. But I can do better than that, and I can also admit that having enough quote unquote protein in your diet isn't the same as having the optimal amount of protein in your diet for either your health or training goals. Obviously, I'm more qualified to talk the training side of it. So, from my standpoint, protein consumption is tied to your body mass and your activity level.
Speaker 1:Two things. So our step-by-step process. Step one weigh yourself, so you get on the scale. You've got a number. Great, step one done. Step two get your activity level modifier. So your protein requirement is going to be based, after your body weight, on how much activity you're getting.
Speaker 1:We could be more complex, but I really wanted to make this simple today, so I'm not even going to justify these numbers. I'm just going to tell you if you're doing no training, 0.4,. That's your multiplier. If you're doing some light training 0.6. If you're doing hard training, 1. For the sake of people who like detail, extremely hard training may require more, but the people who require more than one gram really rare. I don't think that we need to address that today.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, step three. Take that number from the scale, take your activity level modifier, multiply them. That is your daily protein requirement for you. That's the best number for you to work from, an optional step you can do after that. If we need to add a fourth step, you can divide that by the number of meals that you like eating in a day and boom, there's how much protein you should have or shoot for each meal. This is really easy to do and I think this is just kind of the best way for people to figure out what their protein needs are. Um, we can actually do the exact same thing with what your caloric needs are.
Speaker 1:So this is actually how you figure out what diet quote unquote you should be on is think about your goals. You know, take your some measurements and then we're just basically going to set up. You know, first, first thing we set up is your protein requirement. So, and if you really like planning this stuff out, then obviously now you just take your protein requirement, multiply that by four. That tells you how many calories are going to be coming from protein every day, and then that number is going to be lower than the number of calories that you can be eating in the total day, the total number of calories you can have in a day. Let me see if I can say that cleaner, because that just seemed. Obviously the calories that you need from protein are going to be less than the total everything you eat. So figure out the calories that you have coming from protein, subtract that from your total calories and that's kind of what you have to play with carbs and fat, contrary to most fitness influencers, it really doesn't matter as much as people tell you what that ratio is. It's really important that you have your protein needs down and then what that split that's left over between protein and fat or, sorry, um, between fat and carbohydrates, that is also going to, you know, slightly be an individualized choice. But but this idea that it's always best to be low carb or it's always best to be, um, you know, any macro set, is just flat out not true. It's gonna again be way better for you to run this yourself, individualize your goals, instead of taking cookie cutter diets from other people.
Speaker 1:The only thing that not the only thing we're all humans, but the main principle that overlaps for every single person really is the part we focused on and spent the most time on is the protein requirement, figure out your protein requirements. What happens with the carbs and the fat? Obviously we're doing in the leftover calories, but it is nowhere near as important, um, and I can't speak as broadly on it as I can. The protein requirement, um, but yeah, I do think that people think that ratio and how much we're putting in from fats or carbohydrates is way more important than it is. Um, and again, what I mean by that is I. In that vein, I, I've pretty much seen everything work and yeah, so it's, it's. It really is hard for me to be dogmatic and argue very hard for anyone approach when you get the protein right and you get people dialed in with their calories. Now we're kind of down to psychology, and which one is easiest in your mind to maintain and stay consistent on and that's the one that wins. And there's so many factors that influence that that I that I can't really tell you which one it's going to be. That that's, that's your part, um, but anyway, guys, that's it on protein, I think it's going to be really easy to figure out your, your ideal level all on your own. See yourself out of the fad. Protein is important. Just hop on the scale, multiply that by your activity monitor. There you go, that's all you need to do. That's how much protein you need each day.
Speaker 1:So last one I want to touch on today there was a good piece that ran in the Guardian. It was titled Natty or Not. The main thing that I learned from it was just kind of how PEDs are getting out there today. And you know, like so many things in the world, this is changing with the internet. When I was coming up, it was actually kind of hard not real hard, but you at least had to like know a guy at a gym when I first came to LA there was like this bouncer that was offering it to me and didn't go down that rabbit hole at that time. Probably jump into that decision later.
Speaker 1:But the point in this was basically that how people get access to steroids is really changing. It used to be in the back of the gym or you know that, that one tough guy that you knew. Um with internet access, now there are countless places that people are able to get um any number of different peds, also way more available um, and from basically any major social media platform. Um, you can do it in less than 20 minutes on Instagram, tiktok, any one of them. If you want to get Tren D-Ball Sarms and they're actually not, even I didn't buy any, but these aren't sketchy vendors necessarily You'll typically get directed from a public platform page like over to a discord channel or something. A lot of times you can see that there are thousands of reviews. It really is, you know, drug dealing in plain sight, um, and you know, since I seem to be throwing out some accusations or check it out for yourself, cause it really is, it's just, um, people are just openly selling them, um, in ways that, uh, yeah, it just.
Speaker 1:If you were used to an older gym culture, it might be shocking, um, just to see how open it has become. And you know, I think I've spoken on this. I'm not even dogmatically against it, it's just it's grown quite a lot. So the other thing I found interesting and this was coming from the Guardian piece, and then I want to get into my thoughts so the main group who is getting into it is mostly young men.
Speaker 1:Obviously, steroids have had a relatively and PEDs steroids is too pointlessly limiting. So let's just say PEDs Steroids are like the testosterone-affiliated precursors and PED is a much broader branch and we're talking about PEDs, but yeah, so it used to just be restricted to like athletes and bodybuilders, people that were very, very serious about training. What we're seeing now is that it's actually getting into a much more recreational athlete, if you will. They tend to be younger and, admittedly, they tend to be men. For women, interest in PEDs is still pretty much restricted to the dedicated athletes and bodybuilders. With this rise on the internet, we're seeing it really is mostly young men, and so this is kind of where I want to get into my thoughts on this.
Speaker 1:I have seen some of the content that's out there now and there's a set of influencers that are really open and honest about their use of PEDs and I do like that and the transparency I think is really important. But I admit now I do think that there is a flip side to this and I think a lot of these things are just getting normalized to where, again, I appreciate all the people that are honest and transparent. But my issue again I guess just gets back to when you just look at who's buying this stuff. One of the strongest defenses that I have heard from intelligent people that are using PEDs is how you can monitor things and, with the right testing. If you do this, you can do that, and so I get that how, in the proper context and with the proper monitoring and the proper blood work, how many of the negative factors can be mitigated or handled?
Speaker 1:I think that case has been made by some of the people who've used them intelligently. I think that's insanely naive to think that's how real people are using it. That's how the top athletes in the world with all the resources to have it done correctly are using it, and then a handful of other people who have those resources it, and then a handful of other people who have those resources. But when we're talking about this group that's hopping on to TikTok and getting some SARMs, I highly doubt that they're doing all the right things that you have to do whenever you put in a substance like that and none of the intelligent people that I've heard talking about using PEDs I don't think any of them would say it's easy or intuitive or that for best results, you don't need to be doing the blood work and you don't need to be following up. So, yeah, I understand that, in the right context, that they actually can be used and that I'm interested for us to continue developing our knowledge in that field, but I really don't think having a bunch of guys on Instagram and TikTok who are in their 20s jumping on to Trendalone and SARMs is advancing the type of knowledge that I'm just striving to learn from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my own mind is actually still relatively open to PEDs. I personally haven't taken them and that reason, again, did just come from the fact that, just like I was mentioning, I kind of understand that you have to run a lot of tests and you have to do a lot of things in perpetuity. The time I got introduced to it, I felt like I was too young to be doing that for the rest of my life. But yeah, I am well aware that you can manage you know the issues with a little of this and a little of that and yeah, I just didn't want to start doing that at that age. You know, who knows? Maybe you know and I think I've been pretty transparent about this, I don't know, you know maybe at some point later in the future I might take testosterone or growth hormone or something. I don't know. I'm not there, but I admittedly haven't crossed that bridge and part of why I haven't crossed that bridge was, again, that just the cost and time testing all of that and maintaining that, had I started when it was offered to me at 23,. I'm coming up on 40 now, so that would be coming up on 17 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everybody makes choices in their life. I'm happy to have a stock portfolio. I'm happy to have some of the other things that I've built in life. I'm fine with that choice. Who knows, maybe one day I'll make a different one.
Speaker 1:But even aside from just that, obviously there are just some of the common side effects and I actually feel like at least the intelligent people that I see in the PED world, I feel like they're a little bit sensitive around this because they keep highlighting the fact that, oh, if you're smart and you do this, got it. Most people aren't. Thickening of blood can totally happen. Stressing of the heart you can get fatty breast tissue, decrease your testicle size, you can reduce your sperm count. You can have hormonal issues when you aren't doing everything correctly, which there's a great chance of people doing. All of those things are common issues and again, in the pro-PED world, I do feel like, admittedly, because they get a little bit sensitive about that and we are just trying to have an open and honest discussion. Those are issues.
Speaker 1:There was a study that I was actually looking over for this that just got into the health consequences of androgenic anabolic steroid use, and you do have an increased risk of dying. Anybody who's followed pro wrestling has probably noticed that a lot of your favorite wrestlers tend to die early. This certainly isn't proof, but just more to the point, if you go around the world, one of the areas that's the hardest on steroids is Scandinavian countries, and the justification is because they have socialized medicine and their determination was that caring for the long-term effects of steroid users was too expensive. So I know this is questionable, but I was reading that actually, if you're too buff in Sweden, they can actually stop you and force you to submit to a drug test. Anyway, I read some pretty valid stuff on that, but somebody fact checked me because that one kind of sounds crazy. But yeah, I do know the part about Scandinavian countries in general are the hardest because of healthcare costs. That one is not a potential internet rumor, but fact check me on everything I actually like that. And then, yeah, one I didn't even know if I was going to touch on this, but I do kind of feel like I should.
Speaker 1:The other reality with a lot of PEDs and anabolic steroids, but it's that they're technically illegal and if you take them you are assuming that risk. Simon Devere doesn't think that they should be illegal. But if anything should happen to you, that's not going to help you at all and I had an experience in my life where someone else's behavior did that to me and I can tell you, nobody's thoughts or feelings can really help you when you're locked in a cage. And that is actually another result of using any PEDs or anabolic steroids. And so, yes, in the philosophical discussion of should they be legal, I'm on your side. But if you get some sent to your house and something should happen and they lock you up, my character testimony is not going to affect the sentencing decision. So, yeah, that to me is just another obvious risk that I would have to throw out there to any young man who was thinking that this was something that was normal, easy or not a big risk.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you really do understand all of the risks that you're taking on board, and Simon isn't looking down on you in any ethical or moral way. That doesn't have anything to do with what I'm thinking about, but I just don't think that particularly young men should be taking this decision as lightly as it seems that that many are, and I have compassion for these guys because I, I was one um many years ago. Yeah, I, I was a young man and, yeah, working out is a generally healthy activity, but there is just an absolutely stunning amount of online culture surrounding it that is anything but um. This, I think, affects every single group, but, again, it was my childhood experience of being a young man. Um, I am sensitive and receptive to the things that um are gonna motivate and what they might gravitate to and how they might uh, you know, make choices around that.
Speaker 1:I'm personally not dogmatically opposed to PEDs in athletes. I completely understand human nature and the nature of competition. Again, what I don't like is when people are promoting products or ideas that don't have value with the results of PEDs. The use of creators that are not transparent about their PED use in the fitness space muddies the water about the best practices, not only around programming but also around supplementation and nutrition. When the default experts become the people that are on drugs, who are not admitting to be on drugs, to being on drugs, rather yeah, or like you, you know, because I'll only name somebody name there is, it's. I actually think it's one of the top channels on youtube now.
Speaker 1:But renaissance periodization the guy there, mike, is a retell. He uses peds and he openly talks about the downsides. He openly talks about, um, the issues. Um, he's going to be one of the people I think who well, one. He's transparent by his own use, but he's most responsible, um, or in that camp of people that I think responsibly for the most part. Uh, talk about peds, um, and I only qualified it.
Speaker 1:Other people might have issues, I don't, um, but then there's a whole different set of influencers who just don't mention the fact that they're on PEDs and they also sell like, like, renaissance Periodizations has a workout app and some programs and things like that. But that's what I mean is if, if you tell the people like I'm on steroids, and then here's the product I'm selling, I don't think that you're a charlatan. Um, I think you're like, being honest about who, who the market for the product is, and so I don't think that you're a charlatan. I think you're being honest about who the market for the product is, and so I don't have an issue. My issue has been taken care of.
Speaker 1:My issue is when an influencer goes out and sells a pre-workout and they're clearly on something way better and more effective than the pre-workout. I don't like it when people sell workout programs and they're clearly using something that would alter their physiology to allow them to do that particular program or get the results that they're getting from it, and then I don't really have any complaints. But I think people use the visibility they can get from marketing themselves as natural with freakish results for being natural, to just push their brands. And again, I don't care. I understand the precarity of modern workers, so go out and get your money, do what you have to do, but if you can do it without misleading other good people that are trying to do the same damn thing you are, that would be great. Yeah, just to sort of sum it up, my issue is that I think you know steroids and PEDs are probably getting pushed into populations that really aren't suited to use them. That really aren't suited to use them. If they were staying within those groups of people, that would be just statistically way more likely to be using them responsibly and they understand the risks and have accepted them out of a context of some larger thing.
Speaker 1:Again, thinking athletes, stuff like that. Sport isn't healthy. They didn't get into sport for health, so I'm never going to tell a football player something like, hey, you know football isn't healthy. Um, I'm pretty sure a lot of athletes are aware of some of the risks they assume and and that changes my, my algorithm when I'm talking about them. But, uh, no, anyway, guys, I am, like I said, still nursing an injury, Happy to be coming back from that. But if you guys are kind of type A like me, don't listen to your body, don't push through. You know when it's screaming at you. Very, very happy to see that study backing me up.
Speaker 1:Plant-based processed foods are still processed foods. Don't buy into that. Also, don't buy into any other of the fads that the nutritionism pushed on us by food marketers. You know, I think I see this right now in the high protein diets, but I certainly saw this in the low carb. I saw this in the low fat. This is just the latest iteration of that. Remember your step by step process to sort out your protein goals for yourself and see yourself out of this fad.
Speaker 1:And yeah, I don't necessarily think the mind muscle audience is trolling TikTok to go get some SARMs or some trend, but yeah, I know certainly a lot of parents and stuff. So I would just say, be conscious. If you have particularly young boys around that age floating around those platforms, pay attention to what they are looking at. And, yeah, if they're honestly interested in getting big, getting strong, that's awesome. Um, just just make sure that you can point them in the right direction, because there's a lot of things out there on those platforms that might make get them making choices, uh, that they might regret years down the line.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, obviously, my, my issue is just if I got any pro-PED out there. I feel real different about athletes and other folks doing it than I do kids floating around on Instagram and TikTok. So, anyway, don't take that as a dogmatic shot across the bow at PEDs. I would love some more controlled studies with you know, really great sample groups and nice controls, all that stuff. I think it's a fascinating issue for more study and it should be done in the right populations. That's it. But anyway, guys, that's all I got for you this week. Remember, mind and muscle are inseparably intertwined. There are no gains without brains. Keep lifting and learning. I'll do the same.
