Fixing Mitochondrial Dysfunction With DJ Vanilla Face (Peptides Deep Dive) OptiCast 21

🎓 ABOUT THIS VIDEO
The conversation delves into the complexities of mitochondrial dysfunction, emphasizing that it is not merely about symptoms like brain fog and fatigue, but rather a systemic issue that can affect various aspects of life. The speakers critique the tendency to blame mitochondria for health problems without addressing underlying lifestyle factors. They advocate for a focus on nutrition, particularly the importance of adequate protein intake and micronutrients, rather than an overemphasis on macronutrient counting.
Mitochondrial dysfunction is a systemic issue, not just fatigue.
Lifestyle choices significantly impact mitochondrial health.
Blaming mitochondria for health issues can be a cop-out.
Adequate protein intake is crucial for overall health.
Micronutrients are often overlooked in health discussions.
People tend to hyper-fixate on macros instead of holistic health.
Lifestyle changes should precede medical interventions.
Blood work should be interpreted in the context of lifestyle.
Nutrition is foundational to addressing health problems.
A balanced approach to diet is essential for well-being.

🏋️‍♂️ WORK WITH ME
Apply for coaching → https://5mcrdf1h3b9.typeform.com/to/T... Schedule a call → https://calendly.com/coachedby-nathan...

📘 FREE RESOURCES
Pillars of Fat Loss → https://drive.google.com/file/d/13mtE...
Elbow Tendinopathy → https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eHbo...

💪 FOLLOW ME
Instagram:   / optimalnathan 

🧠 TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introduction to Peptides and Mitochondrial Dysfunction
00:44 Peptides: When and How to Use Them

mitochondrial dysfunction, lifestyle, health, nutrition, blood work, protein, macros, systemic shutdown

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

My true mitochondrial dysfunction is not just like brain fog and some fatigue, right? It's a systemic shutdown that affects every fucking area of your life. And if it doesn't, it isn't a mitochondrial problem. By definition, I think people just live like these shitty lifestyles and then they blame the mitochondria just like they used to blame carbs, just like they used to blame cholesterol in the past. It's a it's a cop-out, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

And that's why I always tell people start with blood work, start with lifestyle. Eat, eat more protein. I'm not even saying like lose body, fat, count your macros. Get in decent, adequate micronutrients. People are hyper-fixated on their macros. They forget that they actually need other specific nutrients. Focus on those things and lab work.

SPEAKER_05 0:43

This podcast right here is just for instance for game purposes. I am not a medical doctor, not a nutritionist, or a personal trainer. I am barely unqualified for operated toaster. As Ruth Laneware so wisely said, I don't know shit about fuck. So don't trust me, don't listen to me. We're here just for shits and giggles. And if you trust me with health advice, and that's just natural selection at work. Don't do drugs, always listen to your GP. And with that disclaimer out of the way, let's get started. Welcome to another episode of the Opticast with me, Nathan. And me Aubrey, where we show you how to optimize every single aspect of your life without taking years off of it. And today, we have a very, very special guest. You probably know her as Coach or DJ or Vanilla or Face or Coach DJ Vanilla Face altogether. She's a former Marine, a PD coach, hormone nerd, and a TikTok snipper of bad pharmacology, which is what we're going to be talking about today. She is one of the people who is on your feed saying shit like women can run TRT without turning into a dude, and peptides are not steroids, and don't call yourself a peptide goddess just because you use a GOP. And by the way, I love that line. She works with lifestyle clients with serious competitors, and she spends way too much time trying to clean things up after clinics have fucked up you and your health by giving you 10 milligrams of testosterone as a woman. And you know, today is not gonna be a lot of fluffy stuff on peptides are cool and just take this dose and all this type of stuff. If you listen to this and if you pay a lot of attention, here's what we're gonna talk about. You're gonna be able to tell how to tell if your mitochondria is really screwed or if your lifestyle just fucking sucks. Okay. You're gonna understand who actually earns the right to use things like Mod C, SS31, SLUPP332, and who just needs to take a fucking walk, sleep, and eat like an adult. How to treat GLP1s as performance drugs, not diet hacks, and what they actually do to your body once you abuse them, where GHQ copper fits into rear regeneration, not just skincare, and how to use female TRT without accidentally starting gender transition. If you pay attention, you'll walk away with a hard filter for when not to touch a drug yet, a simple way to categorize what each compound actually does, and a rough blueprint for how these phases actually work so that they can enhance your life instead of wrecking it. DJ, we're pumped to have you here. Let's start with everyone's topic where everyone seems to be losing their minds lately. Mitochondrial dysfunction. Nowadays, it just seems like everybody has mitochondrial dysfunction, and the mitochondria is just this fragile thing that if you just forget to do a couple of things, it's just oh, I'm I have brain fog, I have mitochondrial dysfunction. So there's this real that you said something that I like agree with. And I think like everyone thinks that they have mitochondrial dysfunction. And I'm the one to think that that is actually true. I think that most people have some type of dysfunction at a cellular level, but it also seems to me and to you that the issue is actually like what people do with that information. And that's where I want to start before going deep into talking about peppies, right? So can you unpack what the issue actually is? Like someone walks into your office and they say that they have broken mitochondria or whatever the fuck people say. Where do you start before getting into peptides into this conversation?

SPEAKER_03 3:43

I will put them on a scale and I will ask them if they exercise. It would not be a fun conversation, honestly. And I do think you're right. I think there are a lot of people that suffer with some type of dysfunction at a cellular level. But where was the concern with our mitochondria two years ago? Before TikTokers had these discount codes that they could sell these peptides with. Did people have any concern five years ago? So I get the demand for some of these other peptides like GHKCU. Like I get that, because those have always been issues that people are trying to address, improve. But in terms of mitochondrial dysfunction, very few people, it is rare to have true dysfunction. And you're not going to be like, oh, I'm so fatigued today. You're going to be in and out of specialists trying to figure out what's going on with your body, genetic testing. Like that's that's very serious. And again, if we do have some type of dysregulation, which I'm hesitant to even refer to it as that, but maybe you're we're not optimizing it to the best of our ability, usually based on lack of demand. So the people that might not have great mitochondrial efficiency, so to speak, are gonna be the majority of people. And the majority of people are not exercising, eating right, getting inadequate carbs. There's no demand, and they respond to demand. So, like in our realm, most people are not deficient, they're not dysfunctional. Other populations, very much so, which can be completely resolved by exercising.

SPEAKER_05 5:12

Yeah, absolutely. That was a whole spiel. Sorry. No, no, no, no. This is this is what you're here for. So like I I think you're spot on as usual. I think people forget too easily that like mitochondrial dysfunction is not a supplement problem. It's an input and an output problem, like like you described. And it's the same issue that we have in the conversation that we were just, you know, people were having like last year was a big thing on recovery and how we have to focus on recovery. But people are not even training hard enough to actually even warrant these recoveries when people are saying, like, oh, you don't need a deload. I'm like, yeah, you probably don't, because I've seen you train.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Most people don't. I outside of our strength athletes on very structured tiers where they've they've got those six six to eight week platform sets. Yeah. Most people don't need a delo. That's literally why you create a training split that allows for rest.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

Exactly. And I see motherfuckers like they're sleeping five hours a night, and then they take like a thousand steps a day, and then they're scrolling TikTok like they're getting paid to do that, and then they just slam white monsters all day. And I'm like, dude, sure, that causes mitochondrial dysfunction, but that is not what you have. You're just fucking sedentary and you're just running on fumes, right? Like in a in a in in in my world, right? Before we even hear about Mod C or SS31, which is usually like something that I deploy in a priming phase with people, actually, I send people a list of like non-negotiable like foundations, like stuff that they need to nail before we're talking about peptides. And I and this is nothing to do with like me being a dick who thinks that people need to like suffer and like prove themselves first, but it's actually because like without optimizing the terrain, the seed won't grow to its full potential, or it just might not grow at all. It's just gonna fucking die. And the way that it dies is just making you waste your fucking money, you know? And like I I think if people forget that like these tools are for specific like Lamiprotide SS31 has been studied, it's it's one of the longest trials we have, 147 weeks. It's for an actual condition. I had no idea it was that long. Yeah, it is. It's two, two of them. What the other one was like 90 some weeks, it's very well researched. Not not like unlike Mod C or SL uh SLU, right? It's like we have almost fucking it's four studies, right? Or TB500. It's nothing. Like it it it it it seems to me that like the people don't realize that like the the purpose of these things is the same issue that we face with anabolics when people don't understand like why these drugs were created. Like SS31 is for Box syndrome, and then people are using it for mitochondrial dysfunction, and it's like, do you even know what Box syndrome is? Because like, do you did you know that we can measure mitochondrial dysfunction?

SPEAKER_03 7:45

Like we can But to be fair, if you tell people they have to take S31 before MOT C, you double your income on discount codes.

SPEAKER_05 7:54

That's dude, that's something that I intentionally do. I have discount codes for like a couple of companies, but I don't I don't even advertise that shit because I don't it's not something that I'm interested in or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

My dogs are doing a HAL fest right now. Is that coming through the mic? That might be my UPS. It is not my UPS. I have four tiny do you guys know what a Chinese crested is?

SPEAKER_05 8:21

Oh, I know which dog it is.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

The bald dogs. Yeah. My daughter's trying to scoop them all up to quiet them down. They do that once a day and they did it earlier, and I was like, great, they won't do it while I'm on the call.

SPEAKER_05 8:31

I'm sorry. No, no, you're totally fine. But like what I was saying is like we can when you look at the studies for SS-31 on the mice that did not have mitochondrial dysfunction at all, when they took SS-31, they saw no improvement whatsoever. Like nothing changed. And I feel like a lot of people are doing that. First of all, they're doing that because they're wasting these dose. They're take talk about like fucking one milligram of SS31. The the trial was 40 milligrams a day. No one can afford that shit in the first place.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Well, even with MOTC, when we start looking at things are even, and again, this is a lot of this is theoretical and anecdotal because so much is preclinical. But when we do look at the dosages people are utilizing, we're not even close to the realm of efficacy. Exactly. They're literally just lighting money on fire at that point.

SPEAKER_05 9:17

And I I made a reel. I just told people, like, hey guys, have you guys seen the the trials of Saracim? I you guys are wasting your fucking money on GH because you're just using like fucking three IUs. People lost their minds. They're like, you don't need that. That's for people with actual like diseases. We're just trying to grow. And I'm like, you think it's fucking easier to bodybuild? Like, you think building muscle, it's easy. We need less doses for that. Like, are you fucking kidding me right now? But, anyways, not to get too too too too far off topic here. Like you, you uh what you said now, you actually said it in another reel that like my true mitochondrial dysfunction is not just like brain fog and some fatigue, right? It's a systemic shutdown that affects every fucking area of your life. And if it doesn't, it isn't a mitochondrial problem by definition. Why? Because everything starts in the mitochondria. And I think people just live like these shitty lifestyles and then they blame the mitochondria just like they used to blame carbs, just like they used to blame cholesterol in the past, right? So, like it's a it's a cop-out, essentially.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

And that's why I always tell people start with blood work, start with lifestyle, eat healthier, eat more protein, and exercise. And I'm not even saying like lose body, fat, count your macros, but get in decent, adequate micronutrients. People are hyperfixated on their macros. They forget that they actually need other specific nutrients. Focus on those things and lab work. Like you might really be suffering because maybe you have an undiagnosed autoimmune issue. Right. And you are chronically inflamed and dealing with all these issues. Maybe you have hypothyroidism. Maybe you're a smack dab in the middle of perimenopause and think you're going crazy and you have no idea what's going on, or you're hypogonadal. There's so many issues that can contribute to feeling fatigued and not your best. And I find for the majority of people, sleep. Nobody sleeps.

SPEAKER_05 11:07

Yep. Sleep is is is is fucking underrated. And I I said this before and I'm gonna keep saying it. Sleep is a PED.

SPEAKER_03 11:13

It fucking Well, people go, What's the next what can what can I take instead of growth hormone? And I'm like, well, the next best thing to take in growth hormone is sleeping.

SPEAKER_05 11:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Sleep.

SPEAKER_05 11:22

Yep, exactly. Oh, but growth hormone helps your sleep. I'm like, it can for some people, for certain people, it doesn't. You know, like I sleep like a baby. You do? I get no effect whatsoever on sleep, independent of the dose. Like it is.

SPEAKER_04 11:33

I don't know if I noticed anything.

SPEAKER_05 11:34

Yeah, different. You took like it's my favorite part.

SPEAKER_04 11:37

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_05 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Other than the snoring and the sleep apnea.

SPEAKER_05 11:41

Um, so like if you had to draw like a hard line, right? Like, let's say, you know, John walks into your office and he needs a mitopeptide, but Christina, she just needs to go for a walk and maybe install like opal on her phone so she's not wasting her whole day like just scrolling life away. How do you carve out that plan for them?

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Like, how do you what like what what are the steps that you go through to like executing that for so if it's a consultation call, honestly, like I'm there to do what you ask me to do, and I'll tell you if I think it's stupid, but I'll still do it. But honestly, I it's case by case dependent. And this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion. But when we're talking about these mitochondrial function and repair type peptides, you know, that kind of umbrella, I don't necessarily think there's a lot of use case in advanced athletes. Like, yes, you'll get minute improvements theoretically, like they you can improve, of course. And at top levels, small improvements go a long way when you're already at max capacity. But when you're sedentary and there's still no demand and you want to use this because maybe you're pre-diabetic, we're clinically obese, we're not healthy, we're not moving, there still has to be a demand there to get the benefit. So personally, I think these really have a role when somebody's just getting started on their journey. So we're creating a demand, but they're not healthy and they're not operating at max capacity yet. So kind of that inner rim is where I see the most potential for a lot of these compounds that everybody's interested in. And most people aren't in that area, unfortunately. They've either been training a long time, they're trying to dial everything in and they're looking for that one extra or they suck and they sit on TikTok for eight hours a day and they accidentally wound up on pep talk and they're like, Well, look at my glucose. I guess I should take this.

SPEAKER_05 13:26

Yep, yep, yep, yeah. No, I really do think that mitochondria is just like a buzzword at this point, just to hide like the people's shitty lifestyle. The the way that I do the split, like it's it's basically this, right? Like you see, like in a period like where people are dealing with a lot of chronic inflammation, when they're they have that that variant of long C-word virus going on, uh or you know, they're overreaching constantly, they're they're sick all the time, their gut is fucking fucked, their sleep is shit. Like, regardless of how much they're sticking to a routine, like they can't even stand like low training loads. If we adjust the intensity, they can't do it. They break down under stress. Like, I mean, these are the people that I will legitimately consider peptides after, or sometimes even like during correction phases, so that we kind of stabilize these issues like upstream for them. Something like Mod C to like stabilize like the power grid, so to speak, like that that makes sense for me. But but but I'll always pair that shit with like low intensity cardio, like control the volume, control the intensity. Now, like I I do see what you're saying of that like mismatch between the man and capacity, like that other person that just sits around all day and then they self-medicate with caffeine and then they binge whenever they get a chance. I mean, if you haven't proven that you can just take fucking 8,000 steps a day, that you can just hit your macros, that you can just sleep at a regular time for at least like four weeks, your mitochondria's not broken. You're just fucking undertrained, you're just overstimulated, you just lack discipline. And Mod C, it's going to make this person feel worse. Like, if people don't believe me, fucking go on Google and write and write like MOT C made me feel worse. There's so many threads of that on Reddit. On people just saying how it makes you feel worse is because you lack like a fucking framework.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

You don't understand how it's like anytime you start messing with metabolic pathways, and it's not because oh well you didn't fix your mitochondria with SS31 first. It's not it's not that, but anytime you're causing those metabolic shifts and changing certain pathways, but again, the demand is not there. Yeah, you're going, it's you're not gonna feel great for the most part. And that's actually a very common thing that we see reported. But I think there's I think there's this other weird situation, although I don't love it, I don't endorse it, I'm not condoning it. Peptides me are PDs, and that's a whole other conversation. Save that one, but I will say it has been a motivator. When I step back and I look at these people, they are very motivating as performance-enhancing drugs. It's kind of like dangling a prize. People that otherwise would be sedentary, wouldn't be in the gym and wouldn't be, they wouldn't, they've never counted macros, they've never looked at protein intake in their lives. Well, now that because they're on peptides, they care. So at the same time, we are seeing people improve their lives, but the problem is they're crediting the peptides. They're not understanding it's coming from those lifestyle changes. But hey, a little bit of placebo that makes you a healthier, better, more present person in your life. I'm all about placebos.

SPEAKER_05 16:28

Yeah, yeah. And I like I actually had a similar experience. I I had a very poor lifestyle, was depressed, then Hedonia post-Vivance. Vivance literally made me want to, you know, delete the life.xc file of my own life. It's just, it was just fucking awful for months. When I started TRT and everything, it's like you start throwing these compounds in, and now every action has an immediate consequence. So, like, if I just am natty and I just eat a whole fucking pizza, go to sleep, wake up the next day, like, yeah, like I'm fine, like nothing fucking changed. If you're on a gram and a half of gear and like 10 units of growth hormone, and you do that, you're gonna feel it immediately. So, so the checks and balances become very immediate. And that actually helps me like be responsible with my own choice because it's very hard for me to imagine like the down like side of you can't get rid of that awareness once it's there, it sticks. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And uh to uh on another thing you mentioned is like on the on the lifestyle movers, like people, people don't like a lot of these people they they really don't need the peptides, they need lifestyle changes. I was actually thinking about this. I have out of my entire fucking roster, I have one client doing a peptide, a mitochondrial like enhancement like protocol. That's just one fucking person. And the reason is because the lifestyle changes are the biggest needle mover. Like people think like it, it like they're just wasting their money. Like, it's like when people are taking fucking NAD plus and they're 20 years old. I'm like, motherfucker, you like what what are you doing? I'm sorry, I mean started on that. Do you just like to feel pain? It's like, oh, but like stress and inflammation depletes NAD plus. And I'm like, yeah, and exercise and low intensity movement replenishes it. So why do you think you need an injection? You're not 50 or if you were 50, that's a different conversation. But like, what are we actually like trying to enhance? Like, people just don't want to believe that the lifestyle is the biggest needle mover because but has anybody ever wanted to believe that, honestly? And it's like they it's like they like they don't do that even though like injecting literally is a pain in the ass. Like, literally, they prefer to have like that pain because it allows them to say, I've tried everything before they can settle with this broken ass identity and play the victim card fucking forever. You know, it's it's uh I feel like people are not realize, like they they're not reflecting enough on their process. I talk about this all the time. The problem is not the peptides, not the drugs, is that people don't have a fucking framework, and that's that's what you know, having someone that actually studies this shit for a living is can be quite helpful, you know. Like, like I don't know shit about cars, so I don't try to fix my own car on my own. If you tell me, oh, it's an engine problem, I'm like, okay, so should I just use better oil? You know, because I feel like that's what people are are doing. I I had someone this week who were um they were sharing their screen and I saw on on ChatGPT, it was like, what's what dose of SS31 should I take? Which by the way, that's not a prompt. That pisses me the fuck off when people talk to chat like that. But but it but in any case, I was like, why are you wanting to take SS31? And I was like, well, you know, just I have a lot of like fatigue and I'm just and I was like, no, no, no, no, no. The question is, like, which part of the mitochondria, like which part of the electron chain transporter are you trying to make it efficient? And they're like, I don't know much about this. And I'm like, then you shouldn't be doing this.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Like, you're well, I love that people use chat GPT, honestly, because that's why we have jobs.

SPEAKER_05 20:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And people are like, oh, you're gonna lose your job. I'm like, no, you're just gonna spin your wheels in place, man. That's just all that's gonna fucking happen. But let's let's switch from SS31 to talk about SLU because I'm literally running, which I found out today, the equivalent How's that?

SPEAKER_02 20:15

How's that digestion going?

SPEAKER_05 20:16

Um, well we'll we'll get there. Um like I'm I'm running the equivalent of$2,000 a day of SLU, right? If I was just buying it off a pharmacy like that. And if anyone who's watching asked me for a fucking source, I'm gonna block you. Uh I'm not paying that amount of time.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Well, there goes half the comments.

SPEAKER_05 20:34

So like fucking figure it out, right? Like SLU, I think it's something that sounds super fucking sexy, but we have very little data on Mod C and we have even less on SLU. So I'm like curious, like, do you use SLU like with clients? I like I do because I think the mechanism is well understood, like enough and the results in blood work, like to me, they're they're they're kind of promising. But like what kind of human like can expect to have SLU deployed when working with you? Or do you think it's just like a bad idea out the gate?

SPEAKER_03 21:04

Like, even if the mechanism I'm not comfortable utilizing things where we only have preclinical data. Okay. Um that primarily like are we using body surface area scaling? Like, what what are we doing to kind of come up with these dosages? Is it based on known receptor density, sensitivity? I don't like using compounds that only have preclinical data. And again, I'm still very elementary in my studies. So even going to school, like it's a lot to learn how to interpret clinical data. I don't feel like I'm out of place to make those calls. And I see people like, oh my gosh, I'm running 250 micrograms and I'm getting such great results. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm running like two grams and getting results. I'm like, okay, so we still are basing this off of anecdotal data. And then I have these people that are like, Well, look at these improvements and my fasting insulin, my glucose, you know, my inflammatory markers came down. And I'm like, Yeah, bitch, but you were doing my diet too. Like, where's my credit?

SPEAKER_04 21:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

So I don't like going over it. I I I will go based on like the, I'm not going to give dosages, but the mainstream things that we see that are within budget parameters. And it's more of a you're kind of doing this on your own accord because I don't feel like I have sufficient data. In terms of use case, I think potentially people that are trying to get into movement. So if I'm working with somebody that has very limited mobility, accident, clinically obese, and we're doing like chair cardio or something as an exercise mimetic to get those neurological benefits of intense exercise. I see candidacy there. And especially in like maybe really major fat loss phases, or in an endurance athlete. That's where I would see potentially the most use case, but I'm talking up my ass because again, what data do we have?

SPEAKER_05 22:42

No, but you're like, like, what I what I do is like I think the exercise mimetic claim is overrated as fuck. Like I can say that because I can I can literally count on my hands how many people I know in the country who are running the same amount that I'm running. And I like today was the first day that I literally like check my folds and I'm like, I'm pretty sure I lost fat from last night to this morning on 500 milligrams of SOU a day. Like that was kind of fucking insane. But that's also not the only thing I'm running. I'm also on your hymn. I'm also on clombuteryl, I'm also on growth rate. Yohimbean. Oh, do you handle that well? No.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

I don't know anybody that's been like, oh, I can take this.

SPEAKER_05 23:20

No, I can't be awful. As long as okay, um please don't do this at home. Um, but as long as I don't push over 40 milligrams a day, I'm fine. I can't even take pre-workout with it. I know, I can't either. But you you want to hear something crazy? If it's alpha yohimbean, if it's rewolsine, I cannot tolerate more than six milligrams.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

What do you do? What are you taking now? I'm doing just regular young bean, just bark extract. It's nice, it's a nice synergy to take with clambutrol. I can handle clambuterol like a champ. I can handle clambutrol until it's time to go. Taking way too much. What's the max clambutro that you've tried? About what we would consider a ceiling dose for a grown-ass open bodybuilder. Like 120, like 200? I can handle it. But a lot of it's potassium and and tarin balance, and as long as you have the other things to to support it. And actually it's funny because now I don't like the use of it. I don't really condone it. I avoid it. I try and look at thyroid manipulation over it. I am not a fan of the cardiovascular risks. So I actually don't support the use of it now. Yeah, I try not to use it. But I mean, I'm as a bikini athlete.

SPEAKER_05 24:27

Yeah, yeah. Like I I use it with women in between uh growth phases because of the potential. I still think it's kind of overrated, but potential muscle retention like benefits in there.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

Like I think like Placebo, you put a woman on Clembuterol, all of a sudden her diet's on point and she's training harder. I again it it it might be anecdotal. We know it's it's muscle sparing, of course. We're we're not gonna be in a catabolic state with it, yeah. But it's going to push them harder in their off season. You give you sprinkle anything in front of them to say this is gonna let you gain muscle, it's almost like an anabolic training intensity goes up 20%.

SPEAKER_05 25:00

But the but but to your question, SLU, um, I'm pretty sure it is wrecking my digestive system. But I but it's also very hard for me to tell because like Yeah, but you're on a bunch of stimulants.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 25:10

Stimulants like just wreck your parasympathetic digestion just goes to shit.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

Well, I didn't do so hot on it. That's all I'm gonna say. What wait, what did you say? I didn't do so hot on it. Really?

SPEAKER_05 25:21

I yeah. Yeah, I was I was I need it. I was like, I'm not gonna go in public today. Nike, I'm sure I'm sure you've uh you've seen the, you know, people talking about taking it in a growth phase. I'm going to try that on my next growth phase, trying megadose SLU. I'm gonna do half megadosing SLU and then half with uh Anadrol and see if there's like a measurable difference or something like that. But I was talking to Dom Kuza about this because I'm like, nothing when I read those all of the literature, the four fucking papers, like nothing really screams like potential for growth. So like his theory was that you know, maybe these people actually had some type of mitochondrial dysfunction, and SLU helped a little bit so they got better results because of that, but not because of anything crazy. And it's like we're talking about trained individuals, people that have already added like 80 pounds to their fucking frame. Like it could be a game changer for these people. For people that don't tolerate a lot of the stimulants or don't want to use the stimulants, I think it's a viable option at a reasonable dose, not what I'm doing. I'm just experimenting with myself. But like you said, endurance, fucking crazy. Like I literally I started a running program and I just go by my watch, but I would I'll stop you're electing to run.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

I am running. I am doing a is that for the purpose of seeing how the slew impacts you, or are you just like wanting to run?

SPEAKER_05 26:44

I I I'm one of those people that actually enjoys the act of running, but two, I don't believe that walking your dog in the morning just because you're fasted means that you're doing cardio. So, like, I refuse to go on the elliptical because it looks gay as fuck. And uh that is that is literally my reason. I will not go to the stairmates.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

You look like such a douchebag on an elliptical, and I look extra douchey because my little legs have to spread so much.

SPEAKER_05 27:09

Yeah, and it and it it looks like you're one of those people walking with those fucking walking sticks, and those people piss me off. If I see them, it just pisses me off when people are walking.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Y'all should get rollerblades.

SPEAKER_05 27:19

Yes, yes, like what I remember, I remember when I was working with a BLP. Do you know BLP? Okay, I was I I I I uh he was helping me out with uh, you know, some issues that I was having when I was back in college, and I was like, you know, I want to grow my forearms, I I want to, you know, do all of this stuff. I need to grow my chest, I need to like get better cardiovascular capacity and stuff. And his plan was literally like, and I I love it. His plan was like have longer sex sessions for your cardio and massage your wife for your forearms. And it's like at the time I was like, that sounds ridiculous, but right now I'm like, it's fucking good idea. It's a good idea.

SPEAKER_03 27:54

It is, and I actually what because I work with a lot of couples too, we see such a lot, it's become a flex in our industry and in the bodybuilding industry, especially, to not do cardio. And I do think it's cool when you don't have to do excessive cardio. That is a flex, excessive being the key word there, but it doesn't, I think you and I have actually talked about this about how people don't value cardiovascular health. But so many women tell me that like as their husbands get more muscular and cardio declines, that during sex, not only is it a performance decline issue, not in terms of like erections or anything, but they generally like get winded. Like they overall, it's just a bad experience.

SPEAKER_05 28:34

Yeah, no, I I I I chose to not do cardio and to get intentionally fatter this season because I wanted to see the effect on my blood work. And I just found out that I'm one of those lucky bastards that doesn't get affected insulin sensitivity-wise or anything like that because of body fat. Cardiovascular capacity, on the other hand, I remember this one time we were having sex, and I literally stopped and lay down to bed, and I'm like I've had guys tell me, like, I think I had a cardiovascular event during sex, and I'm like, we need to do more cardio. So, but like people people don't they don't focus on their VO2 max levels, and that is a marker of longevity.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

Well, it's such a thing. I I'll be honest with you, that's not something that I looked at heavily when I first got in the coaching realm either. That didn't start happening until I started working with endurance athletes and elderly populations, and now it's something that I understand the importance of. But to be fair, I was one of those coaches that overlooked that in the beginning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:26

Sorry to all my beginner clients. I mean, you wanna you wanna boost your NAD plus levels? Do actual cardio, you know. You you you you said you said this. I'm gonna read this quote. You don't make a TikTok channel and call yourself a peptide goddess because you use GLPs. Yes, I am going to get that shit tattooed on my body because it's it's so true. And I I love how you pointed out like how NAD plus isn't even a peptide, but for some reason it gets like jumbled up with GLP1RAs and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

I think anything that general population can inject into their body that's not a steroid is automatically called a peptide.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no distinction on what these things are. And like I feel like because like these blends a lot of times make absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever. But like people people don't have any clue what they're doing, like they're just like experimenting on themselves because they see us experimenting on ourselves, they see us doing this shit based off of so much data and so much research. Literally, I'm still an idiot. All I do is research, and I'm still a mortar. When I show people, like, hey, this is what my mesa cycle looks like, and I show them the data, there's like fields upon fields of data, data, data, and they're like, oh my gosh, I need to do that for myself. And I'm like, or get someone to do it for you. I mean, I do that for my clients, so they don't have to do it themselves. But like, that is the data when I'm telling you, like, the data is not just fucking looking yourself in the mirror and taking your fucking scale weight, but like it just like, how much do you think I I think it's fucking air arrogance that the reason why people do this shit. But like, how much do you think this sloppy approach to just taking whatever, like just because it's compounded in the same vial, that the assumption is that I should just take all of these things together and it's gonna be fine? Like, how much damage do you think this is gonna happen? And like when when when you're trying to, or if you're trying to like educate them on like whose knowledge, like someone whose knowledge is all like, well, if it comes in the same bottle, I'm just gonna fucking inject it. Like, how do you break down for them that you know this is gonna be a very bad choice? Like, how do you actually explain this process to people?

SPEAKER_03 31:31

I don't think I do explain that process to people. So you hire me for a reason, right? I explain what I do. I feel like if you can't explain what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what it does, what the compound is and function, then I have failed doing my job. But in that situation, if you're gonna buy one of those crazy blends that doesn't make sense or we don't even have efficacy or dosing information in injectable form or something, one, I'm probably not gonna want to work with you. And two, you're probably getting bunk stuff anyways. There's probably nothing in it. So do I think we're actually seeing like a lot of health repercussions as a result? No, you're probably not putting anything in your body, honestly. Now, if it's someone that cares, they're probably not gonna come to me with these blends or even have an interest in these blends. Even the people taking like CJC and IPA, I break down like why I don't love the one-to-one ratio aspect. And I break down, you know, GHRP's role stacked with a GHRH. And I'm like, it's inconvenient to dose them separately. But if you want to optimize everything, then we're going to do that. We're going to do it properly. So I don't think they're probably doing a lot of damage. I think they're just wasting money and poking themselves for no reason.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Yeah, I think I think the damage is not so much in terms of like health, but in so much of like how much progress is actually costing them and how much time is wasted just spinning their fucking wheels in place.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

Like I and relying on compounds, like a lot of reliance on compounds, like particularly GLPs.

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Yes, yes, yes, yes, dude, absolutely. And like at Optolab, like I I basically like try to explain like a taxonomy for people to bring like the conversation back into like, okay, let's categorize what these things are, right? So like GLP1RAs, what what are they? They're incredible mimetics, right? Like, what's NAD plus? It's a redox coenzyme, right? Like it, it's uh it's helping you with your Sertuan signaling. What is a Sertoin? It helps repair your your DNA, right? Like like explaining to people what these things are, and then I get to the point where it's like, oh, and SARMs, like, well SARMs are just fucking garbage. They just don't really have their place in it for for the majority of people.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Do I are SARMs almost they're dead now by now, surely, right? Like that's not a thing anymore.

SPEAKER_05 33:40

I still see like cardine and ostrian, I still see it like having some place. I actually deployed it with a couple of people before, like women having one application and then like endurance athletes with another one. But it's it's very rare, and I I get it tested beforehand just because like we we have actual studies on this shit that like 50% of them are fake. And like I tried to do all of this stuff without sounding academic, like not to like present like something. I'm just trying to explain, like, hey, like if you're gonna patch a hole in a bucket, if we have an actual energy leak or mitochondrial miscommunication, or like if we're stuck in like cell danger response or something like that, we need to know exactly what it is so we can patch the leak. Otherwise, you're just putting duct tape on the it might be the right bucket, but it may not be where the hole actually is, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:26

So, like I think explaining the actual pharmacode dynamics and getting in like an academic discussion is ideal, honestly, because that's the problem, is that everyone's presenting it on the internet as a simple, quick thing. People don't even understand what they're buying or like underground research chemicals. They're like, Well, look at the packaging and it's so pretty, and I can use my credit card on there, and it's fine. I'm like, you do understand what you're doing because people say, Well, what's the difference in buying from that website versus getting it prescribed? And then I have to kind of explain that that gray area. They really don't know what they're doing. So I think when you do go into more extensive discussions, it's good because it makes them take it seriously. It's not a toy, yeah, yeah. It's not creatine.

SPEAKER_05 35:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and like the I use I use the analogies to be able to basically like make them understand what the technical aspects are, but I will intentionally speak with the technical language, and people are like, Oh, you're just doing it to sound like a dick. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm doing that so if you think I'm doing it to sound like a dick, then you're not ready to take this. Yeah, no, it's it's like if you think this is complex, just wait until we get into detail about this shit. Because, like, when we are talking about these things, like just using certain words, you guys think this is the deep dive? This is not the fucking deep dive. Like, talk to the people, the top people in the industry, fucking sit in the same room and listen to their conversations. And it was surprising to me. Like, when I started learning some of these things with Domkuza, like I started learning these things about like bioregulators and stuff, and I was like, what in the where do I even fucking start? Like, what the fuck? I need to learn the history of the cre like how medicine was actually invented in fucking Russia. Like, what's the different philosophy behind it? I need to learn about the city. Like, I need to learn about Thomas Kuhn and like the revolution of scientific and understanding the flaws within the own scientific methodology and all of these sorts of things. So I basically try to make people aware that hey, you're kind of like playing with your own DNA, and if everything starts at the mitochondria, you're literally like tackling the most fundamental part of your physiology without knowing whatever the fuck you're doing. Oh, you were scared of the vaccine, bro. Like, you're doing the same fucking thing, bro. Like, what what do you mean? You you you know? So, like, once once they can talk back to me and show me that they understand the role and the goal of like each compound and the mechanism, and then we can have a grown-up conversation about like whether it actually belongs in your stack or it doesn't. But honestly, most people's wallets are just they unfortunately just outpace their thinking capacity. So they rather just like fucking throw money at the problem than to actually think about I and I I I feel like people are just fucking missing out a ton on it, you know, impatient as fuck and er arrogant. Like with people are like, Oh, you sound like a dick. I'm like, I sound like a dick. You think you can fucking fix one of the most complicated things that we're spending millions of dollars in research on mitochondrial dysfunction to understand what the fuck it is? You think you're gonna fix that on your own because you watched a fucking random ass YouTube video and you hey, but that girl was running a BOGO and she uses her own label maker. But like, come on, man. All right, so we we started we started taking GHK copper. Um, and and I'm I'm I'm super fucking excited about it. And I think it's it's just so much more than just a hair and skin peptide. Like, so much more. It's one of the most versatile peptides that we actually have. I think once you zoom out of like what you call the pretty boy cream or like the injection, I don't remember the exact term you use.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

I think they call they call it that it used to be called the pretty boy peptide.

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of like the melanotan being like the Barbie one or again in like how how do you actually deploy GHK? Like, in what context do you see GHK copper being useful?

SPEAKER_03 38:10

So, in certain repair stacks, obviously we all know what people refer to as the glow, and it's normally like a 10, 10, 50, is how we're gonna see it ratioed out. And we can see it in repair stacks, uh potential for angiogenesis, depending on like what the problems might be. I typically don't opt for things outside of like BPC and TB, like looking at the KPV, unless it's rained separately for other reasons, unless we are working with like a more notable recovery, like from surgery or something. And then of course, we don't unfortunately we don't have a lot of data about the systemic effects. A lot of the data we have does come from the cosmetic industry and we know how that information is, unfortunately. So, but I I do like GHK. I use it as an injectable and I use it topically on my face and my body. And I actually prefer it over conventional methods for dealing with sunburns. Like I, when we go on vacation, I bring my GHK.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 39:06

Yeah, no, I think unless I have like an aloe vera plant to like snap, I'm not putting aloe and alcohol on my child's sunburn because their sunscreen washed off and I was like five minutes too late and they're as pale as me. But GHK has been life-changing.

SPEAKER_05 39:21

I heard you saying that on a podcast, and I was like, that's fucking genius. I I love the apple.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

It's so nice, it doesn't burn, and you see notable improvements. It's not just a cooling effect or something, it's it's incredible for sunburns. And like my mom had a skin cancer removed, and as soon as it was healed up enough for for other topicals, we did GHK for her scar.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

Yeah, I I think the like the like it's it is amazing, and I'm I I think I'm already seeing some improvement in my skin. It's it's week number two right now. Maybe I didn't change my diet or anything like that. And I'm I also use like we're using a low dose reason, like two milligrams a day. Nothing crazy. Like but but like I think that the hair and skin marketing is kind of underselling GHK. I think I think that's kind of a shame. Like it's yeah, it's great, but like it modulates gene fucking expression and ECM signaling. Like you can use it as a signal booster for other regenerative.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

It's it has such a notable effect. Like when I get tattooed, I don't actually I stop using it when I get tattooed. Huh. Interesting. So I really like GHK, and you'll you'll notice like I mostly like kind of casually talk shit about a lot of this different things. But I've never actually said anything negative about GHK. It's it's one of my favorites, and there's so many different reasons that you can utilize it either topically or systemically. I I use it both, and I'm always utilizing I started making my own body lotion out of it.

SPEAKER_05 40:48

Yeah, yeah. No, I I I I think it's great. I like uh you know, if someone is gonna run like exosomes, I'm gonna do it before and after to reduce like IL6, TNF alpha, and and all of these other like inflammatory cytokines. I'm gonna use it to like upregulate some repair programs and to improve that like stem cell, like the honing and the the retention of them. Um and again, like but all of this is phase specific. I don't I don't like to just run fucking peptides year-round. People are just taking this glow closed stack now and just running a rear round. I'm like, have you thought what is the role of inflammation? Do you know what the role of inflammation is in your body? Because you're just shutting off inflammation just nonstop and creating new blood vessels all over your body. Like, have you thought about what that does? I mean, sure, maybe you don't have tennis elbow anymore, but like like just just just think with me about this shit for a second.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

I don't think people understand how important inflammation is, especially when your goal is hypertrophy and you're training the way that like you train. Now, I actually had a call earlier with an endurance athlete, like, can I just stay on this long term? And I'm like, well, technically you could, but these are you know potential risks based on mechanism of action and lack of long-term data. But realistically, like as an endurance athlete, you know, running he's he's you know, triathlon type stuff, they would benefit more from constant reductions and inflammatory signaling as training progresses leading up to their compdates. Whereas for us, it would literally be problematic. We rely on that signaling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think everybody thinks, again, because of TikTok, that they're just in this chronically inflamed state. Everybody's like, I think I have severe systemic inflammation. And I'm like, oh, you learned that word on Instagram, didn't you? You loved that one. And then I'm like, well, let's run your inflammatory markers. Yeah. Blood work done lie. You're so inflamed, let's look at it. And then sure enough, I'm like, you're great. And I have you taking omega-3s.

SPEAKER_05 42:44

Yeah, yep. Whenever people are like, I have systemic inflammation, I'm like, what's her IL6 number is at? And they're like, And they go, What? I haven't done that. What's that? And I'm like, wait, which inflammatory cytokine is leading you to believe that you have systemic or chronic inflammation?

SPEAKER_03 43:00

And I'm still convinced omegas are king. Like I take I take before anything, like, oh, you want BPC? Good, take your omegas first. Up at a gram. How how much do you take a day? I take four. I take four grams.

SPEAKER_05 43:11

I take four grams.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

But that's because I'm on a bunch of medications, so I do anything for like neuroprotection, cognitive function. I'm on a whole bunch of stuff supportive because I take benzos.

SPEAKER_05 43:20

So yeah, yeah. No, it was the same thing. And when when I started taking uh pregobalin, that like my doctor was also like, hey, your B12 levels, your like uh omega-3s levels, like all of this shit needs to be on point and everything. And I just like it was already on point, so just you know, I take care of this shit, you know. I don't have hair.

SPEAKER_03 43:37

That's why I'm still doing glutathione. It hurts. Like, I don't want to do it. I'm not taking anything hepatotoxic, but I need to take it with my medications, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_05 43:47

Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it because since I'm gonna run orals for a longer period of time, I'm just gonna see if the glutathione sucks so bad.

SPEAKER_03 43:55

I have seen glute and I will say this this is not like a onesie or twosie thing. I have seen Liver enzymes improve on cycle with glutathione.

SPEAKER_05 44:05

Yeah, that's what I hear. That's what I keep hearing. So that's what I want to try. I want to see, like, since I know already what like 16 weeks of orals does to my body, which by the way is almost nothing. Like, if I I'm just fucking lucky. Uh, I don't get great results, but my body doesn't take a toll. So that's fucking good.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

I can tolerate a fuck ton of mediocre results for you know, not a lot of side effects. That sounds like a pretty good trade-off to me.

SPEAKER_05 44:28

It is, but I want to see like if the glutathione can actually like do something. But let's shift gears here a little bit to talk about the ladies, right? Because female TRT without masculinization, right? Like, I'm I'm sure you're also fucking tired of these ladies taking fucking 10 milligrams of tests and then slowly well, not not that.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

I love that you think 10 is where a lot of women are are taking their TRT.

SPEAKER_05 44:50

That's what I see. I'm seeing 2025. Yeah, that's crazy. No, I see clinics prescribing these doses, and I'm like 10 is the standard. Yeah. Unfortunately. It should not be. But like in in in real-world coaching, right? When a woman actually needs TRT, what are some practical guide rails that you use so that like they can get the upside without waking up one day with a dick bigger than they actually want it to have?

SPEAKER_03 45:15

So I want to say first and foremost, a lot of women don't need TRT. A lot of women do not. And they unfortunately don't have the diagnostics performed to see where they're deficient and why testosterone is lower than where it should be. And they so outside of wanting before.

SPEAKER_05 45:30

They don't try like DHA, they don't try chest berry, they don't try to like modulate everything bore on it.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

There's so much you can do to drastically even triple, quadruple your total testosterone and improve free testosterone levels. And just like with men, we're not looking at just total test, free testosterone can drastically impact our quality of life, our sex lives in libido, especially. So, first of all, identifying the need for testosterone. And sometimes it is going to be more of a performance base for like maybe a more muscular physique athlete. So finding, you know, is there a need and are we deficient? That's the first conversation we have. But I think a lot of it is the conversation that doesn't occur and it's about preventive methods. So what I like to say is I I work with a lot of viralized athletes. I do. I work with trans athletes. And that's kind of why I'm very familiar with at what dosages and levels we kind of start to see those changes at. But I think virilization should be an informed choice and not an accident. So if you really are informed on what the differences are between general side effects that come with playing with your hormones versus virilization, because masculinization is typically permanent and irreversible, I think that is a huge preventive method right there. So if you get dose, 10 milligrams, 20 milligrams, something astronomical, you're not gonna think that you just chronically have a dry throat and you're clearing it all the time and you're maybe you're you have a little bug or something. You're gonna identify that and be like something's wrong. I'm gonna stop. If you know what to look for, differences between slight clottoral enlargement, like what you'd see with like an anavar cycle versus actual clitoral growth. You know, when we start to see breast atrophy, a lot of women don't understand that anything involving hair is permanent, whether we are triggering hair follicle growth and maturity on our bodies and androgenic alopecia, those are not reversible things. It's hair follicle miniaturization. So I think a lot of that just comes from education. So that way if you are fucked and you're dosed wrong, you can identify it and stop it.

SPEAKER_05 47:31

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I I I like whenever I'm dealing with someone, and I out of out of all the women that I deal with, all of them are we triple their test by just using supplements, herbs, like legit, just doing that. Aubrey is the only one that's actually on TRT. And the reason being it's like, hey, we're gonna be hopping on and off cycle every X number of weeks. It just makes sense for us to actually be on on. And plus, her test was actually really fucking low. Like really, really low. And it was like like her free test was like a 0.6 or some shit like that. It was like really, really bad. So and it and it and it had a noticeable improvement. And we found the dose that doesn't viralize or anything like that, and we settled at 3.5 milligrams a week. We try to push it to 3.8, and she starts getting sensitivity. So it's like 3.5 is the max. So that's exactly where we stay at. So like I wanna I want to make sure that there's like a stable balance between estrogen and progesterone as well, because progesterone is just so fucking ignored in these protocols, and it it like lack of progesterone just causes so many issues in in women and in lack of progesterone.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

You want to talk about the sleep issues, you know, sleep being an underlying cause for things, right? Progesterone's incredible, but we also see again another issue with over-prescribing. It's under-prescribed by our primary cares and our gynecologists, it goes ignored, but we see it over-prescribed in a lot of the clinic settings because we do, let's say we do have a woman and she looks to be progesterone deficient. Well, are we looking at the early follicular phase? Did we ask where they were in their mid school cycle? Are they on hormonal contraceptives? To me, it's kind of you're running in circles if you're on a specific hormonal contraceptive that's causing HPO downregulation. We're not doing replacement dosages, and then we put them on HRT when we could just switch contraceptives. But I just see a lot of incorrect prescribing, both under and over. And progesterone, especially in a physique athlete, has like a diuretic effect. You look snatched, you're tighter, you don't have that lower abdominal bloating. Estrogen dominance is something you can see, something you can feel. Like I'm crazy enough. I don't need to be estrogen dominant on it. I love progesterone. Yeah. And even perimenopausal women, while they're still having those estrogen swings, um, you know, they might be doing like a vaginal DHEA or something, but a little bit of progesterone can help alleviate those night sweats. I mean, it's I love progesterone. People forget that it's also a thermoregulator.

SPEAKER_05 49:54

Yeah, I think progesterone is a major hack. If if people are watching this, like legit, progesterone when you're dealing with insomnia from Trend, yo, it's actually fucking helpful. Mega dosing glycine plus progesterone, chef's kiss. And I love progesterone. Since you're on benzos, if you've never tried before, I'm talking like 15-20 grams of glycine has almost the exact same effect as a benzo, but it doesn't fuck up your sleep quality. Like really try it out once, you're gonna you're gonna take it in a f within a few minutes, like 30 minutes or so, you're gonna start getting that shift, like the you know, the visual that you kind of see that just it hit me, like it's time to go to bed. You get that with megadosin glycine. It's very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

I will have to try that because I actually have to come off of mine for two days before my ketamine treatment.

SPEAKER_05 50:45

Dude, try try that.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

But I'm like, I gotta come off of this.

SPEAKER_05 50:48

Like I'm yeah, it it you it's it's it's fun. Mega dosin glycine is it's a it's it's very underrated. And glycine is another one that has so many benefits.

SPEAKER_03 50:57

I'll try I'll try it tonight because I don't want I the idea of trying to go two days without Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:02

No, it's dangerous too, you know? Yeah, so yeah, absolutely. Like I I also like when when I'm dealing with a woman, I also make sure that we cap the shit like around symptoms and not the numbers on paper. And so many clinics are just dealing with numbers on paper. And coaches too, and don't don't even fucking get me started on how coaches deal with female physiology, they just treat women as smaller guys. That's the only difference. That's it. Like, I talk to coach to fucking women who have PCOS and all of this type of shit, and I'm like, what is what does your coach do to fix that? I was like, nothing. We're just on psycho. And I'm like, Aren't you tired of just living in pain for no reason? But, anyways, like I wanna I want to start at like three milligrams, and honestly, I find that three milligrams is enough for the majority of people. Some people get even less than that.

SPEAKER_03 51:47

And I and I also make sure some women are not candidates, some women viralized off 15 milligrams of DHE in a Aubrey got signs of viralization at 5 milligrams of eat of DHEA. And without doing extensive Dutch panels and looking at metabolites, you know, you don't know your body's preferred metabolic pathways. And luckily, you know, it's something that, again, knowledge.

SPEAKER_05 52:12

Well, don't even know what the form test is.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

And uh to be fair, it's it's expensive, it's not easily accessible, it's it's more accessible now than it used to be because everybody's in the realm of biohacking. And and then what are you gonna do with those results? You have to be with a provider that's gonna help you interpret it and tell you what to do with them. Even interpretation doesn't mean much unless you see practical application with it.

SPEAKER_05 52:32

It's kind of like a GI map. It's like you got the result and it's like, so what? What you gonna do with it?

SPEAKER_02 52:36

You know what you're gonna my first GI map, that was a that was an experience. I didn't realize I had to like poop in a box. I was like, well, this is terrible. And then I get to play in it.

SPEAKER_05 52:44

Ugh. So another another thing that I want to track, I track hairline. So I asked them to take photos of their hairline to see like where these things are at. I also asked them to take, and this is very unconventional, but I do ask them to take a photo and keep this shit safe. Please do not fucking send it to me. But of know where your clit was and where it is right now, like so you can at least see whether this is just a sensation, because there's a difference between that little bit of sensation you get in the beginning of a cycle or something like that, and the actual like growth that feels uncomfortable and things like that. And I also do them do like a voice log every every day, just tracking where the their voice is at, like every single day. And I just I also wish people believed me when I say that like she's running three and a half milligrams a week and that's it. Like, but but they don't, they don't believe it because they're they're they have the shitty work that I couldn't even handle one one milligram.

SPEAKER_03 53:32

I I really wish I was a good candidate for TRT, but it's it's just like with men, you know, we everybody's response is going to be different. And it's hard when you see standard prescribing start at 10 milligrams. It sounds odd that somebody would only use two to three, but that's where a lot of women, you know, are in optimal ranges. And I think it's crazy when women are like, well, yeah, I'm running 20 milligrams, I'm not symptomatic. And this is an unfortunate part that I have to deal with. I don't know if you've had to deal with it, but so many women come to me and they're like, Yeah, it's great. I haven't viralized it all. I've been running 20 milligrams a test for three years and nobody can tell. And I'm looking at their five o'clock shadow and I'm like, are you sure? Because like, and and you're in the bodybuilding realm. So, you know, viralization, women think like, oh, it's no big deal. I'll have a deeper voice. And I'm like, oh honey, if that, if it was just that, then we would all be viralized, right? First of all, you might sound like an alien. You don't know what vocal cord hypertrophy is going to sound like. But when you do start to viralize, there's a very, it's a very distinct pitch. Like I can spot, there is a huge difference between a deep voice and a viralized voice. And it's when you're in the bodybuilding industry, like you know, I'm so used to it, I don't, I don't care. Yeah, but you you can hear it. And so many women, you know, they'll be slightly too high, but it happens over the course of years. So, like what you do when we do like photos of hairlines, understanding like where your vulva and your clitoris kind of line up before you start, understanding like even with breast implants, you may experience mild breast atrophy. They're just gonna feel a little softer, like fluctuations around our menstrual cycle kind of thing. It's there's so it's so important that they are tracking these things. And the the voices and photos taking videos of yourself, it's so important. And I've I did a podcast with another doctor. She was overdosed, she's a medical doctor, was overdosed on testosterone and didn't realize she had virilized until she went back and compared videos. She's a content creator and she went back and looked at her videos and she was like, I had no idea. And it's it's irreversible. And she makes a lot, and I love that she makes content on that because unfortunately, you're gonna hear about women on test that have a great experience and they're sharing it, right? Because everybody loves to share positive things on the internet. But when you disfigure yourself and you know what that's gonna look like on the internet, how mean people are, you're generally not sharing those bad experiences. You don't want to go on there with a disfigured face or voice and have everybody make fun of you. And it's it's it's a harsh place, it is, but we're not seeing those experiences being shared, unfortunately. Only the only the good ones.

SPEAKER_05 56:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

No, we we and you can feel great at high test levels without it being 700.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

Yeah. No, I I dude, I saw this woman online. I I screenshotted it and I sent it to a couple of people. I'm like, this is fucking insane. And I should have called her out. I didn't make a post on it because it was, I was like, this is so outrageous. But she was like, hey, my test levels are like 1500 and I feel great at it, and I don't viralize. And I'm like, bitch, I can see your dick. Like, come on.

SPEAKER_03 56:38

I don't think they understand the the the facial structure changes that that come along with that. And it's and I always tell women, like, yeah, of course you feel good with androgens like surging through your veins. No shit, you feel good. But I again, and there's nothing wrong with viralization, but it should be an choice, not an accident. And that's but they don't, they're not using these tracking tools and they don't understand that it's happening to them. And they don't understand, like, let's look at PCOS as an example. You had brought that up. Well, when we look at our in a clinical setting as well as what I see on a day-to-day basis, you're really not going to see a lot of total testosterone levels over 100 with PCOS, maybe up to 150. And sometimes we actually have totally normal tests, but SHBG is very low and we have very high free tests. So if that's what we're seeing in PCOS, and we know that elevated androgens can influence insulin sensitivity negatively, why would we intentionally put ourselves into a PCOS environment when it's within our control? Because let me say, you want to boost that libido, you want a little more muscle, you want a little more energy, you can achieve that on 70 nanograms per deciliter. You don't have to be at 300, 400, 700 to get those effects. You will still feel great if other lifestyle factors are dialed in. And that's why I think a lot of women get on TRT as an initial band-aid and they're like, oh, I feel so great. And then over time, they're like, Well, now I feel the same. And the doctor's like, let me increase that dose. And I'm like, oh, but did we check her thyroid? Did we run like any deficiency screenings? Did we check anything else? Or did we just see that she had low normal thyroid? And that's another thing.

SPEAKER_05 58:19

I the fucking low or normal thyroid, it just pisses me the fuck off. It's one of the easiest levers to just boost your metabolism to just have your thyroid levels in like the upper 25%. But I find it like people are terrified of taking thyroid meds. And I'm like, bro, we have data that take thyroid meds than clin. Yeah, dude, I fucking take thyroid meds year-round just because I just want to take advantage of all of the benefits of that. I'm not losing muscle, I'm not like pushing myself into hyper, you know, ranges or anything like that. But it's just super fucking beneficial. Like we have data, these people fucking taking it for years, and then they come off, and within like literally a couple of weeks, their levels are back to what they were. Testosterone, that doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_03 59:02

We've got we have so much data showing that exogenous thyroid meds, you just go back to normal function.

SPEAKER_05 59:09

Yeah, yeah. And it and it's also like like the way that we treat thyroid, it just it kind of pisses me off that we're still just using like monotherapy of T4 when we'd like have seen we have like this that there's this very cool study where they track like hundreds of people, and like 60% of them saw no change whatsoever in their free T3 levels with T4 monotherapy, but that's still the standard in medicine.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

And I don't understand why it's not individualized. Like, if we take somebody that's higher cardiovascular risk, very sensitive to stimulants, maybe they're on certain medications where there might be a contraindication, then like, yeah, T4 is monotherapy, especially if somebody has no conversion issues, they have adequate selenium, zinc, iodine, carb intake, you know, everything's lined up. They might be a candidate, but our most people know, and they don't see those results, they don't see those positive changes, and they don't see those hyposymptoms really resolve or even come into target ranges until we add cytomel.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, no, I I I'm a huge fan. I'm doing both right now, but I eventually will drop the T4 and just do T3 because I don't think the T4 did actually anything for me. And I I'm not micronutrient deficient or anything like that. I didn't see anything like like I didn't see like reverse T3 going up. Um, I was also taking um it's not Siberian ginseng, it's uh the other one, uh Pan X ginseng, it actually lowers uh reverse T3. So I was taking that at a time as well. So like it and like everything was done right, it just don't respond to it like the majority of people. So but with T3, man, my body temperatures went up immediately. Like my I feel like I'm on a like a almost like a like a stimulant, so to speak.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

Like it's just there's just more drive, and I I feel more that with thyroid medication than I do with testosterone, like the drive and the energy, it changes everything, and that's why I always tell people optimizing your free T3. Like my my I always my poor mom, I use her as an example for everything, but she has Graves' disease, so she has no thyroid, it was removed a long time ago. And they kept putting her on T4, and I'm like, Mom, you're gonna die. Her free T3 was 2.2. God. But I've been saying, like, let's put you on a combo, let's put you on armor, let's put you on armor. She finally listened to me. My mom down 20 pounds, quit napping. Everybody knows my mom's like, she's the lady that naps. She naps, no more naps, lost weight, had energy, like didn't need a house cleaner anymore. Like, just everything just kind of came together. And she sat on that chair behind me and cried one night. And I was like, wait, I thought you felt better. She was like, I just wish I had known I could have felt better so many years ago. And that's the issue is they look at the TSH, and as long as they consider TSH, quote unquote, in range, that's where the medication attempts stop.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:48

Like it's like you don't even understand how we go from, you know, like your your hypothalamus signaling to your pituitary to getting the TRH to the TSH to then creating the conversion, the thyroid globulin, transporting that onto your bloodstream. Like, it doesn't make any fucking sense to just look at DSH if you just understand what I just said. Like, why are we still fucking doing that? But because you have a medical degree, then I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:17

You know, and like people don't there's a lot there's a lot of providers and even endocrinologists now.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:22

They're gonna be a little bit in terms of age range, they're gonna be older, but there's a lot of endocrinologists that still won't even pull free T It pisses me off that people don't pull reverse T3 from the beginning, but like I know that that's they never do.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:34

You have to go in and like you've well, that's a lot of people order it through us because their providers just will not.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:39

Yeah, they will not look at it. I'll look at that, I'll look at TPO antibodies. I wanna I wanna if I'm wanting to know what your thyroid is doing, I can't just have T4 and TSH, bro. So when people tell me, like, oh my labs look normal.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Are you sure you don't just need TSH?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:54

Yeah, yeah. Like if every time someone is like, oh, I did my labs, so everything is fine. Like I think I'm ready for a cycle and stuff, and I'm like, let me take a look at your I hate that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:03

I hate when someone tells me everything was good, I need help with X, Y, and Z. I'm like, everything's not good. And at the end of the day, and this applies to female TRT as well. Reference ranges do not mean that you're good, healthy, or optimal. Reference ranges vary by lab. There is not an industry standard, but also they do exist for a reason, but that does not account for biofeedback. So if you're neglecting any of those areas, it's irresponsible care. And that's what I tell women with TRT too, is I'm like, look, like, are you low normal or very low testosterone? Like, yes, it's still considered normal. You are not clinically deficient. It's important to be aware of that. You still get TRT, like, we'll put you on it, that's fine. But like when we see the physiological norms for women, why are we trying to go 10 times above that? Those reference ranges, although they should, you are not defined by a number. And those reference ranges are ass for a lot of people. They are. But we do have to keep in mind like what our bodies are meant to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:12

I mean and people seem to forget that.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:14

The lab core reference range for insulin goes to 25.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:19

Right. I I I I remember I'm like, okay, once it hits double digits, I'm getting real antsy.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:27

If we're at 10, if we're in crap, like I like to see it under five ideally.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

Like I don't know. Yeah, it goes up to 25. Is that not insane?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

And then it's and it's also like the doctor that will pull glucose without insulin too.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:42

Nobody pull and I so I go and I I lecture medical students at universities. Some of their professors have me come in and I do like a very quick like HRT thing. And that's one of the things that I always do is I talk about like hom IR, what we're looking at for like fasting glucose, comparing it to fasting insulin, what the numbers mean, what stage we're at, looking at triglycerides, because they don't a lot of them are just pull that CMP and call it a day.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:05

I mean, they have no idea of functional like ratios. Like when you talk about like uh triglyceride to HDL ratio, they're like, what? Like their LDL is low, so they're healthy.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

I'm like, when I've seen what what lab range does LDL up to 130? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think uh for lab corp is like 120. I think lab corps typically capped at a 100, but one of them does one 130 or something. I was horrified when I saw that. Oh no, it froze on my end.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:35

Sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:36

I think it froze on my end.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:38

It froze on my end too. Yeah, it was it's like 120 for lab corp. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's pretty crazy. But again, like you get you get that and you're not checking like your uh you know, your APOB, and you're not checking like particle size or anything like that. Like you also don't know what the fuck is going on, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

So And it's crazy to me how many providers will see issues with with lipids and won't do like An Apo A1, Apo B ratio. They're not going to pull like an LP. They're not going to do all particle sizes. Like there's so many important things to look at. And I that's to me, that's standard primary care. Like there should be no coach in the world. You and I should never have to tell a client, like, hey, you should get this checked out. That should come from their primary care provider. No coach should be pointing out that that testing was neglected. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:21

Yeah, which is like one of the reasons why we hired a medical doctor to actually be on OptiLab. So like we have someone that's actually working within the parameters of medicine, but also these, you know, more novel compounds and like more research, like newer chemicals and bioregulators and all of this type of stuff because it creates like a cohesive approach and people don't get into this disconnect of like who should I listen to? I'm like, listen to the doctor. He actually has a degree and he's telling you BPC 157 is actually useful for your Hashimoto's. And so is stomach cort. You know, like like so is TB500, so is Tymusine Alpha 1. So is like cortexin because it regulates your you know gut thyroid axis at the hypothalamic like level, you know, like like you would never hear that from your primary care provider. And that's why you will fucking die with Hashimoto's. You are it's gonna eat your fucking thyroid up, you know, before you are able to have like a normal life experience. But in any case, like on on TRT, like you, like I I feel like people like on on peptides and TRT, there's also the other side where people think that if they take peptides, then they don't need TRT, which is like just started as like people who say that like if they take supplements, then I don't need peptides. But I think I feel like people lack like a category and like a framework to know what to deploy and when. So like when you're talking to people like this, how do you like reset their expectations like about like the outcomes of peptides? Because right now I feel like people are acting like, you know, it's uh peptides are a substitute for everything. It's like you take one thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:52

Anivar. I like to compare the expectations we see from taking peptides for performance purposes, the outcome people anticipate is what we actually get with Anivar. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like Which is so not what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:08

Yeah, it guys are like, oh, I'm I'm on TRT, so I should expect to see some change. I'm like, if you do everything right, you will see some absurd changes on 120 milligrams a week. You will fucking change your life. But odds are you're not doing that within a cohesive framework, so you're gonna be just like the rest of the 83% of guys that start TRT and then eventually fucking drop. They just did they don't do it because they didn't see any benefit because your expectations were all fucking wrong. So, like I I have this like category of levers that I do. Like the like the first one is gonna be like base capacity, right? So the stuff that we talked at the beginning, like your sleep, your stress levels, your food, it's the terrain that the seed is gonna be planted on. Like, if that shit is not a hundred percent dialed in, and I really mean a hundred percent, peptides likely won't really do work. Steroids re dangle them as that reward. Yeah, yeah, you can, you can, but like steroids will to an extent, but peptides won't. They really, really won't. Now, primary drivers then, the second lever will be things like androgens, like thyroid medications, the growth hormone, but all within like a sequence of protocol, a phase. And if you legitimately fucking need it, right? There's the otherwise we're just adding a bunch of excess noise and it just makes things even more complicated. Then it's already hard to diagnose people, like adding more things in just makes it even fucking harder. And then what I call fine-tuning and support, that's what peptides are. They're literally like mitochondrial agents, redox modulation, even things like GLP with the city. And the sprinkles on top. It's the cherry on top. So, like, they live in this third layer for me because they cannot lit literally they cannot over like drive this like anabolic drive or like properly use testosterone of the like or these like structural changes that you see from like proper training and structural recovery and things like that. So, like, I feel like if people are expecting and you see these transformations, like you know, six months, uh like three month, 12-week transformation on BPC, and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? The transformation on like peptides, like what the fuck? I feel like you're just setting up yourself for disappointment and also to become fucking poor because you're you're not gonna get the results that you want because these are expensive as fuck. So, like we use peptides to make training and hormones safer and more efficient. That's it. So they are the enhancers of the enhancers. That's how I frame this shit. So it's not like it doesn't set up this false expectation. And I feel like people are like, Man, I'm not feeling these things. I'm like, you're not gonna feel it, it's not adderall.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

Like that's that's one that I hear a lot. They're like, What am I gonna feel? And it was what was it? There was everybody always asking, like, I didn't feel it. And I'm like, Are you gonna feel your your telomeres lengthening? Do you do you physically feel that? Because I don't physically, I must be. What's wrong with me?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:58

Yeah, yeah. Do you feel like like thymosin, like like level, like changing, like like that? You you can't feel that shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

You can't you're saying you can't feel things actively binding to receptors in your body because everybody else can, and it's not working unless you can feel it.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I it's but it but but people do be feeling their feelings, man. I the people like we start and I do I do like if you if you start DRT with me, it's gonna be 25 milligrams a day. Uh that's that's the starting point. Like, we're not gonna do anything else besides that. And I I find that to be already a pretty high dose for for most people. Uh like for some guys, I usually have them skip one or two days a week just to keep their levels normal and avoid having to use an AI and stuff like that. But like they start taking it, and in the first week, they're like, Man, I'm already feeling so much better and everything. And I'm like, that's great. They do one injection and they're like, man, my life has changed.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:49

Or they they inject it pre-gym. They're like, oh, I just love taking it before the gym.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:53

Yeah, I see I saw a video of someone talking about doing uh trend balone pre-workout, and I'm like, bro, it's an acetate, it's not suspension.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:02

It's it's wild to me. But again, placebo effects are very, very powerful.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:08

No, the study that we have on that on testosterone, the comparison, the group that actually was taking a placebo had significant muscle growth and like strength gains that are comparable to steroids.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:18

I had a client, this is my favorite story. Hopefully, he he listens to this. I had a client and I was like, bruh, you got bung gear. Like, this is it's not, it's not, it's not. He's like, no, no, he's the real deal. And I'm like, if you have to say he's the real deal, I promise you what you're taking is garbage, okay? Um he insisted that, and dude, this dude hit PRs, and he's he's really jacked to begin with, okay. Like he he has a really great foundation and he is strong. Like, we if you watch him lift, it's like watching a power lifter, but repping everything. He's just he really is strong. But he hit PRs on everything, like he was adding so much weight onto his lifts, and he was like, I love test, I feel so great, my sex drive is back. Like his whole life turned around. And I'm sitting there thinking, mm-hmm. Blood work. Yep, we're gonna do some follow-up labs. Natural as can be. Totally natty. I was like, injecting straight grapeseed oil, and uh, and he was like, That's not right, but I hit it, and I was like, No, that's because you were not living up to your potential. Like that meant you could have pushed harder and you thought that having a compound changed things, but this is what was in you the entire time. It was a placebo effect, and that's great because look at how much progress you've made. Now, what's gonna happen when we actually put you on test? But that's my favorite story to tell because his progress was incredible and it supposedly changed his life, and he took nothing.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:39

Yeah, it fucking it fucking happens, man. I mean, I see all these. If I can't like literally measure the effect of something, I'm like, I don't know if it works or not. So, like, test offenseine, I'm taking right now. Again, I'm taking a higher dose than what is studied. That's why you're having bowel issues. Testophensine is pretty good. Like for for like food noise.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:01

I never got far enough into it. Really? Yeah, I was shitting my pants. Really? Damn, man. No, it was horrible. That's probably the worst one. And I I do like it, and I think it has such a big role for like binge eating disorders because of how it can be tagged neurotransmitters.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:18

It's not good if you poop your pants. It's it stopped it completely for me. Like the food noise went away. The the the ability to like stop eating, that's cagrillantide. Retta didn't really do the needle for like it didn't really move the needle for me as much. Cagrillantide and scene, that's the actual tits for me. Like that that did the job like perfectly. It's it's really, really good. But I had to push 1.5 milligrams of Tesso. Like at 500 micrograms, I couldn't feel anything. It was it was like no difference whatsoever. And I I know we only studied up to one milligram, but like And that's what you're you're on that right now, too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

You're on all the things.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:55

Because it's uh it's a I mean, I was supposed to do an eight-week cut that was you know long and you know, like prolonged and reasonable rate, got sick, don't have time to do another cut, so I had to compress everything into three weeks. So I'm like, yo, I kind of just have to be a little bit more aggressive. So I gotta get nuke the appetite. You know, it works, it works. But speaking of nuking appetite, I think we're seeing this type of like nonsense over and over, right? Like the overdose TRT on women, we're seeing like GOP1 abuse just across the board and kids just playing with chemistry, like with their peptides and shit, like clinics throwing AIs and DECA at fucking dads that don't even walk their fucking dogs. Like if you had this magic wand and you could change just one thing about the optimization space right now, not a molecule, like a behavior or a pattern, like what would you kill first and why?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:49

That's the hardest question anybody's ever asked me, because there's so much. I know, but you can only get rid of one. Just remove social media. Yeah, people will look people would not even know how to use Google anymore to buy this shit. I think we are in such a dangerous space. I see literal, now I'm showing my age here, but I see like literal children being like, ask me about peptides live stream. And I'm like, little boy, I am literally failing organic chemistry right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Little little boy who is in his parents' basement and may or may not have a driver's license, please do not educate people on this. Yeah. Lady who never once exercised in her life, got on a GLP, lost 30 pounds way too rapidly. Please do not tell people how to mimic your GLP journey when you lost all of your muscle mass and your hair. I just what we're seeing is so dangerous. And even what I do, I'm a contributor to that. And you could argue, well, if you put out ethical, responsible information. I'm sorry, that doesn't exist in this space because so much is anecdotal and talking about it normalizes it. And just because somebody has appropriate, good, adequate, you know, maybe actually scientifically backed information where we have clinical data and it's empirical, they're still making it mainstream and accessible, just like the shitty GLP peptide princess. We're all kind of contributing. Now, our hopes is that we put our information out there and we contribute to safer use protocols, people educating themselves, hiring professionals, working in conjunction with their providers, getting blood work, but it's social media in general. I understand why my shit's silenced. I understand why I get shadow banned. I understand why I wasn't eligible for the for you page. It just sucks because GLP mama over here who's selling peptides on a live stream is getting pushed. But I took a picture with the syringe in my mouth.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:56

Yep. Which by the way, that picture is dope as shit. When I saw it, I was like, damn.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:59

Super cool pictures. I'm gonna keep putting them out and just see how long it takes to get in trouble again because I paid a lot for that photo shoot.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:04

Yeah, you look like you're straight out of like a comic book that Todd designed it or some shit, you know?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:09

Right. I I was so proud of those, and then they all got like mixed and taken off. And I'm like, but the cosmetic injectors do it.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:17

I just talk about steroids, is all so like I I'm I'm I'm with you. I I'm 100% with you here. Now I'll I'll tell you what I see underneath like all of these things because I I think there's a pattern. And if you if if you guys are still watching this shit like all the way to the end, this is the gold, okay? So pay attention. No one, and I literally mean that, no one has a real order of operations for this thing. So clinics are gonna treat like hormones like it's a literally a personality upgrade. It's more energy, it's more, you know, more drive, it's more cognition, and people are gonna treat GLP1s like a way to avoid having to be intentional about nourishing their bodies. And do we treat peptides like Pokemon cards? You just fucking gotta catch them all, right? What's missing here is what you and I hinted at with our content, just over and over and over. It's the thing that I'm I'm fucking nailing every single post that I make. People lack a system that says exactly what gets fixed, what's off limits, when drugs make the most sense, which drugs make the most sense, when deploying then would make things worse. And how do we know when something is helping or when something is just patching a symptom instead of actually correcting the issue upstream? So half of what I do with my people isn't giving them like new toys to play with, it's actually providing like a sequence, a clear set of like gates before each lever gets pulled and weekly reviews for them. So that like it makes it pretty much impossible for us to lie to ourselves about what's really driving the change here. And the the reason this works and why I love your work is because we both get pissed at the same fucking levers, we just come at it from different angles, right? So you live in the pharmacology and the coaching, and I live in like the formalizing this control system that keeps people from like eating themselves alive, so to speak. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 1:20:08

And that's the thing, it's it is madness out there, but uh our role is that we can and we do create method to the madness. Yes, and I think a lot of people forget that that's possible.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:20

Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And and and what I tell people all the time, it's like, hey, just because you don't you don't have a method doesn't mean you don't have a method. What do I mean? You're just not aware of your methodology, but you have one. Your methodology is to just throw shit at it whenever you see a new like shiny object. It's it's shiny object syndrome. Is the grass is greener if I just this next peptide is gonna be the answer? Like, oh, I can't lose weight, but I can't I keep fucking binging. What is gonna stop my binging? I'm like, have you tried psychology? Like actual like someone working with you to correct these thinking patterns? Because maybe it's not a physiological issue, maybe it's trauma, right? Like maybe you you need an integrative approach that's gonna deal with these things. And just because you lack one doesn't mean that you don't have one. It just means that you are not aware of what your own system is. But make no mistake, you are operating under a system is just a very fucking shitty one.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:17

Getting your information from TikTok is is typically a a red flag, I would say. And I'm so kind of I'm gonna share, I'm gonna share this story, and it makes I gave myself the ick. Like I am ashamed of this. But somebody left me a comment and they're like, your skin looks really great. What do you do for skincare? And I made like a funny video. I was like, this is what all like you know how I talk. And I was like, this is what all the skincare girlies are doing because it's not how I fucking talk. And I I named some of the stuff that I do, like like Trent Noen, my my GHK serum, and then heavy moisturizer and occlusive. Like, I I I do, I've gotten into the skincare thing. And I was like, but the most important thing you can do, I said, the secret for all the good skin you see on TikTok. And I turned my camera and I showed my ring light. Dude, do you know you think my teeth look this white in real life? I got like, I got like nice teeth. It's the ring light. Ring lights make you so much hotter than what you are in real life. And I even turned off the ring light in the video and I was like, now you're not asking about my skincare, are you? And I turned it back on. And so I made that video and I thought it was like funny, very honest. And I'm like, look at me making content. Ha ha. That serum I mentioned, I have a discount code for it. I didn't mention the discount code for it. I didn't even mention the specific serum. I just said that I use a GHK serum. And I went to the number, I was a dead last in sales of all the affiliates. I went to the number one spot in 24 hours.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:46

That's insane. That's insane.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:49

I mean, it's cool. I got some money from discounts. I appreciate the support. But do you know how disgusted I was with myself after that? And the fact that people were not messaging me, being like, well, how is this effective? How does it work? Am I a candidate for it? That in 24 hours I went to the number one sales spot. And don't get me wrong, y'all know I love my GHK. We already cut, we already covered that. But that that's the kind of stuff that we're seeing. Except, what if I'd been talking about something potentially dangerous or very controversial? That could have been a very different situation. And I don't have a strong following. It's not like I'm I'm famous or anything. I just film about steroids in my sweatpants. So just a like the power that some people hold and seeing that happen with a small creator like myself was fucking horrifying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:38

Yeah.

unknown 1:23:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:39

No, it really And the whole thing was the ring light because it really does make a difference.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:44

Sales of ring lights has also went up.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:47

I do I got a ring light on my computer and there's a I don't have any lights on it. There's a ring light coming at me this way. Like I am telling you.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:54

That's that's the real hack if you're on social media.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:58

No, there's so much more involved, man. But you know, we we're we're we're gonna land this plan right here. I DJ, again, thank you for doing this with us. This is the exact type of conversation that I think we we need to have, not just like hyping up a bunch of compounds and shit or or fear-mongering, but actually thinking about the strategy behind this thing. If you're listening to this and you don't already follow her, you need to fix that shit. So go follow Coach DJ Vanilla Face on Instagram, on TikTok, on YouTube, consume her content, send it to your coach, send it to your clinic, be a dick, make them uncomfortable. And if this episode actually hit home for you, do the usual health skipping stuff. Hit the like, subscribe to Opticast, drop a comment with one thing you're gonna change in your stack before you add anything new. And then I want you to do this. Send it to one friend, you know exactly who that friend is, who's buying every single peptide under the sun and he's just mixing your fucking GLPs, your SARMs, your NAD, and God knows what in the same week and has no idea what you're doing. If you care about him, just get this shit in front of him because you could actually be benefiting him. So we'll be back with more deep dives on how to use drugs that we all love in a way that actually enhances your life instead of costing it. DJ, again, thank you for being here. And to everyone listening, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Peace out.