#90 Derek More Plates More Dates - Hormone Replacement Therapy and Birth Control

0 (0s): Even compared to just like 10 years ago, I feel like it's way less accepted to even have a conversation with a stranger without it seeming Creepy or weird or abnormal. So a lot of men are basically conditioned to think that they should not go be, I don't know, like traditional masculine energy type individual. 2 (27s): Hello everybody. You are listening to Chatting with Candace. I'm your host Candice Horbacz. Before we get into the episode, I'm gonna remind you to hit that like and subscribe button if you haven't already. Both of those things help with the algorithm allegedly, hopefully, I'm pretty sure I'm shadow banned on all social platforms. So those little things help and I really appreciate it. We are gonna do a quick shout out for our cup of coffee this week. I wanted to say a big thank you to Magnus. Thank you for that cup of coffee. If you wanna support the podcast, you can go to Chatting with candace.com and click that link that says Buy me a coffee or sign up for a Patreon. All of it goes right back into the podcast so it helps very, very much. This week we have Derek from More, Plates, More, Dates during in the podcast. 2 (1m 9s): I am so excited we have been on this health journey. We've been looking at it from kind of a quantum mindset approach and I'm really excited to have Derek on to have more tangible, practical, everyday ways to increase our longevity, increase our health feel better, learn a little bit more about hormones, gut health, whatever else we get into. He has a wildly popular YouTube channel. I'm gonna make sure I link everything below. I'll also link any affiliates and sponsors of the podcast in the show notes. These are things that I have used, courses I've taken and things that I support. I'm not gonna plug each one directly, but if you wanna check them out, they're all linked below and I'm pretty sure get a discount on all of them. So just do that. 2 (1m 50s): The code will be CWC if one applies. And I think that's it. Let's hop into the episode. Please help me welcome Derek Derek. Thank you so much for joining the podcast. I'm really excited to have you on today. 0 (2m 2s): No, thanks for having me. 2 (2m 4s): Yeah, I've been going through like my own health journey recently and I've been kind of attacking it from more of a like quantum mindset, Joe Dispenza kind of level. So having you on feels very balanced and more like practical actionable items that people can kinda do to take charge of their bodies, their minds, and their longevity. 0 (2m 25s): No, right on. I'm hoping I can provide some value. Yeah. 2 (2m 29s): Oh I'm sure you're gonna have a ton. I was in this like really deep rabbit hole just trying to look at a whole bunch of your content and one of my favorite places was TikTok because the interesting thing, at least for me and my algorithm is you don't come up almost at all. It's all of these younger men that are kind of pretending to be you. So you're like, you're traps and your shoulders are kind of iconic on TikTok. 0 (2m 52s): Yeah, no, it's, that's a platform that is very interesting what pops off there and I have not, it's definitely not my go-to platform, but there is, yeah, I guess there's some fan accounts and whatnot there. 2 (3m 6s): Yeah, it's really great. I enjoyed it. I was, I was laughing, I was watching one of your podcasts and I thought it was interesting cuz I saw it on a couple of different men's help clips and something as like a woman I have no idea about or knew the significance was was like morning Wood. So waking up with a boner and like what is the SI health significance, what story does that tell and why is it important? 0 (3m 29s): I would say in general it's probably a good proxy for Hormone status in general. So for men, you know when you're a teenager and you first go through puberty, a lot are familiar with this. And then they notice as they get older it starts to, I guess it cuz it's such a gradual thing. It's not like overnight just stops happening. They just years later some individuals notice, oh wow I haven't, I don't even remember the last time I had this. And oftentimes it can be one of the like I wouldn't determine a person's Hormone status like oh you're clearly low T if you don't have morning Wood. I would not say that but it's certainly one of the proxies for, oh maybe you should check on do you have other symptoms that are related to Hormone dysfunction and have you had a blood test to kind of assess where you're at? 0 (4m 17s): Cuz it is kind of odd if you don't have any other underlying like psychological issues necessarily. Like some individuals who are excessive masturbator or excessive porn watchers, like maybe it might be more typical to not have morning Wood because they're just a abusing their like Dopamine circuitry so dramatically. But for people with just, you know, normal average people, if they are noticing that it hasn't happened in months or even weeks, realistically it would be worthwhile to kind of see where things are at under the hood cuz it could be a reflection of low testosterone or an imbalance. 2 (4m 53s): Does it have anything to do with like hip health as well as far as circulation goes? Cause I think that's something I also saw. 0 (5m 0s): Yeah, yeah like circulation issues. If you are somebody who like having erectile quality can be dictated by actual circulatory health too for sure. In general, I guess maybe my demo is more leaning towards the younger to middle-aged male, so I don't necessarily find guys having erectile issues as much from circulatory issues but that definitely can be, I wouldn't say for certain that you should write it off as that, but it could be a factor certainly. And that would be one of the things that you would try and deduce as you kind of go down the laundry list of is it a Hormone issue, is it a, like what's my blood pressure? 0 (5m 43s): Like is it a circulation issue, et cetera. 2 (5m 46s): Yeah. So you mentioned Dopamine Abuse. So is what is the difference between the Dopamine that you get from eating the Dopamine that you get from orgasm and obviously like there is a difference neurologically versus when you masturbate versus when you climax with someone else which like it triggers different parts of the brain so they are different and then Dopamine that you get, which is supposed to be really intense from a cold plunge, like it's something like a four hour Spike, you're supposed to get 0 (6m 14s): The Spike in adrenergic signaling, which is like your adrenaline fight or flight system is dramatic where you could have, you know like I'm sure if you've ever done it, you know how intense it is and the Spike in no epinephrine is pretty significant from it where it is comparable to you know, certain drugs of that nature. But I would say that to delineate between like the Dopamine that you get from food versus, I don't know, like synthetically induced activities like masturbation to porn or whatnot, it's kinda like you're just acclimating your body to certain different kinds of stimulatory input to achieve that neurotransmitter release. 0 (6m 58s): Which is can be problematic or not problematic depending on what activities are tied to that. Like reward signaling. So like when you have somebody who is pleasure eating or masturbating to achieve a very, very easy Dopamine hit, like I would say in general those people are potentially reinforcing bad eating habits or on the opposite side of the spectrum, reinforcing bad, I don't know like low effort coping even like 2 (7m 26s): Like coping mechanism kind of. 0 (7m 28s): Yeah. But also reinforcing what is likely to be a lower quality dating life I would say cuz it's significantly inhibiting your drive to actually go meet a partner and probably impeding your quality of sex too, even when you have a partner with you. Obviously there is like a, a balancing act with this. It's not to say that no one can masturbate or watch porn but if it's too excess, oftentimes that's where you get people getting into obesity territory or people getting into you know, dysfunctional relationships or people who are just homebodies and essentially become hermits. And there's a lot of people that are just complacently living their lives in their homes and are, you know, haven't had sexual activity in years and it's a ever growing proportion of young men especially. 2 (8m 20s): Yeah, I was reading something and it was saying that the average age of a male virgin in Japan was like 30 or 31. 0 (8m 27s): Oh my god. Wow. 2 (8m 28s): Yeah and then they're obviously they're facing a population decline which is now you under, like that's one of the contributing factors. So what do you feel like, what is the driver of this complacency or almost like this social anxiety to connect or this aversion to connect? Because I agree with you, I think you can do most things in moderation and everything. Like the difference between a tonic and a toxic toxin is the dosage, right? So it's not to say don't partake in any of these things, but if if you're doing it as a way to escape then that's, that's a, that's a problem. So like what is the driving factor especially for young men when it comes to like these kind of self-sabotaging Behaviors 0 (9m 5s): Like similar to the Dopamine circuitry discussion that we just had? I think it is the ease of access of achieving some of these things is so the barrier to entry and ease of access is so low that if you can achieve a successful outcome like neurotransmitter release that you deem to be like achieved a set point of I no longer care and I'm complete, you know, I'm satisfied. I feel like that definitely reinforces the complacent, you know, sedentary Behaviors of individuals that kind of just float through life and really don't have to go put themselves through hardship or make high levels of effort into certain activities to achieve those same outcomes that actually, you know, give that signal to your brain. 0 (9m 53s): So there's probably more that goes into it. I'm not like a neuro science expert by any means but it's certainly becoming dramatically more problematic as the years go on and I feel like the technology and the social media and all that definitely exacerbates it and I don't think it can be overlooked just how, I dunno, it's the ease of access is just like too, it's too accessible for everyone overall to a point where I think the proportion of men who will actually put in the effort to achieve the outcomes they desire is just lower and lower and more people are becoming okay with you know, underachieving in many areas of their life if they're able to achieve, you know, get the outcome through a lower effort means. 2 (10m 43s): Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree that it's, it is like this really quick tangible way to feel like you've accomplished something. Like it's a very quick release and then there's obviously a way to measure that so you're like okay, I did do something today even though it's like that's not something that should be really counted as moving forward with any area of your life. But I would say I also feel like there's almost this weird space that a lot of young men are in where it's trying to find purpose and it's where am I even wanted or where can I excel or where is like my space to run because I feel that whole feminist movement took a lot of space away from men and like a lot of the traditional roles that they had, which was provider and protector were saying like we don't need anymore. 2 (11m 30s): So it's almost like well what are they left to do? Like where is the space for them to achieve or build without that getting demonized? 0 (11m 38s): Yeah, yeah. And I think just nowadays with how socially divided so many groups are and whatnot and I don't know how much, you know the social distancing and all the stuff played into it, I don't know how much we want to get into that but in general I'm 2 (11m 54s): Good keep as you wanna go 0 (11m 56s): In gen in general I feel like it's even compared to just like 10 years ago, I feel like it's way less accepted to even have a conversation with a stranger without it seeming Creepy or weird or abnormal. So a lot of men are basically conditioned to think that they should not go be, I don't know, like a traditional masculine energy type individual that's like a bad way to phrase it, but somebody who could otherwise just strike up a conversation with a stranger or a woman and try and even engage in any sort of intellectual discourse whatsoever. Like they are just incentivized to stay home and not be Creepy cuz that's like, you know, the best you can do is just do nothing cuz you might you know, do something Creepy and though that's the worst thing ever. 0 (12m 44s): Right. But at the same time when you're online there's such a dramatic disparity between you know, high value men online and who's rich and successful versus oh I'm just this random guy with a normal job who's sitting at home most of the time no woman would want would want me. And then I think it was like a statistic of it was like 10% get 90% of the women or something. Wow. And that was 10 plus years ago so now I imagine it's even worse. So or you know, something ru proportionally there is definitely a not proportional spread of you know, one man for one woman is very much like a lot of men are stuck in basically a rut of trying to achieve a level of, I don't know, just feeling okay with their lives even though they are not necessarily happy with where they stand. 2 (13m 37s): Yeah. One of my girlfriends was out getting coffee and a a gentleman, very nice young man went up to her and just like tried to introduce himself to just create that like moment of connection and ask her out and she was just like, it was the creepiest thing. Meanwhile she has these strangers that are on social media going into her dms and she thinks that's fine. I was like what about that is Creepy if you're not interested or you don't feel anything, then you can say no and then it can get Creepy if there's like a boundary being crossed but an initi like just initiating I think is fine. And what I try to explain to my girlfriends that are on these dating apps and they're just doing like you have to be at least six foot, you have to look successful. 2 (14m 19s): Like all of these like very superficial parameters like when you're doing that and not meeting someone in person, you're not accounting for like pheromone exchange and like what your body is telling you like is this a proper match or not? Because there might be somebody that you would online see like that's not the guy for me. But when you're in front of him, like there is that connection cuz we don't really know what drives attraction. There's a huge X factor in that. 0 (14m 40s): How many of them have a six foot cutoff outta curiosity? 2 (14m 44s): Oh all of my girlfriends. 0 (14m 45s): Oh really? 2 (14m 46s): Like everybody. Wow. Yeah even like the short ones and I'm like that doesn't even make sense. You're five foot, why do you, you need a six foot guy, that doesn't even make sense 0 (14m 53s): But do they even know how to perceive what is six feet is the 2 (14m 57s): Thing? Probably not. 0 (14m 58s): Yeah I feel like a lot of them say that but then when they're stand a five foot three girl standing beside a guy who's five 10 and a half, she's like, oh he could say is yeah 2 (15m 7s): But you'll see guys that are, it's like poor poor guys, they're honest on these apps so they'll say five 11 or five 10 and I kid you not, I have had my girlfriend say but he's only five 10 but he's only five 11. I'm like, that's one inch, what are you talking? This could be the love of your life and you're not gonna go meet him over one inch. So I think it's, I think men if you're listening just put six foot because women dunno what they want 0 (15m 34s): Do. Do the apps force you to put a height now or is it just in their bio they proactively put it to try and distinguish themselves 2 (15m 42s): Or I don't, yeah, it might be just like listed and the guys just think that they might have to answer it. I could be wrong, I'm, I haven't been on one of those in a long 0 (15m 50s): Time. Yeah like it's a good idea if you are six feet to put in your bio. But I mean if I wasn't sure if that was like a mandatory input now. 2 (15m 57s): Oh maybe it is, who knows, 0 (15m 58s): That'd be intense. Have you seen those limb lengthening surgeries? Oh 2 (16m 2s): My god, I yeah saw a video and I wish that there was a disclaimer but it's just autoplayed and it was this guy going through recovery and he had these brackets and you saw the scars and the bolts and I'm for what? What do you like, do you know how many inches you can gain from that? 0 (16m 19s): Quite a bit actually. Really I was shocked to myself, yeah these individuals, they go get these, you know, screws put into their, I have to look into it more but it's more, they basically like micro adjust their bones by the day until they have gained upwards of like you can go however far you want and the extent of your recovery and rehabilitation capacity is obviously hindered the more you go. But I've seen one guy that I saw that I might make a video on cause it's crazy, he's a bodybuilder and he was six feet when he went in and he got increased to six six oh And it's like whatcha you doing? Yeah, 2 (16m 58s): Why? 0 (16m 59s): I don't know, just wants to be six six as tall as possible I guess. But so 2 (17m 4s): Is that strictly below the knee or can, are they going above the knee as well? 0 (17m 8s): I think it depends on the situation but I have to look into it more. But yeah, I think there's a choice between if you do both or not and it depends on how many inches you want or perhaps like, I don't know, your proportions or something. I think it kind of depends but yeah it's kind of sketchy cuz I've seen these people trying to walk after and maybe I just haven't followed it enough to see somebody who's successfully athletic afterwards. But the current people that have kind of popped off on social media from the virality of it all, they're, they're just like hobbling around at best case scenario seemingly. 2 (17m 46s): Yeah. And then I guarantee your ability to walk is gonna be more important than what land your height and then if you're doing it disproportionately, which maybe they're not, but it seems like there could be a lot of mistakes that could happen. Like we all have different like skeletal structures so by making that change there, there's gonna be like a second and third order consequence you would imagine like on your hips and your back and your shoulders And I, so I used to ride horses and we had like this saddle master like the guy is just like a human engineer. Like he sees people like parts and he can tell you your body type and where he thinks it originated from and like the advantages and disadvantages of it and how you, how you balance all of that. 2 (18m 27s): And he takes all of that into count when he's making a saddle for you. So it's like if you were like he would even talk about your shin length in comparison to your torso and what that meant. And I, I just think back to him and if you were to just make those small adjustments, he would even talk about girls that are getting like their butts done or their boobs done and he's like that has a huge effect down the the line cuz your frame is not meant for those things. Like that's a certain type of body type with girls that are built that way. So I'd imagine that chopping your legs up like that is not gonna be good for you down the road. 0 (18m 59s): No it looks like they have to like relearn how to walk essentially. It's not even just that their legs are messed up, they also have their movement patterns and their muscle memory for how they even take each step. It looks like they're, you know, a toddler again essentially, which is nuts. 2 (19m 14s): So with your audience, do you tackle like the mental side of that for me? Like obviously you work on your body and like that's a huge part of your content is like pushing out Nutrition and workouts, but do you also work on mindset when it comes to like there's a difference between feeling like love for yourself and like self-worth and then like being a narcissist, right? Like those are two different things. So like being fulfilled but not complacent or being fulfilled and not a narcissist. Like that healthy balance of like I'm okay and I don't need to like take testosterone and when I'm 15 years old cause I wanna be big or chop up my legs because I wanna be tall but just like a a real love for who your essence is. 0 (19m 57s): Yeah, I wouldn't say my content is heavily into that but I would, I do try and highlight like even the realities of like the six foot cutoff I've made videos where oftentimes women who say they have this bullet point list of things that they will not accept anything but minimum this if you are a charismatic, I dunno, relatable to that individual and they really, I dunno resonate with your energy and they just really like you. Like you can get away with a lot of stuff that on paper you are not qualified for. So I often highly encourage guys to just max themselves out in as many categories as possible. 0 (20m 38s): Oftentimes guys in the gym especially they will lean into the whole steroid, you know themselves out, get as jacked as possible but then neglect social communication skills like just normal things that could otherwise set you apart and just make you a, I don't know person that people even wanna be friends with too. And they will neglect basic hygiene dressing, well building high quality relationships, friend groups, you know, and all in pursuit of this like next level physique that they think is the key to getting top tier women silver platter to them essentially. And then they find out often that it isn't the case that that happens so they need to develop in other areas. 0 (21m 18s): And I think the sooner people realize that, the better cuz you don't, like everyone knows a guy who's short that's got some, you know, very attractive woman and you, you know, you might wonder Jason see them. Yeah. And it's like how how'd that guy get fill in the blank person. He is bald, he's shorter, he's whatever. And there's always, you know, exceptions and I wouldn't even say it's an exception to r to the rule. Like it's not like they're so rare that it's like a unicorn scenario where it's only adjacent statham who's super successful and rich. Like oftentimes as long as you are maxing yourself out in as many categories as you can, you're giving less reasons to be disqualified from the opposite sex and you know, still being attractive human even if you're you know, five foot seven or something. 0 (22m 1s): Like it's not gonna play in your favor obviously, but all the other things cumulatively can definitely help you. And I think the sooner people I don't know really embrace that and mentally accept that, you know, their value doesn't derive just down to them hitting a six foot cutoff or something. You know, the sooner they can be happy and try and get into a relationship with somebody who accepts them for them as a whole but also, you know, trying to strive for greatness in as many areas as possible ideally. 2 (22m 32s): Yeah. Do you think that fitness is just a really good entry point for a lot of people? Like it's kind of the, the least complex or complicated or scary, it's just like developing certain disciplines and habits and then you can take those lessons out into dating and into friendship and into business? 0 (22m 49s): Yeah, I think it bleeds into a lot of areas of life because once you get healthy with your body, not only do you look more physically attractive, but in addition your mental wellbeing, you know, similar to the mental health increases substantially too. Like there's absolutely a relationship between emotional wellbeing, mood stability, et cetera and having a good body composition. And then by extension of that, you know, you look better in clothes, you're more confident which can impart even, I don't know, further development of your social skills because you're more confident to actually go out in the world and talk to other people and whatnot. So you know, it, it hits so many boxes and it's such a controllable variable that everyone can really change in a quick period of time too. 0 (23m 38s): Like it doesn't take that long to, well it depends you know, how out of shape you are of course, but I mean like it's not like it's the most complicated thing in the world whereas I don't know, maybe becoming incredibly skilled with communicating with women might seem like the most daunting task ever. Whereas with fitness it's like eat your protein, go to the gym and lift stuff and sleep. It's just like it's not that hard if you're tracking everything. If you're just doing it blindly and don't actually know where to go with it, then yeah it could be daunting as well. But a lot of people have the low hanging fruit Absolutely. Of their fitness that could correct many areas of their life I feel like, or at least enhance their ability to then achieve greatness in other ear areas of life by that and the discipline to actually, you know, complete a crazy body transformation or whatever, if you can discipline yourself to restrict calories, get over bad eating habits, go to the gym regularly, you know, impose significant amounts of stress on your body, et cetera. 0 (24m 36s): Like really you can do a lot of other things that maybe otherwise seem daunting at the time but are, you know, comparatively so not as, not as bad I would say 2 (24m 47s): So yeah, like making you less reactive to everyday stressors. 0 (24m 51s): Yeah, yeah I think stress resilience definitely goes up via lifting too and even like the hormonal implications of getting a better body composition and getting a more hormonally supportive state to tolerating stress, like that's absolutely a thing as well. 2 (25m 5s): So I love that you, we like kind of went through kinda like the sacrifices and discipline that you have to do in order to achieve a certain body composition. So you see we, I guess it's a human thing. We like to make things like easy and we like to cheat and we wanna get things you know fast and the least resistance. So you see everyone that's going bananas over this Ozempic drug and whatever all the other things are. And then recently they're now saying they wanna give it to kids so got approved at high dose for 12 and up and childhood would be, I was like, I had to look this stuff up today cause it was so alarming but childhood obesity is up to almost 20%, which is about 15 million kids. 2 (25m 46s): The crazy part is of that 20%, 12.7 are two to five years old, which breaks my heart because I have a three and a half year old and I, I don't think he could eat enough food to get even chubby. Like this kid is just always running and jumping and playing and he eats and he's like a regular healthy body mass for his age. So when you see that you're like how can two to five-year-olds be obese at that level? And then instead of looking at all of the reasons that that kid is obese and we're not just saying just like chubby, like clinically obese, we're saying let's just give them this drug. And to me I think that's crazy because you're not correcting the bad Behaviors or the bad environment that's leading to that because I think to my understanding obesity it's not really genetic. 2 (26m 34s): Like it's a really small percentage of people that that is a real contributing factor and I don't know if that's correct or incorrect. 0 (26m 41s): There are some genetically inherited traits for sure and especially from a satiety brain chemistry aspect. I do think the epigenetics of like your parents, their habits can actually, like for example if the mother is has exceptionally bad eating habits and she's morbidly obese, it's more likely that the child will also inherit that. Which can make it a taller, I don't know, task for them to overcome. Especially when they don't have the guidance from their parents to actually teach them how to fix things because obviously they didn't, you know, do it themselves. 0 (27m 21s): So however, that's not to say that people couldn't, you know, fix their stuff. I don't know anyone really like there are people who exist obviously who have dramatic, you know, Hormone deficiencies and whatnot who will never be able to get in shape unless they correct that via medical interventions. But that's, you know, the severe minority of course the majority of people who have good eating habits can't and you know, exercise activity, blah blah blah can definitely maintain good, you know, good shape without having to go on a, you know, appetite crushing drug For sure. So I think a lot of people, the first step is to just stop buying the stuff that is, you know, pushing them over. 0 (28m 3s): Like I I guess to the most granular level people just need to figure out how to track first of all, which is hard to tell a child of course cuz if they have a parent who is not in the know of how to get in shape and they let their child eat, you know, to excess of highly palatable, you know, processed foods and whatnot, then you can see how they end up in this position. Especially with the more increasingly sedentary lifestyles even in children I imagine now too with you know, the video games and the social media et cetera, et cetera. But yeah the, it's tough cuz it's like some of these kids if you don't correct the underlying issue they will not get in shape. But it's like how do you impart that knowledge at scale when you have parents who don't know it themselves and clearly aren't adopting it and bring into their own lives. 0 (28m 53s): So I sort of get where in certain scenarios it could make sense but I also, you know, definitely would be concerned about the consequences of some child being reliant on a drug to maintain their appetite with unforeseen consequences for you know, the future. Cuz we also don't know what's gonna happen 20 years from now from a kid who's been on semaglutide for this entire time, who knows what's gonna happen. Like there are certain side effects that go not really spoken about prominently. So yeah, like I think a lot of people at the end of the day you could definitely correct things if you were to fix the underlying issue. It's just a matter of how do you do that at scale. 0 (29m 34s): It's just difficult. 2 (29m 35s): Yeah the doctor in the article was saying that it's, it's a lifelong medication and the moment that you stop taking it, the weight comes back on. And then the side effects that I've heard about are loss in like 30% in like mu in lean muscle mass and bone density. So if you're giving it to a kid pre puberty, so 12 is usually pre puberty for most kids and you're talking about something that affects bone health that seems detrimental or possibly detrimental. 0 (30m 1s): A lot of people conflate the appetite suppressing properties with it literally does this, which it's an indirect consequence. So by inhibiting your appetite you are eating less and by extension of that you will lose weight and could be bone mass if you're severely depriving yourself of Nutrition while you're in your growing years. Especially for individuals to say oh you'll gain it all back. Like basically what would happen is you would, your body would then return to the environment that previously you were incapable of achieving, you know the body composition that was good because your habits were not, you know, representative of a healthy eating pattern. 0 (30m 46s): So it's not necessarily that taking the drug out makes you fat, it's more that now you don't have the appetite suppressing qualities of it and now your appetite's back to baseline and you have not changed the type of foods that you're eating so now you are eating higher quantities of them again and that restores your weight back in, you know, relatively short order because you didn't correct the underlying problem. So yeah, like ultimately at the end of the day it is sort of like a bandaid for like a really bad bleeding cut or something like you are trying to just like cover up the issue by lowering your food intake of what are otherwise not good quality foods typically. And that's where you get the, you know, lean body mass losses or bone loss in some cases individuals who are already eating a diet that is disproportionately low in protein. 0 (31m 34s): And now if my appetite's even lower and I already kind of prefer highly palatable foods that are not necessarily nutrient dense, what am I probably gonna be reaching for to hit my lower calorie amounts? It's gonna be the highly palatable foods and proportionately lesser so you know the healthy ones so it could kind of exacerbate unhealthy eating patterns and you could lose weight but you are still like eating the same bad choices. It's just like right to a lesser amount or without the dr without the drug you eat a higher amount of the bad food. So, and that's not always the case though. Like it definitely helps a lot of people but I would be very hesitant to give it to a child. 2 (32m 15s): I was gonna say yeah cause if you're giving it to a 12 year old who's primarily eating like butter noodles and toast and then all of a sudden they're eating, you know, almost the same as if they had stomach surgery so they're still eating that shitty food and now they're getting even less of the minimal nutrients that are in that. It just seems like there's gonna be a consequence when it goes to like those really big growth spurts that they're about to Oh 0 (32m 37s): Yeah, like inhibited height outcomes, right. Inhibited muscle and bone growth. Yeah, I would be very concerned about that. 2 (32m 44s): Yeah. And then it's like well why aren't the doctors talking about Nutrition? And this is one of the biggest criticisms I see anytime like your content goes around or on clips, it's like is he a doctor? I was like I'm that's, that is a bonus for me. I have fired so many doctors in my life on my path. Yeah Cause I have a couple autoimmune issues that I was working with and I was talking, first of all, none of them even talk about Nutrition. They say that it, there's not enough evidence to for them to give me any nutritional advice. That's what they say. There's no evidence that the food that you eat affects your health. Which to me is astonishing. And then my one specialist was like, well it's obvious what you do, you just have to cut out meat, you know? 2 (33m 23s): And I was like why is that obvious that Harvard is actually saying quite the opposite, that if you have autoimmune disorders that you should be upping your red meat intake. But here's my doctor who has an MD who is a specialist that's like, oh no, you actually should be vegetarian. Like this is nonsense, this is nonsense. So I actually think it works in your favor at least for me. 0 (33m 44s): Yeah, I definitely think it gives me the flexibility at least to speak from not a position of authority. Cuz one thing I do see online that I like, it depends on the person obviously. But sometimes you'll see a chiropractor or something who's like on YouTube parading around as a doctor and then gives like the most obscenely biased advice ever. And he is like, this is the only way to do this and you know, I'm a doctor so listen to me. And you know there needs to be an objective kind of self-education unfortunately nowadays seemingly where even if a very prominent authority in the space says something, you still need to fact check it. Because even in the online space now there's doctors that are arguing with each other every day like it's insane. 0 (34m 25s): So it's like you don't even know what to believe anymore at this point unfortunately. Which sucks that there is not unbiased sources of information very commonly. Like it's very difficult to discern what is the truth versus not. And people are very apt to dramatize things to kind of, you know, very, I dunno highlight the importance of their niche or services they offer or products they sell. And it's tough cuz the average consumer or viewer really has to get, honestly has to self-educate themselves is how I feel nowadays. Like especially with the autoimmune stuff. Like good luck figuring out if you have a autoimmune issue without digging into it yourself. 0 (35m 7s): You would never have a doctor come out or a typical doctor come out and tell you that what you are eating could be triggering an autoimmune reaction or anything of that nature. 2 (35m 17s): No, no they, they absolutely don't. My whole experience I the weird thing too, so I've graves disease and usually that's genetic but no one in my family that I know of has it. And I was maybe like 23 when it kind of like clicked on and I immediately started losing a ton ton, when I say a ton of weight, I mean a ton of weight. I eventually got down to 90 pounds and I was eating like a horse. Like I couldn't eat enough and I couldn't even sit up anymore cause my resting heart rate was over 200. Geez. And yeah, I almost faint just sitting up and I eventually couldn't walk anymore cause my muscles started to atrophy and I'm going to the doctor and this lady is like, well I went to Chapel Hill so I'm a great doctor and I'm telling you that you're just stressed. 2 (36m 4s): And then I went back and she's like, it might be mono wasn't mono, you're probably just dehydrated. I'm like, I'm not fucking dehydrated. Yeah. Like I'm dying. 0 (36m 13s): Imagine going in with like flu-like temperatures and a resting heart rate above even a hundred and being told like you're probably fine. It's just nonsense, 2 (36m 22s): Nonsense. But she had an MD and she went to like this fancy school so I was just this dumb kid and she had no I like, you know what I mean, listened to her. I ended up going to a walk-in clinic that's like super janky and dirty and filled with questionable people and I'm like, I really think I'm gonna die. I don't know what's happening. And he rushed me to the hospital and he's like, I'm pretty sure you have Graves disease. We need to put you on this cardiac machine to make sure that you know, your heart doesn't stop. And then they, I simply got a me like a pill and then all of a sudden my Thyroid started to like not, they started to slow down and like quite literally saved my life. But this lady was just so attached to her identity of a doctor and a prestigious doctor that she couldn't even fathom that like me a regular person was suggesting that she was wrong could be a possibility. 0 (37m 5s): Yeah that's nuts for, it's interesting cuz most, I've encountered a lot of women who have dealt with Hashimoto's thyroiditis but not as many who have had graves. Did you find out like do you take a medication that suppresses TSH or, or it suppresses like your signaling to produce T4 or what is like the, the thing you have to take to control it? So or is it corrected by diet now? 2 (37m 32s): No, so interestingly I was on Methol for a really long time and that just like slowed down the production I think of T3 or t4, I don't know 0 (37m 41s): T4 would be the more T4 inactive that converts to t3 so I would assume t4. But like, 2 (37m 47s): Yeah. So it essentially slowed it down to a point where that that made sense. And then I had my second baby and then my Thyroid was going crazy and I told them the whole pregnancy and this goes back to my issues with doctors and like why I've fired so many. I told them while I was pregnant I don't feel right. Like I've, this is my second pregnancy, I feel sluggish, I feel almost like depressed wasn't the right word but just like dull, like nothing like I just didn't feel alive. They were, they were checking my blood but they said it was all within the healthy parameters. I have my second baby and then all of a sudden I found like this incredible like private practice doctor and she's like, I think it flipped and like you just aren't making Thyroid Hormone anymore. So she did these really in depth tests that I had never done in like my decade of being sick. 2 (38m 32s): She to, she took me off the medication, I haven't been on it for like four or five months now and my Thyroid is like slowly evening out just through like stress mitigation. I'm like super into dispenza. So like mindset, right? Like kind of controlling negative thoughts and your stress and your space and like healing on like a woo quantum level but also diet, right? Like cleaning up your diet and forcing yourself to move. I got in a place where I was like, so just like I just gave up no energy, I had the baby weight. I was like my thyroid's not fucking working and just like this woe is me mentality. And eventually I was just like I had to beat myself up about, I'm like, you were a piece of shit and you're never gonna lose this weight. Like just move you already feel like trash. 2 (39m 12s): You have the workout stuff right in the next room. Like just do it like stop being a bitch. So that was my way of doing it and I started moving and everything started to kind of heal and I feel a million times better but it's like whatever modality works for you, if you have to like be a bully and like kind of like beat yourself to up to go fucking go or if you can do it in a loving way, do it that that way but don't just settle for not feeling good. 0 (39m 35s): Hmm. Do you have blood work now to oversee the Thyroid function or how do you kind of like keep an eye on it other than general sense of you know, feeling not over the top, you know, cranked heart rate, et cetera? 2 (39m 48s): Yeah, I just, I check it like every two or three months and it's still on the low end and I haven't been on medicine so I've ch I've had it checked twice now since I've been off and it's still low and I definitely don't feel hyper cuz when I feel hyper it's real. I get really hot and wired and agitated. I start getting like palpitations or some tremors that'll start showing up. So none of that's happening. And then if I would then I would go get a panel. But again it's like most of the doctors that run Panels it's like what are you even looking for? You're not even checking for all of the right things. Like you're taking like this super small and like vague snapshot that doesn't tell you anything that's actually happening. Yeah, 0 (40m 23s): Even diagnosing Thyroid issues, it's like oftentimes they use very, I don't know prelim like especially in Canada where I am, they use very preliminary screening tactics to assess where your status is at. Like they'll look at your T S H and then nothing else and only if your TSH is like cranked over five will they actually look at your T4 and then your T4 has to be crashed into nothingness to even look at your T3 and it's like mind blowing cuz you could have like a conversion issue to reverse T3 and just be like still even on paper short of not looking at the reverse t3, you could have a normal looking Thyroid panel but be super hypo just cuz none of it is actually you know, getting, activating the receptor. 0 (41m 5s): So it's, yeah it's crazy how granular you have to get almost on self-education these days but especially for like unique health issues. But at the same time I guess it's, it's difficult to expect general like family doctors to know everything like a specialist would like an endo or a urologist or whatever. But the way that they approach it oftentimes I feel like is from a position of I know the answer, I just like don't wanna tell you it or I already know it and you're just like making stuff up in your head which is problematic and it's kind of what inspired me to start Marek health which is where I kind of get all the best minds in my opinion from my particular niche. 0 (41m 49s): And I don't know if I, if you've seen it on my page or anything. No 2 (41m 53s): I wanted to ask about that cuz I saw your, the post on Merrick's Twitter and you reposted Chris Williamson who's a friend of mine as well and I saw that he is working with you guys and I thought that was awesome. So is it kind of kind of like a longevity clinic or like what exactly are you offering? 0 (42m 13s): So it's a preventative medicine platform so what we do is it's all telemedicine but I think the Stigma nowadays around TRT clinics is unfortunately somewhat negative but also justified cuz a lot of those clinics that exist are frankly just coverups to prescribe testosterone to every guy they can or an array of different like longevity related compounds when honestly a lot of them are not necessarily longevity enhancing and they essentially are like the common pill mill more or less but like with not like a opiate or something, right? 0 (42m 53s): It's like Hormone related. But for us, like we're very passionate about preventative medicine, it's what I made a lot of my content on and this platform basically it's me connecting people to high quality doctors in the field of our niche specifically, which is Hormone optimization but also preventative medicine as a whole is what I'm most, most passionate about, which is preventing disease before you actually get there. So rather than waiting, and this is like the biggest hangup I have with the medical system especially in Canada, is good luck getting a blood test done before you're literally having a very significant issue or getting to you know, some sort of cardiac assessment before you're literally having a heart attack. 0 (43m 35s): Like oftentimes they will wait until you are in a disease state severely unhealthy or something dramatic happens that justifies a test or an assessment of any sort when you could otherwise look at things well beforehand and create a like a well thought out plan to avoid ever getting there, enhance your quality of life to the greatest extent you can and optimize your whole self essentially. So for us we take a very broad spectrum approach to that and we look at hormones, hematology, you know kidney health, metabolic parameters, Thyroid health, like all of these things come into play to assess do you have any deficiencies, imbalances, where are they, how could we correct them through lifestyle changes, supplementation if warranted, sleep hygiene, gene enhancement, pharmacology if warranted. 0 (44m 25s): But the main bread and butter for us is the services and the education. So that's what I pride myself on is people becoming as informed as they can throughout the process of working with us and then not just chucking them on a medication being like oh you know, get on Ozempic because you're fat. Like rather we'll look at everything and give you all of the tools in your tool belt. Kinda like choose the lowest hanging fruit with the lowest risk profile before you go to like heavy hitting stuff and it's only if it's warranted. So that is probably the business I'm most passionate about and what I try to educate about at scale. 2 (45m 3s): So are most of your clients in the the states or are they kind of all, like are they global 0 (45m 9s): In the states Right now we are looking to expand into Canada but there's a lot of rules and regulations around medical services. So it's not as easy as we would hope cuz especially being Canadian myself it seems so paradoxical that none of my businesses are stationed in Canada and I can't really serve Canadian patients unfortunately, but hopefully in the near future that will be the case. Cause that's like one of the main things that motivated me to start this to begin with is trying to get my parents proactive screening to make sure my mom doesn't have a stroke like my grandma did or getting my dad's Hormone status assessed or even checking my own stuff to make sure I don't have any genetic predispositions to fill in the blank or that my lipid profile is in check. 0 (45m 56s): So I don't end up with atherosclerosis when I'm you know, 50 plus years old. Like these are things that if I was to, if you are to be proactive about it from onset of adulthood, like you can offset a significant amount of otherwise highly probable, you know, death outcomes. So like cardiovascular disease is like a highly avoidable outcome even though it's the most common killer of like above cancer, even significantly a cardiovascular disease, it's going to kill most people and it doesn't need to happen if you were on top of it from an early age and monitoring your blood pressure, your lipid profile, metabolic health, like it does not need to happen. So that's stuff that, you know, my main motivation behind it ultimately 2 (46m 38s): I think that's beautiful. I was gonna ask what motivated you and that it's your parents I think is so great are do they, do they participate? Do they do the Panels and they listen to your advice or are they like a lot of parents are, they're like you're my, I always see you as my five-year-old kid and I'm never gonna listen to you. 0 (46m 54s): No, it's funny because no matter how much of a like expert you are in your field and no matter how much, it's funny cuz even before I started businesses I would do consultations for individuals or whatever like people would pay a fair amount of money to get my advice but even my parents and family for whatever reason it's like, you know, some people are just have certain motivation to help themselves and some don't and they take a good amount of advice but I feel like I wish they would take more and they, you know, oftentimes they'll say read this or you know, watch this video and then you know, implement this and then I find out, you know, months later they still haven't watched like a 10 minute video or something but it's, they do the blood work, I literally send a phlebotomist to their house to make sure it gets done and trying to oversee as much as I can ultimately. 2 (47m 45s): Yeah, you can only help so much. 0 (47m 48s): Yeah. 2 (47m 49s): So when you're doing these intakes, like these blood Panels, if someone, let's say they're strapped and they're on a tight budget, are there basic things that you would look out for? Like do you do a Microbiome test? Is that kind of something that you add on later? Like what, how significant is that to overall wellbeing? And then I wanted to ask some questions about hormones. 0 (48m 11s): Yeah, for us we have different Panels that you can choose from that have been pre-selected by our team and overseen by myself as well that I've audited. And the comprehensiveness varies depending on budget of course and you can get as granular as I think we're one of the only platforms that you can actually make your own custom panel. So if you actually know what you want and don't wanna be forced to spend $500 to get, like for example if we have a sensitive assay estradiol test and you're a woman or a low T guy or whatever and you wanna actually assess where you stand in an accurate manner cuz the standard estradiol test is not very accurate. 0 (48m 52s): Oftentimes a lot of these platforms will force you to buy like the comprehensive Hormone package to get like a $600 panel that has it included. We have, it's on merrick diagnostics.com, you can add each individual biomarker separately if you actually knew what you wanted and you could buy like, I dunno, $50 of biomarkers that includes like your top four things that you want to check or something. Which becomes especially valuable if you have got a really expensive panel and then you've kind of owned in on like three things that are suboptimal and you want to correct. You don't wanna have to get the whole panel every single time to assess it, you know, longitudinally. So for us we make it so that you can just add, oh you know, your vitamin D was deficient last test, you know, add a supplement or get outside more or fill in the blank and then just add a vitamin D to your cart and go test that for you know, 10 bucks or something. 0 (49m 41s): That's what we try and facilitate. So it's the most cost effective we can make it and we're always negotiating better prices with LabCorp and whatnot to try and get the best prices for our clients and whatnot. But as far as Microbiome assessments, that is something that we are not specialized in and frankly I'm quite skeptical of the, the interpretation of those oftentimes like, like I've definitely seen individuals have success by getting granular on what is, you know, the balance of different strains in their gut Microbiome and whatnot and trying to balance 'em and whatnot. But it's, it's oftentimes people who position themselves as experts in that field, they are just going off of a lot of anecdotes and experience through trial and tribulation. 0 (50m 29s): Not necessarily literature too, which is valuable of course cuz if you just went by literature you would have people telling you that diet doesn't heal you. So it's, it's not something we specialize in though. So if somebody had like a severe autoimmune issue that was caused by like crazy Microbiome imbalance or something, we would probably still get diagnostics because I think that's the most valuable thing is getting a systemic overview of what's going on in all organ systems in your body through your blood. But in addition to that, we would at most probably be able to give broad spectrum recommendations on what we know seems to be helpful for correcting through, you know, elimination diets, certain support of pro and prebiotics, like we have all the knowledge of people who are self educating ourselves too on how to go about optimizing things but actually doing an assessment of a gut Microbiome. 0 (51m 25s): I don't think we offer that right now. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that's not something we offer right now. 2 (51m 30s): Yeah, it's something a lot of people are talking about and I'm just like curious again how accurate some of those things are. So there's this one, I don't know if you've heard of Vim, but this lady that was on Huberman highly recommended it and I did it, my husband did it and I can't eat anything like the things that came back on it. It was like, it basically said all vegetables were off of the table, like everything was causing inflammation or not getting digested properly. So then they send you a like a customized probiotic and then you're supposed to take that and then retest and retest and until it heal your gut. 0 (52m 3s): See this is the thing that's tough with this stuff is cuz there's no way to fact check if it's correct or not. So it's a very lucrative business model and they would never be incentivized to tell you, you know, just self, self experiment by putting a food in and taking it out and seeing what happens. And I think for people with autoimmune issues, ultimately that's probably the best thing you can do is go on. Okay, I shouldn't say the best thing cause this isn't like medical advice or anything but an elimination diet and then slowly adding things back in and seeing where you have flareups. I can't imagine a better system than that rather than somebody blindly telling you well, clearly you can't eat anything and take my probiotic supplements. 0 (52m 45s): Like I'm very hesitant to believe that that's based on sound science personally, but I could be wrong. But I'm also just hyper skeptical of that industry in general. 2 (52m 54s): Yeah, I think we should be with like most things, right? Especially if people are selling things. I think that's also one of the things that you do so well is when you do like your reaction videos, especially to people that are chronic marketers, I think you can tell the authenticity of someone or what their agenda is. Like everyone has an agenda, right? Some are just pure and some are more self-serving. And if you see someone that you know does a rug pull on an NFT and is constantly creating a new product and you just gotta look into that, right? It's like are they really passionate about decentralization in crypto and then all of a sudden like these questionable beverages and whatever, like, I don't know, you know what I mean? Like I don't know where hard 0 (53m 35s): That, yeah, I have a hard time trusting anyone who sells, you know, a JP pig that had, they knew was not really worth anything and then tried to imply that it was a valuable investment for their massive audience. It's like we all know who we're talking about right now. Yeah. It's just, I, I just have a hard time trusting their, their input on other products too by extension of their credibility and ethics and moral compass on the other stuff that was, you know, like clearly positioned. And it also was just mind boggling to me too when these individuals are willing to sacrifice their brand image credibility long term. This is not the trade off for a million bucks now for selling a stupid scammy thing. 0 (54m 20s): It's just like not worth it in the grand scheme of things. The long-term investment will be brutally net negative. So I just don't get it even from a business decision standpoint, the, the calculation doesn't make sense to me. 2 (54m 33s): Yeah, community is everything. I think the creators that understand the value within that are the ones that are going to have longevity and then there's people that are just gonna burn out really bright and fast. I think we'll see. 0 (54m 46s): Yeah, I wonder there's some of the entertainers in the space that are really popular but it's contingent upon them doing bigger and better, more extravagant things to really like almost dilute the shitty things they do too. Cause it's like at a scale where it's almost like how much crazy stuff can I do to where it mutes out the the bed And you know, overall it's just, you know, people just see me as a celebrity and that's, you know, continues my career indefinitely. I'm just, it's wild to me that some of these people have had enduring like decade plus successful runs where they're still maintaining like peak popularity. 0 (55m 27s): But we'll see. 2 (55m 29s): Yeah, I think if you're like marketing after a certain demographics, like if everyone is always young and that's always, there's always younger people coming in that maybe have that naivete or they just don't know any better. And then 0 (55m 41s): Like how long can you appeal to a 10 year old when you're like 30 plus? I just don't get it. 2 (55m 46s): I don't know, I don't know. I see some of the examples for young men and I'm like, oh god there's so many better ones. Like watch Lex Friedman, that's a great guy. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to be outrageous. Like there are good men out there, you just gotta navigate to the channels. They're just maybe not as clickworthy. 0 (56m 2s): Yeah, some of the stuff that's just designed for entertainment is, it's sucks because there's only, even though there is infinite amounts of more content coming out, there's still like a finite spend of attention that you can actually allocate on a daily basis. So it's like, you know, with the attention spans dwindling to like nothingness nowadays, it's very, I guess understandable how people are conditioned to navigate to those pages that are otherwise not as good role models Cause they're, it's just the most flashy, entertaining, quick, quickly stimulating stuff that they can get ahold of. So it is what it is. 2 (56m 39s): I wanted to ask about, there's this thing that there's this Hormone Replacement center doctor in town and we met during Covid because he was like the only person in town that was providing actual treatment for anything. Like not just saying drink water and you can't take horse tranquilizer or whatever it is. Like he was actually providing you services. So we went there and he does Hormone therapy and he was saying that he has this cocktail which gives you this thing that he terms Fluffy Balls. So he says that you can take T and still it doesn't affect your fertility and it doesn't atrophy your testicles. 2 (57m 20s): And I don't know if this is something he made up or if you guys also provide fluff Fluffy Balls 0 (57m 28s): No doesn't ring a bell. Like do you know what's in the, like this is his own proprietary tea or something? 2 (57m 34s): I think so, yeah, it's like tea with some other stuff and it's supposed to help combat the atrophy and then he says that he hasn't seen it negatively affect fertility in his usages. 0 (57m 45s): Oh so he is suggesting it concurrently with testosterone Replacement to offset the testicular atrophy. If I googled it, would I be able to find it quick or do you not know the name other than 2 (57m 57s): Fluffy Balls? No I don't. No. If 0 (57m 59s): I type in Fluffy Balls what is there any 2 (58m 1s): Chance that comes up? I dunno if you wanna do that. I dunno if you wanna do that. 0 (58m 5s): I just got a bunch of like literally Fluffy Balls not, not testicles. So yeah, not as helpful. Interesting. Yeah there is ways to offset testicular atrophy and sustain fertility while you use testosterone Replacement. But it's certainly not going to be through a over-the-counter supplements like you are going to need to use. It's called H C G recom human cor gonadotropin. It is like a, basically there's two hormones that get sent from your pituitary to your testes to signal testosterone production and spermatogenesis and that is luteinizing Hormone and follicle stimulating Hormone. And these are the two same hormones that dictate female Hormone production as well. 0 (58m 48s): So it's useful to understand how these work but LH luteinizing hormones is what stimulates the testes to make testosterone. So H C G is basically like a mimetic of lh so it's like structurally it's like pretty much the same thing and it interacts with the same lighting cells in the testes. So you can manually tell your testes to make testosterone intra test. Even if you're using, when you use exogenous steroids or testosterone or anything anabolic androgenic, you will tell your brain basically I have enough testosterone and estrogen so you don't need to make more. And then as a consequence of that, the signal stops going to your testes and that's what causes the atrophy. 0 (59m 30s): It's not like the steroids like go to your testes and shrink them or anything. It's your brain stops signaling to produce things there and the lack of production leads to inactivity and atrophy cuz you're not, you know, making the sperm, making the testosterone et cetera. So this stuff, using H C G with testosterone, you can actually manually bypass that and create the synthetic signal to your testes telling it, you know, keep making testosterone. So then you have natural testosterone being made in your testes as well as the exogenous source that you're using. Now the only time and you can use FSH on top of that recombinant FSH to get like the full spectrum of maintaining as high fertility levels as you can while you're on testosterone. 0 (1h 0m 12s): The only downside of that is if you're somebody who literally has testicular failure, like I wouldn't necessarily make it the equivalent of a postmenopausal woman, but some men who actually need testosterone Replacement, the reason they need it, and this is dependent on your diagnosis, but some of them it's not that they have a lack of signal is that they literally can't respond to the signal. So if you can't respond to the signal, you are not going to have the capacity to make natural testosterone, which is why you're using it exogenously to begin with. So that is where you can't maintain fertility because you literally like, well you could maintain it to some spectrum potentially, but you have dysfunctional lower functioning testes than an average person. 0 (1h 1m 0s): So that is where using this stuff concurrently with testosterone can maintain whatever level of fertility you're capable of essentially. Got it. But there's no, there's no over-the-counter supplement that's gonna achieve the same outcome that I'm aware of personally. 2 (1h 1m 14s): So when men are doing TRT or HRT eventually the like, I guess common knowledge is that you kind of need it forever whether you're cycling or not, but that you'll never be able to kind of reproduce that baseline again like your natural baseline because you weren't using it for so long. And then I heard you on a podcast and you were comparing birth control to like HRT for women, which I thought was so fascinating because it's never positioned like that and you give it to minors, right? Most of the time you're you they start when they're like for 13, 14, 15 usually. And it's usually pitched for some bogus reasons but it, no one, it's not what I would call like ethical or even conscious consent because they don't give you potential side effects. 2 (1h 1m 56s): They don't give you the alternatives, they just give you the benefits of the one thing. And to me that doesn't seem like an honest way or like an honest transaction with a layperson. Like I feel like there needs to be full disclosure but there's not. So you give this medication to a minor and they're on it for over a decade. If it's similar to a man kind of being on t, is the, is the consequence potentially the same? Like is it kind of like disrupts the hor the hormones potentially lifelong for the female or is there a way to get back to a healthy place where you're making the hormones back internally? 0 (1h 2m 31s): Yeah, with men on C R T cuz the preface of a man getting on TRT is in general if they are actually a clinically viable candidate like on paper and symptomatically, they actually need it to function. The likelihood that you would get back to some level of function after coming off that is supportive of high quality function at all is essentially impossible because you wouldn't have got on it to begin with if you weren't dis you know, sub functional to begin with. So it's a bit of a different, a disparity between if you needed it versus didn't when you got on it. Cuz for men, for women when they get on birth control they don't need it. 0 (1h 3m 11s): Like they don't need to take a Replacement of hormones at 16 years old or whatever. For men getting on TRT at like 30 or 35 or whatever, there is definitely a disparity between, some of them need it and some of them are just using it to optimize kind of thing. So individuals that really needed it, yeah you could come off and potentially recover to whatever suboptimal, suboptimal natural amount you had previously. It's just even less likely because as you age it's gonna decline anyways. You were sub functional when you started the TRT. So if you came off 10 years later, best case scenario is you recovered some like lower amount than you had before you got on it to begin with. Probably if you were somebody who didn't need the TRT and you got on it, you could potentially restore function. 0 (1h 3m 58s): It would just be a arduous recovery process likely because you have had, depending on the amount of exposure like the duration of it, you have had lack of like the organ itself is not been functioning for this long. So recovering to baseline is difficult to expect but this is again where nuance comes in cuz if you're on H C G and FSH this whole time maintaining testicular volume and function may your transition period to natural function if you came off the TRT might be a lot smoother than a guy who wasn't using that and has the most atrophy shrivel testicles ever. Like that's gonna be a completely different process. So it's not that you can't recover, it just depends on the context in which like where you stand on that spectrum. 0 (1h 4m 43s): For women getting on birth control at a young age who have otherwise like peaking hormones, they're basically suppressing themselves to a point where they are now reliant on a synthetic Replacement of a synthetic estrogen progestin rather than having their natural estradiol and progesterone being produced and test testosterone also gets, you know, crushed into the ground too unfortunately. So it absolutely could be the case that if they were on it for 10, 15 whatever years and then they want to have a kid, that recovery process is probably not gonna be the smoothest. Now fortunately for women recovering certain hormones, I wouldn't necessarily say it's like easier, that would be probably a incorrect statement to say but their, their Hormone levels are not like, I don't know trying to get back to a peak testosterone level as a female might be a less arduous undertaking than a guy because they don't rely on it as much to function. 0 (1h 5m 38s): Whereas like they do rely on testosterone, it's an important Hormone but they don't need to produce 600 nanogram per deciliter to feel good. And again that number depends on the individual. They only need 10, 10, 1 10th of that to function the same. Like a lot of women are just accustomed to functioning like castrated essentially. I'm not saying that that's like an excuse for yeah you know staying on it or coming off and not having as hard of a recovery process. But in general the delta of, I don't know like hormones required to support a state that you could otherwise function on in an androgen environment, at least for women is seemingly lower than men to where maybe the recovery process isn't as dramatic for that. 0 (1h 6m 23s): But certainly if they're coming off of hormones they needed to support any sort of estrogen functions, progestin, progesterone related functions coming off of it, you're going to have some sort of period where it's clearing outta your system and you have to recover natural function and probably won't feel great during that process. And how long or arduous that process is could be dependent on multiple factors like lifestyle, quality, diet, sleep hygiene, et cetera. Cuz women who have poor lifestyle and diet like they may never recover. There's some women who have crushed libidos and then you know, they try and get off and it never went back to baseline ever. 0 (1h 7m 4s): Like that is an outcome that is certainly possible. So I would say in general they typically under the right circumstances of healthy supporting infrastructure of diet principles et cetera are likely to recover some level of natural function. The level to which they get though is gonna be dependent on all those variables and it certainly is more difficult because like, you know we just discussed you've been essentially neglecting certain organ systems and signaling cascades for a decade plus and now your body has to recover that to baseline somehow when over half your life you have not had that functional. So yeah I think it definitely does permanent, especially brain chemistry. 0 (1h 7m 46s): I think it definitely can be impactful on a somewhat permanent basis potentially for women too. Right? If you are half your life, especially in your developing years being exposed to like synthetic drugs to support your like brain development and it's like you have an inadequate amount of bioidentical estradiol and progesterone, you're relying on the synthetic progestin, the synthetic ethanol, estradiol your testosterone's in the toilet, it will certainly impact your brain health, neurological state, mental wellbeing, potentially mood volatility. Like some women even have different preference of sexual like their partner selection when they're on birth control versus not. 0 (1h 8m 27s): So yeah I think there's 2 (1h 8m 29s): That pick up on the pheromones. 0 (1h 8m 31s): Yeah so So yeah sorry this has been like a super long-winded answer. There's just so much nuance to it there 2 (1h 8m 38s): And no one's talking about it and when I saw that I was, I was like this is maybe what's going on with me. Like my testosterone just doesn't exist. Like I pretty much have zero and I've had zero for a while. I started taking testosterone right before I got pregnant with my second baby so then I had to stop taking it cause they're like well we definitely don't recommend this cause we, there's not enough research. So I stopped doing that. I'm still breastfeeding so I'm still not taking any testosterone. I'm exhausted all of the time. Like I feel like shit and I get my blood done all of the time and it doesn't budge like the tea is just not there. And I was on birth control for well over a decade and I'm like I'm curious if that did something to it and it's just not coming back cause my lifestyle is better than most. 2 (1h 9m 21s): 100%. 0 (1h 9m 22s): This is one of the things too where a lot of people are hesitant to get blood work when they're healthy and young cuz why would I do it when I have no problems? I could not recommend more highly enough a baseline panel for anyone at as early of a matured age as possible. So like if I was to go back in time and save up money for something and I was 19 or 18 or something, it would absolutely be like a baseline panel. Especially before all my exposure to anabolic steroids and the stuff I did when I was younger. Cuz who knows what my baseline was relative to what it is now. Like I don't even know how to compare and contrast that if something goes wrong compared to what is representative of my youngest most like vibrant baseline. 0 (1h 10m 5s): So especially it's difficult for to tell at scale young girls getting on birth control, like yeah get a baseline Hormone panel but it's like, I think it's warranted personally and it would be, I'm sure you'd be super interested to see what was your test before you got on a bunch of, you know, Hormone suppressing compounds. I wish 2 (1h 10m 21s): I had it. Yeah, 0 (1h 10m 23s): So cuz again you would be able to see at least what your capacity was when you, you know, were young and the most vibrant or whatever and be able to compare and contrast them now. So yeah. What is your test now? Just outta curiosity? 2 (1h 10m 38s): I was trying to look it up. I mean when I say it doesn't exist I feel like he was like, it's less than one. Like it was Oh wow. Just not showing up. He's like, you probably feel like you're dead all the time. Like there's just not, you cannot even cultivate the energy. So every day I'm like super reliant on making sure I at least get like some sunlight and movement cause that energizes me and I live off of caffeine like I need it to function or I'm just not functioning and I, I sleep amazing. Like I'm a professional sleeper. It's one thing I'm very proud of, proud of. I go, I can go to bed and I was doing one of those aura rings for a while and it just, it wasn't serving me cuz it was consistent all the time. No matter what I did I was sleeping eight or nine hours and solid and I still felt like shit. 2 (1h 11m 23s): So I'm like it's not providing me any information that's, that's actionable. So I'm like it has to be the tea. 0 (1h 11m 29s): And do you have a regular menstrual period or like 2 (1h 11m 33s): It's a little bit long and sometimes like it'll like I'll be like two weeks late or something that's not abnormal 0 (1h 11m 39s): But, and have you checked during periods of the cycle where like LH would be like, like what is your signaling look like? Have you had an LH and FSH ANA analysis on your test or is it just the testosterone? 2 (1h 11m 53s): I think it's probably just the testosterone but I do this when I remember to do it. I do this app, it's called Mira and you like pee on the stick every day and it, it measures that and even that's crazy. So it'll track, it's supposed to track when you ovulate but mine it'll like a A healthy ovulation, it's like a Spike and then this dip and then you ovulate. Mine just kind of looks like a heartbeat. So it's always like you're gonna ovulate tomorrow, you're gonna ovulate tomorrow. So even the app has no idea when when I'm ovulating because it's just my hormones are all over the place. 0 (1h 12m 23s): Huh. Yeah for women it's tough cuz their proportion of testosterone production can come either more so from adrenal hormones versus actual like gonadotropin signaling from the pituitary. So for some for men it's like entirely dictated by their LH to their testes essentially. But for women, cuz testosterone is like one 10th of the amount, a significant amount of their testosterone may come from adrenal steroid production. So like D H E A and downstream to that testosterone and whatnot. So have you ever had a D H E A S test done? It might be no. 2 (1h 12m 57s): Ok. No. 0 (1h 12m 58s): It sounds like whoever's checking your hormones is not going above and beyond the call of duty to check everything. So 2 (1h 13m 7s): No, and I love him so much and he's like trying like he's very inspired by David Sinclair and Peter Attia and like love the guy to death but he is like a business owner and he is too, I think too caught up in the admin of what's going on right now that he's not able to just like function as the MD and like be able to kind of look at people with excitement and like figure out what's going on. 0 (1h 13m 31s): Is there anything, so you're on a bunch of caffeine but other than that, is there anything you're taking drug-wise that is notable? 2 (1h 13m 40s): I take metformin so I, okay. I had P C O S, I haven't had cyst problems in forever but I continued taking it just because some people suggest it's good for longevity and then other people say well we don't know but there's nothing adverse. But I take that 500 milligrams at night. 0 (1h 13m 56s): Okay. Do you find that helps your blood glucose control or do 2 (1h 13m 60s): You I think so. I feel better when I'm on it. 0 (1h 14m 3s): Okay. Huh. Yeah, if you were into it I would be happy to set you up with a female comprehensive panel through Merrick and just see where stuff is at and at least more 2 (1h 14m 12s): 1% 0 (1h 14m 13s): Yeah, could give you more biomarkers to kind of see at least determining why it's low is like the first step. Cause it's kind of hard to correct something or dial something in if you have no idea what the pre precursors are doing to begin with. So is it a signaling from your brain issue? Is it an adrenal insufficiency? You know, that could be determined through something like this. So hopefully give some insight and clarity on that cuz yeah it's, there's a lot of women that, especially on the birth control that get their libidos and quality of life energy levels, et cetera, just like sapped because it's so dramatically suppressive on their Hormone systems. 2 (1h 14m 52s): Yeah and there's not a lot of information out there when it comes to HRT for women. Like some people will have the conversations but it's still super vague and it's like, well cost benefit analysis. And some people are saying you really shouldn't take it until like 10 years before or like maybe it's within 10 years of menopause. So then you have to wait for that and it's like, well what if you're in your thirties and you feel like shit like so I like you're saying I shouldn't go on tea cuz that doesn't make sense cuz if it's not existent, like I feel like if I do a little bit that's not gonna do any damage. So I think there's a lot of women that are like, well what do I do because I want to want to have sex with my husband or have sex and I want to feel energized and I wanna feel youthful and have my skin glow and not get dry all of the time. 2 (1h 15m 34s): And then, you know, it's like well what are, what are my options? 0 (1h 15m 39s): So when you, you, so you tried testosterone periodically, right? You said and then you 2 (1h 15m 43s): Came on only I was on it for less than a month before I got pregnant so I had to get off of it. It was a topical cream so I was like doing like the wrist or behind the knee. 0 (1h 15m 50s): Oh did you notice anything? 2 (1h 15m 52s): No. 0 (1h 15m 53s): Okay. Yeah you might have had to go with like a more direct app administration app. No I wouldn't do that cuz then you're stuck with it for a while. Like you wanna be able to manipulate your dose at and pivot quickly. You don't like a pellet that's like stuck in you, which again, it's not like you couldn't get it removed but I mean it's like the worst form of Hormone therapy in my opinion. Like 2 (1h 16m 12s): Oh wow, really? 0 (1h 16m 14s): Yeah, so like oftentimes at least you know, patients of ours, they will do labia administration, which is like better assimilation through the, like the skin barrier can be really difficult to get adequate absorption too through like wrists and you know, legs and stuff. So it kind of depends on the individual and especially if it's like they've dialed in the routine or not cuz it's kind of hard to adhere to a regimen or, or use something that is more longer lasting without knowing if it's even going to be the thing you're gonna stick with like a pellet or an injection or whatever. These are things that are typically reserved more for individuals that know like what they're doing and what keeps 'em stable. 0 (1h 16m 56s): So oftentimes the topicals are best but if you don't have adequate absorption that's actually reflected on your blood work too. Like you would be able to tell if it got you into, you know, if all of a sudden you were 40 nanogram per deciliter total test and before you were undetectable, then you would know, okay it's getting absorbed properly and it's, is it dictating the effects or facilitating the effects that I'm actually trying to get out of it at that point that you can start to assess symptom relief, et cetera, et cetera. But it's kinda hard to do that when you don't even know if it's getting into your system and obviously you know, a month is not the longest period of time to make an informed assessment either. So. But either way, you know, it definitely gives peace of mind knowing why something is happening and what to do to correct it. 0 (1h 17m 37s): So yeah, just let me know after we get off the call and I'd be happy to set you up. 2 (1h 17m 42s): Yeah, for sure. No you are wealth of knowledge, this was absolutely incredible. I'd love to have you back on whenever you have availability cuz I have so many more things I wanna ask and I just don't wanna run into too much time. But before we head off, can you tell the listeners where they can follow you, find you, and then any projects you might be working on? Yeah, 0 (1h 18m 0s): So on any social media platform you can find me, More Plates, More Dates, or you can check out Marek health.com. And we're also on social media at Marek Health on most of the platforms I believe. And there we put out, you know, I feel like high quality content on a regular basis about stuff like this that we just discussed and we also feature some of our doctors on that content too, who are regularly are putting out tidbits of knowledge and educational material to kind of get people as informed as they can about their health and preventative medicine. So you can check those out if you guys are interested and yeah, that's pretty much it. 2 (1h 18m 33s): Awesome. Well yeah, thank you again. 0 (1h 18m 35s): Yeah, thanks for having me. 2 (1h 18m 36s): That's it for this week's episode of Chatting with Candace. But before you go, if you haven't left a five star review or it's been a while, please do so. And if you know anyone that would enjoy this content, please share it. It is the best way to grow podcast is word of mouth and personal recommendations. So that was awesome. I hope you enjoyed the conversation and I'll see you next week. Bye everybody.