We need to find another song that goes with rolling like I like. To Adele rolling in the deep, rolling in the isn't there a joke? There's a joke that was if you're like in a canoe or inner boat and you toss your laptop overboard, What's what do you call it? You're like, oh, it's Adele rolling in the deep. Some stupid joke. I've never I messed up the punchline. No, I haven't heard that you're playing Footsie with me down. There, that is not me. Sure you.
No, I'm on the cross beam. And over my, my legs, over your foot. So when you adjust your foot, it's like stroking my calf, kind of like you're welcome. All right, let's dive into a lot of stuff here. We have, we're doing like a little screen share action. So we got our Dexas pulled up or my Dexa pulled up. You did the shape scale too, right? I did shape scale but I didn't do any metabolic. OK. Respiration or anything like that like you did. Yeah. So today's podcast is kind of data heavy.
It is what is today. Today is the 9th, 9:00. So we've got you and I just got DEXA scans done. I also got a resting metabolic rate calculation done and we both got shape scale, shape scan scales. Shape scales. Yeah, shape, scale. Done, which is like that 3D rendering of your physique and then it changes like you can go and get multiple scans out and it shows where the changes were, whether you gained or lost or all that good stuff. So we got them.
We also got a whole bunch of blood work done, but we're going to wait to go over that blood work until a later date because I'm also starting an experiment right now. You're deep into prep right now, so lots of stuff to talk about. We've been restocking the bricks like crazy. We just restocked bells, brownie batter, so that one's back on the same. So let's start with your DEXA scan results. DEXA scan and we use the facility here in farming, the facility here in Farmington.
You got to edit that out too. Our doors open too, by the way. The the new there's a new facility in Farmington. It is a Dexafit branded franchise. Dexafit, which is the GE brand DEXA machine. Which is, which is also cool because it all syncs to a Dexafit app and database and platform and all that kind of stuff. So you can actually pull up all your previously entered in scans.
You can see the trend lines, you can see it gives you your biological age based on number of factors, gives you all these different things that you can actually track and trend from scan to scan to scan. Anyways, yeah, so we haven't pulled up on our phones. I'm a couple four or five weeks out from my first show, but my main show isn't until September, so I know I've got a long ways to go.
The the road is long. My body fat came in at 11.4% which is roughly 2% higher than my at home in body which is kind of where they seem to flux. Is your in body measure the same as my in body here? No, this one here is different too. How much variation? I think yours reads lower here, but it's on a different surface. It's a different unit. I do it at a different time of the day. Like anytime I do it here, I'm already, I've already worked out, I'm fed, I'm I've drank
water. I when I do it at home, I try to not have anything in me yet. And it's at a certain time of day, minimal clothing, all that kind of stuff. So there's too many variables to kind of really weigh yours and mine against one another, but they seem to be a little lower than what dex is, don't you think? Yeah, yeah, my, I think I did mine just now or I didn't mind the day we did our DEXA, I think mine showed like 13 and my DEXA
was like 14 1/2. So it's within, Yeah, it's within one or two percent usually. It's pretty close, yeah. But my biological age on the Dexfit app shows me at 35 years, which is 9 to 10 years under my
actual real age. And one of the other cool things on here is it gives you your overall body score and we're still hanging out at A+. So one of the cool things about the Farmington location here too, is Jerry takes the time to go through all of your results and really breaks it down into everything that's relevant and important. Things you can work on, things that are trending good, things that may be trending poorly. I didn't really have anything
that was trending poorly. I did have a little bit of visceral fat in there, but that could have been just something funky because I've had way lower visceral fat readings from previous DEXA scans. Were you leaner in the past when your visceral fat was trending lower? Yeah, yeah. So I mean overall body comp was was at a different stage too. So, but I had a lot of muscle was very symmetrical from left to right.
It's cool. It's really neat, It's great information and we'll just keep doing them. I'll probably do another one here in the next couple months as we get closer and closer. Yeah, having him like freaking in our backyard is super nice because we can get all that all that tested on a regular basis as opposed to having to drive 3 hours like I was previously it kind.
Of a lot of. My most of my body composition DEXA scans were done at Baptist Hospital in Little Rock and they do not sync up with Dexafit. So most of my data is not in the Dexafit app. So all of my 2023 prep data when I get out of 3.9, none of that shows any of the Dexafit stuff, which kind of sucks. But going forward I'll be able to test all that for future preps and stuff. So I'm going to pull mine up and this should be showing on chips as well and then you can see it here.
I'm 22 years young apparently. What's your actual age? 33. OK, so you're at 11 years old. Or yeah, so I don't know what it's basing that off of. Let's see what Learn More says. I don't put a whole lot of stock in that generally. I don't think it's got a whole lot of accuracy to it. It's just kind of one way that it gauges your health. But it'll show summary. Let's see here. Metabolism, 1836. That's because you did an RMR or did you do a BMR?
I did RMR and then it kind of estimates BMR based off of that body scores A he said mine probably would have been a plus but mine was showing visceral fat too. That was the way it knocked me on. Was fair but I want to get an MRI scan done because I think that's the like a cross-sectional MRI of the abdominal analysis is going to be the really best way to tell what your actual visceral fat is. Lean Mass 148 lbs. What is your? That's your total body lean mass.
Yeah, Yeah. And then if I go to body comp here, there's my A score and then it kind of shows the trend. So I guess I've done 3 scans in the past that do sync up with the Dexafit body fat. What's the date of that? Most Oh, January. No, this is January. So June 5th was the one that we just did. July 27th of 23. OK, so there's a 9.9% and then August 20th, 22 was 16. That must have been pre prep, post prep or like yeah. That's exactly what it was.
And then July was I think I started my prep slightly before that. So, but yeah, all of my prep data was before I didn't have the Dexafit data on there. And it's got lean mass, yeah, 148 lbs total. And then belly fats. That's the visceral fat and AG ratio. And there's one of the things that he wanted to point out. I don't remember what it was, so yeah, I don't remember. But basically he was showing that some people, so the metabolizing fat for fuel versus
carbohydrates for fuel. And he was like, of all the people he's tested, mine's the only one that he's seen where it was like 90% fat, 10% carbs, whereas most people are like skewed the other way, like 90%. That's got to be something in your RMR results because I wouldn't have gotten anything like that. Yeah, I don't know where that synced. So get out of your body Cam screen, body comp screen, there you go. Somewhere in there maybe? Maybe. Yeah, here armor. OK, so this was the rest of
metabolic rate. So basically I was sitting in a chair for 10 minutes and then I just they were measuring the oxygen and CO2 that I was exhaling and breathing at rest. So resting metabolic rate is 1836 and then. That's with 0 activity. Zero activity. Literally just sitting in the lounger. And then let's see here, OK, here we go. Primary burn more fat to carbohydrates of energy. So yeah, 90% fat, 10% carbohydrates there. And then I've only done this test 1, so there's not really
anything to see. Now this is kind of skewed here because this is showing my total daily energy expansion of around 2200 calories. But this is not taking into account any training at all because he put in, let me see if I put this in. So yeah, I normally put moderately active for myself, so about 2800 calories because I am working at a computer more often than not. So yeah, I mean, my maintenance is right around 3000 calories in reality. So this is pretty close, Pretty close. Sweet.
So yeah, that's the data there. And then the other thing is the shape scale. So do you see all this on your end to chip? Alright, so you and I both got this and this kind of, it's kind of cool. You sit on or you stand on this scale and this, this camera rotates around you 360° high and low and then it body maps you, it tells you what your weight is. It guesstimates your body fat. So I got them done at the same time. So my DEXA body fat was 14.5. This is guesstimating body fat of 16.4.
So there's a little bit of variation there, but what's cool about this is it heats maps, heat maps where changes are. So red means you're gaining, blue means you're losing. So I don't know what I was doing for form exercise. Yeah, thanks going on. My right form. Are you right-handed? I was. I don't know. What's going on there either? Looks like you have tennis elbow. It shows your, but see, it's all jacked up too, because that kind of showed like it was messing up the scan.
And then you can heat map. So yeah, there's the heat map functionality and then you can graph it out or you can compare and trippy. It is very cool. Yeah. The first time you went though it, it mis measured one of your extremities, didn't it? Was it an arm? Yeah, it's. 'Cause it but it tries to visually measure actual circumference. Right. So, oh, that's this another thing. So if I look at so if you tap on these, it'll like show your circumference measurements, which is pretty cool.
Yeah, but you had one I think the first time that. Yeah, the first one was all jacked up a little bit skewed. You can also have it check the volume so it it measures like the volume within a given region so you can kind of see how things are changing. There, what's the volume of your butt cheeks? The volume of a butt cheeks is 441.4 cubic inches, so quite a bit of junk in the trunk.
But where I can see this being efficacious for people is like if you're getting a body scan on a somewhat regular basis, you can actually see what's growing, what shrinking, and then have like some pretty actionable data there. So pretty, pretty insightful way, way beyond just the body bathroom scale for sure. All right, there's that. Let me just shop. Stop sharing my screen here, chip around. All right, stop mirroring there.
Now let's talk about. Well, you got, we got a lot of this stuff done proactively because you're starting a. Yes. So you and I like you're in prep. You've been in prep since beginning of the year. You and I got some baseline blood work done in January, then you and I just got recently more blood work done to get a baseline because I'm about to start an experiment and you wanted to get blood work done to see where you're at this point, the prep. I was wanting to lose some weight.
I lost about 2022 lbs over the course of the past few months since the beginning of the year because I was too fat. Right now I'm pretty much where I want to be. Target weight, target body fat at around. Well, I ate a bunch this weekend, so I'm up a little bit from water weight on that. But all that, same, pretty much where I want to be. So I'm back into experimentation mode. This sugar diet phenom has been going ballistic, as everybody knows. So Nick Norwich actually reached out to me.
He's like, hey, let's do a, let's do an experiment. N = 5 experiment. I got a few other people on board. The main mechanism of action of this FGF 21 hormone is not so much the sugar that people are eating, but it's the reduction in protein and amino acids because that limits the secretion of that FGF 21
hormone. And there's been studies done that actually showcase in a, you know, high fat ketogenic diet, there's actually more of that circulating FGF 21 hormone than is present in a high carbohydrate, sugary based diet. So I'm OK, let's peel the curtain back and let's do an experimentation here. My main goals to build muscle and you know, be in a building phase at this point. So I'm not going to do anything too drastic. This is going to be a five week study.
And I'm basically going to be targeting A4 to 1 ketogenic ratio, so very, very high fat relative to protein. And we'll see what happens to my baseline caloric intake and maintenance intake in light of that macro split. Because just kind of rewind things a bit further, the main reason people are supposedly losing weight with this sugar diet is because protein is left minimal.
So FGF 21 hormone is increased that increases metabolic rate of about 500 to 600 calories or so. And people have found that they can eat more food while still being in a caloric deficit per that increase in expenditure metabolic rate. So I'm going to, I've basically spent the last few weeks getting a baseline established and my baseline's around 3000 calories. If I'm eating that, I'm holding pretty stable.
So in theory if I was to maintain 3000 calories but at that 4 to 1 ratio, which would only be consuming about 7075 grams of protein for me, then I would start losing body fat. So I would need to basically increase my caloric intake by another 5 or 600 calories to maintain the same weights at that 4 to 1 ratio of intake. Does that make sense? Because you're trying to offset the influx in metabolic rate.
Yeah. Now I've skewed things a little bit because I was in a bit of a deficit to 2500 calories to lose that 20 lbs. And then I spent a week kind of at 3000 and the higher fat ratio just to kind of get things acclimated. But then this past weekend, I wanted to like have a intuitive couple days before I started really tracking things for this. So I ate probably 5000 calories each day Saturday and Sunday. And now I'm up 5 lbs. But the high fat ratio starts today for me.
So I'm going to basically re establish that baseline and see how my body responds at about 4000 calories of intake. Because for me, I think it's important to see to actually be satiated throughout this as well because that's like the biggest selling point of the sugar diet is get leaner, eating so much sugar and actually feeling full. Like I think that's like the main thing that they're suggesting.
So I wanted to push the calories even higher to actually have some degree of satiety through it all. But man, 4000 calories at 4 four to one ratio is like like this is my macro plant today are. You going to be like 300 grams of fat or what? And more so if I was to hit 4036 calories a day. That would be. 121 grams of protein, 34 grams of carbs, 381 grams of fat. And that's still not even really. That's not quite a four to one though yet, is it? So that's 12% protein, 3% carbs, 84% fat.
I need to be at like 86%. Yeah. So I've got to tweak it a little bit further. But just that is 2 morning coffees with eight tablespoons of heavy cream and two tablespoons of ghee. Meal one is 2 tablespoons of ghee and two keto bricks. Meal 2 is 4 eggs, 4 lamb, 4 ounces of ground lamb cooked in three tablespoons of olive oil and two tablespoons of butter. So like not. Not a lot of oh. Man, you know. Substance and protein by any means. But it'll be super satiating.
Yeah, but man, I like, I like texture too. Like, I like tearing into like some meat, like steak. Like these past two days when I was just eating intuitively, I ate a bunch because I've been tracking things pretty strictly for the past six months. So I wanted to intentionally just take a breather from that. And I probably ate 5000 calories each day easy and a lot of meat, you know, I just like eating
meat. But when I eat too much meat, I get fat, which totally flies in the face of what all these people that are like advocating for super, super high protein or saying like you can't get fat out for just protein. But that's totally inaccurate. I mean, I've done. I think we both have. Yeah, I mean, protein's great. I'm a huge advocate for protein, but like to suggest that you can't get fat. Eating too much protein is totally acid. Yeah, it's not a free.
A lot of people call it a free mackerel. You can just over just eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it, eat it. But back when I did the Bro Diet and all that kind of stuff too, man, I was probably one of those 350g plus protein consumers, you know, like you just, that was the thing. Just shovel it down. You're not hungry. You feel like crap eating all that protein, you know, just chicken breast and Turkey and lean cuts.
Joints are hurting more. Oh yeah, it's just you feel sluggish and bloated and you're just like a walking marshmallow man. Yeah, I'm, I'm not a fan of it. I'm not a fan of this much fat relative protein either. Like I like the sweet spot in between, but for the sake of experimentation, we'll try it and see what happens. Well, that's I mean, essentially that's the sugar diet is crazy excessive amount of calories coming from sugar carbs, so. You're. Going to try to off.
You're doing the opposite end of the spectrum with a crazy amount coming from fat just to prove a point. What are you expecting to happen? What do you think? Well, I'm I'm. Going so much more aggressive with the calories and I probably should have like not had those two days where I just ate intuitively and put on 5 lbs. But again, a lot of it's water weight. But for me, like, man, we could, we could have a whole conversation on psychology of fooding, of eating, and maybe we should.
But like before we talk about that, let's just talk about what I think is going to happen. So I think at 4000 calories, I'm probably still going to gain a little bit of weight because that is pretty aggressive for me. But it'll be minimal relative to what I would be gaining if those same 4000 calories are coming from more protein. And I feel like my level of fat metabolism is going to be
through the roof. I've been testing my glucose and ketones just on a whim in light of this, this experiment coming up and my my ketones and glucose are never really that impressive. But as of late they've been like typically 8090 glucose and 2.4 ketones, which is pretty high for someone that's been as fat adapted as I have for as long as I have. So that's promising in that regard. So, yeah, I, I just expect, you know, good cognitive function and, you know, like a deep level
of satiety from that fat ratio. But I'm going to be missing a bunch of chicken wings, man. I I'm going to crash a whole bunch of chicken wings and this is all. Said and then. You know when I crash like starburst and gummy worms and some. No, no, no, that's that's the thing, man. Like I, I don't ever eat bad food, like ever. Like I ate in two of these past two weeks, these past two days and I was just getting like brisket and it's. The same stuff that you normally eat to eat more.
Of it, exact same stuff. I normally I just eat more of it. And before I decided to eat intuitively on Saturday. So this weekend is like the last weekend that Crystal and I and Rigel have is just the three of us before hazing comes and we have just people over and stuff like that. So she had a mandatory family weekend for us that we're just going to be relaxed and be present with one another. And I went into the weekend like still tracking, like I had been up to this point.
And I was just like fixated on food, like fixated on tracking, which is kind of weird because I'm not in a prep right now. I know I was about to start this experiment, but it's like I'm not in a prep right now. You are a lot of the crew is, but I'm not. So why am I holding myself to this level of adherence? And I just started fixating on that as opposed to being present with my family on the mandatory
family weekend. So I'm like, all right, we're just going to say screw it, we're going to eat intuitively this weekend. If I gain some weight, fine. It is what it is, not the end of the world. I've already kind of hit my goal weight and goal body fat, so let's just enjoy and not not worry about it. That's exactly what I did. You know I ate a lot of food.
It's all good quality food. Probably a couple more of those keto cookies that Crystal made then I should have, but those covered in pecan butter are pretty freaking awesome. OK, I'm gonna have to place an order for my post. Yeah, for your post. But you know, I gained 5 lbs, I'm holding water. I like a little bit more fluffy. Like all that is what I expected would happen, but I'm dialed back in now. But what I was thinking is like, you know, you're in prep right now.
I've been in prep multiple times. And when you're in prep, you've got a very specific tangible goal on the horizon. And anything that's counter to that is not even entertained as an idea. It's not even an option. It's not even in your mind. It's like non negotiable. It's out when you don't have a prep, when you don't have a a show and you don't have anything. It's like like that to me is
harder that to use. Like like I, I don't want to be fat, but I'm also trying to build as much muscle as I can right now because I need to get bigger for the next time I compete. And I've lost 20 lbs since being in the year. But like how strict going to be tracking my macros. And that's kind of where my mind's at right now. It's just like just always going back and forth and that's what screws with me.
But like I ate a bunch of food and I felt fine, but it's like I could always just keep eating more, you know, like there's no such thing as like enough for me. I just I could just keep keep eating and against all good quality stuff. But I don't know, ma'am. I think for me, I just have to have a goal. Whatever the goal is, I just have to have one, you know, because not having a goal is tricky.
Waters for. Me, I think it happens to a lot of competitors or anybody who's actually gone through either a prep or a bodybuilding or a strength competition, powerlifting, meat, anything like that where you actually were dialed in and you had a specific goal and then you fall out of that and you're done. Like the goal is behind you now and you don't have anything on the calendar coming up.
I think it just kind of turns into a little bit of an obsessive, obsessive over nutrition kind of thing because you don't want to under eat, but you don't want to overeat, but you kind of want to maintain your current stats or you want to lose weight or gain weight. You're just never really neutral. Yeah. And it's, it's like I was telling this to Crystal and it's like, I want to be the absolute best natural competitive body better than I can be. But what does that look like in
a building phase? Or in an offseason or anything, you know, like. Like in an offseason, like what is defined as the best? Like is the best having some semblance of relaxation and giving your mind and body time to decompress from the stressors of a prep so that when you do go into a prep, you can actually perform better? Or is it like rigidly adhering to everything with the same degree of action that you are in a prep so that like nothing gets left to chance? Like of those two outcomes,
which is the best? Like, I don't know, like when I'm dialed in for a prep, it's very clear what the best is. Like, I want to be able to hold as much most as I can, be as absolutely lean as I can and be, you know, perfectly dialed in on my posing. And I can check all those boxes because it's very tangible. But like when it's less tangible, the notion of what is the best becomes more blur.
True, but if you start to keep or you keep doing these analytics and these DEXA scans and shape scale scans and everything like that, it'll help you be the best and stay the best through an offseason, you know? Yeah, yeah. And like I. Don't feel like you're getting too chubby. You can, you know, pull the reins back in or something. For sure, for sure. How do you feel about it all? I mean your calories are getting pretty low right now, like it's
probably under. 1900 calories. Yeah, like do you like when, when I you hear me say I just ate 5000 calories Saturday and Sunday and like, is that like, oh man, that'd be must be nice. Or is it just like cry a little bit? I was just like. Man, he's not in a prep. No deal, no issues whatsoever. I'm in a prep that that'll be my
time to come later. I find myself wishing I was in the opposite situation, so I have to stop those thoughts before they get too held on. For example, when I'm in prep, I think, man, that would be so nice to not be in prep. But then when I'm not in prep and going through a sense of no goals like you were just talking about, I'm like, man, it'd be nice to have a goal, nice to be in prep so. This is always greener. Exactly. So you have to like 6 months ago, I was kind of hoping I was
going to be in prep. I was excited for prep. I wanted to dial in. I wanted to get lean. I wanted to get some photos done. I wanted to do this and that now that I'm doing it, I'm like, Dang, it'd be nice to just like go out to eat with everybody and, you know, not care quite as much. But so the grass is always greener, but the grass can also be greener where you water it. So I'm trying to water it more in this current situation. And that, that's key, man.
And when it comes to like food, like when you're deprived of food, it could be really easy to be like, man, I just need some food. If I get some food, it'll all be OK. My mind will be at peace. Then you fix it on food. Yeah, then you fix it on food. But here's the thing, like with food, like you're going to just be hungry again after 24 hours has passed from that food. So like, it never solves the problem. It never solves the problem. And like when you're.
And like, I wanted to really dive into that this past two days eating intuitively 'cause I wanted to like just lay my hands on it, 'cause it's like it's always a fleeting phenomenon. So you can't look to anything fleeting for deep rooted satisfaction fulfillment. So like when you're in a prep, you can just fix that about food all day long.
But if you were to like totally go off the wall, eat all the food that you wanted to feel totally full, that would be that would last 24 hours and you're right back into that same position. But now you've got to like make up for all that time lost. So like, why even entertain that idea in the 1st place? Like that's not going to be the problem solved. So yeah, it's, it's interesting, man. It's very interesting. It is. On the on the Keterberg side of
things though. Keterberg side of things. We got some restocks. You guys have noticed we've been restocking every week, pretty much every Sunday for the last, what, four or five Sundays? We.
Were out of stock for so many weeks for for all the flavours and we just got inundated with people requesting restock, which we obviously have been trying to do so yeah, hopefully people will see that those prayers are being answered We're we're we're restocking so. There's a lot of things going on behind the scenes that lots, you know, have to fall into place. The Domino's have to fall in order.
Well, Phoebe Hallelujah is going to get made this week and restocked this Sunday, so PB Talley is going to be back in action, which I'm super excited. That's one of my favorite flavors. So that'll be good. And then we get some more stuff the week after. Like it's literally going to be restocks on restocks. And we sampled the new potential flavor this past week that we're not going to tell you about because it was.
It's good. It's really good, but it may be if we decide to roll with that flavor, we may launch that flavor instead of butter and Maple pecan. So we're not going to tell you what that flavour is yet, but we will say if we decide to roll with it, it may or at least one variation of the butter and pecan like we may not do both tallow and cacao butter and pecan pending this flavour. And this new one, this new flavour is a tallow based. Yeah, it will be tallow. It will be a grass fed way.
Yep, Yep. It's pretty good. It is pretty good. It's really good and it's kind of like seasonal vibes. And we like all took a bite of it and we're like. Yeah. We're pretty good at getting these flavors formulated, man. There's not a whole lot of trial and error. Like we just know what's going to work and we make it work. Yeah. You know, one take, Jake. One. Take Jake. One take, Jake. What else is new? Nothing. You guys are ready. You guys are what? So your bicep veins popping?
Yeah, we're getting a little bit more vascularity. More vascularity, more shredded. You guys are ready for baby #2. Yeah, we have pretty much midwife meeting every single week going forward at this point. 'Cause this it could be literally a new day, right? Yeah, I mean, she's viable now. So it literally could be. I mean, she's in the third trimester. So any any day now is technically viable for having a baby. And then Rigel came two weeks
later than his target due date. So maybe that'll be the case. Maybe he'll come early. We don't know yet. So it'll be, it's kind of weird 'cause I'm, I blocked out my whole calendar in the next week or two so that I can just be on call basically pending, you know, due date. So yeah, we'll, I'll be. Watch, watch him hang on for those two weeks and then he'll, yeah, decide to make his way when you're busier than him. Probably, probably will be what happened. So yeah, that's exciting for
sure. We got a whole bunch of stuff. You and I had like a little shindig powwow last week, big picture stuff for the businesses. We got some game plan in motion there, lots of exciting stuff. I told the guys we got some exciting stuff to talk about when Bryson gets back from his week, week on vacation. So that'll be good. And yeah, pretty much all the
new and exciting stuff. So rock'n'roll, how long we've been talking to you 30. 1 minutes, 31 minutes, that's a pretty good little half an hour we're. Going to do a whole lot of. Discussion on blood work because you and I both got our blood work panels done and we tested
for hormones, all that jazz. But I kind of want to wait till the deep dive on hormones until after I get my second round of blood work back after this five week experiment, and then I can talk to the change in blood work from one to the next. We should also dig out, find somewhere we can go get ACAC score. We should do that. That'd be cool, yeah. 'Cause your cholesterol was high, it. Was like 415 or something. Total cholesterol. Yeah, I guess we can do a little
teaser on blood work. So of notable things, your cholesterol was high. But my trigs were a little high too. Your trigs were a little high. My cholesterol is was not nearly as high as yours, but my HDL is always super high. My trigs are always super low so my ratio is always good. Your testosterone was good. And that's one of the ones that I wanted to check this go around because back in, was it December or January, January, my total test was just over 1000. My free test was still pretty
solid. Also, I wanted to check that now that I'm several months into a prep, my calories are way low and I'm in a deficit. And it was still over 800. Yeah. So yours was still rocking? Yeah, it dropped a little bit, but considering where you're at in a prep, totally makes sense why it would drop. Mine's always low. I think my total was like 330 something I want to say and my free was 27 I want to say. OK, so yours is considered low by today's standards.
Right. It's technically in range, but it's it's low. It's in the low end of the the acceptable range, low by your standards, but take into consideration how you feel, how you perform your libido, all these other factors that that would directly influence and how do those. Yeah, so, well, let's talk about that for a second. So my, my testosterone's always
low. And a lot of people would be like, well, it's low because you've been strict keto for so long, 10 years, you need to be taking in some carbs. And that's like, well, no, that's not the case. Because then I can point to you and be like, Greg's also been strict keto for 10 plus years and people accuse him of taking gear because his testosterone's so high. So being strict keto is not the determining factor for higher or
lower testosterone. Mine I think is always low because I'm under a lot of stress with work and my sleep is always lackluster. Like I averaged my sleep for the entire year and my average sleep is like 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours of sleep for an entire year. That's what I'm averaging. So not very great. I think that's my biggest knock on my testosterone. You have much higher testosterone. You probably don't have that much stress, which is a good thing.
But I feel like, you know, people look at low testosterone and based off of my numbers, they'd be like, all right, let's go to a clinic. I'll show them these labs and they'll 100% be like, yeah, you're a great candidate for getting on TRT. That's what I'm that's what I'm getting at is like the system is just. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would 100% get qualified for TRT based off of my labs. But you know, it's like, what is it that TRT is supposed to replace? It's supposed to have, it's
supposed to improve your libido. It's supposed to give you more energy, better recovery. You know, you don't want a dad bond. So it's supposed to improve your composition so that you're not retaining body fat or necessarily. And you're supposed to have more zeal for life and just be more vibrant as a being. And I look at all those things and I'm like, OK, I don't have a dad bond. Like I'm pretty freaking
shredded. Yeah, but you're a dad with a. Bond yeah, I I don't have this issue recovering. Like, I trained pretty hard and I have no problems recovering. I don't have this, you know, drab dole existence. Like I've got a lot of vitality and zeal for life. Like I'm excited to get up and grind every single day and I've got a baby that's about to be due. So like obviously from a libido standpoint, something must be working there, connecting the dots somewhere.
So it's like, you know, people look to TRT or HRT to just like fix all their problems. But it's like having higher load TRT is not going to be like your death sentence or, you know, saving grace. Like it's not going to be what you are defined by. Like you got to look deeper for all them. And yeah, I would love to have higher TRT or higher testosterone rather, but it's not like having relatively low testosterone is like inhibiting my ability to perform in all things, so.
I think people jump too quick on it A. 100% they do. And they use it as an excuse to go get on something. And they just say, oh, my life sucks. And you know this before they address their nutrition, before they address their stress, their sleep, get in the gym, move some weights, do some things that you can naturally beef that up. Then if you're still feeling like crap, then if your numbers are still low, then you can explore other options.
But if you don't have any starting out metrics, you know, that's why it's important to track those, maybe even on just a yearly basis just to kind of see where things are trending. And then if you start to feel like crap or things aren't feeling like normal, you can go get your labs done and you can see, oh, well, this is really low or this is really high or something's way off. What's going on? Then you look at things you can change naturally before you
know, go on the medical route. Yeah, 100% and my numbers are up quite a bit from what they were obviously when I was super lean. I mean I think when I hit the 3.9% I was at 89 total test. Well, that's that's to be expected. I mean, that's crazy, crazy low, but you know exactly why. Yeah. And I'm a little bit lower. I think I was at 4:50 earlier this year, but then I went to that little bit of a deficit to lose a 20 lbs. So mine's a little bit low from that.
So it's, yeah, I mean, it's a constantly moving. But you have all that data, so you can and you can, you can say, OK, well, here's where it started to dip and here's the lowest it's ever been. And what do you know? That lines right up with contest prep.
And then as you come out of that prep and your reverse diet and your intake goes back up, you can see those numbers climb back up. But if you were only to take a stab in the dark here and there and here and there and not really align those two things to one another, you would think, holy cow, yeah, something's wrong. What's going on? And, you know, I think that the average dude probably doesn't get that checked until they decide they want to get it checked for some reason.
And then now they're like, OK, I'm. That's I need to go on TRT. I think I'm all for doing whatever you can to improve your numbers naturally. I wish my testosterone was higher than it was. You know, I need the stress less, but that's not something that I'm really going to be able to. Accomplish that option. Get the business down a little bit more. But all that to say, I see a lot of people getting on TRT because they'll go get a test done and they'll have low testosterone, you know?
But as you. Still eat like shit. Exactly. And here's the thing, like beyond just the physical implications of like what their diets like, what their activities like, what their sleep patterns are like, they look to these external factors to solve their problem. And their problem is not the low testosterone their problem is. Lifestyle.
Lifestyle and just like not having a purpose in life like if you spend your time pacifying yourself by watching TV too late, looking at porn, eating crap food, not sleeping and then are surprised that you have no you know that your health markers are in the tanks like. Who? Who would? Have thunk it. Whereas if you like, figure out what you're doing here on this planet, figure out what's worth your time and effort and like just tirelessly work to achieve it and do something of value
that brings you fulfillment. You're going to have better markers because you're going to have a calling and then you're going to know what is you're going to. I mean, when you're excited about things in life, like the biggest thing about having TRT issues or low testosterone rather, is that people say you lack vitality in life. You know, my numbers aren't great, but I'm full of Italians because I know what I'm working towards, I know what I'm
passionate about. Like people need to find that and if they find then then their lifestyle improves by default, so. Could be lazy. Yeah, could be lazy. And eat right, Lift weights. Yep, get rid of the dad bod. Yep, Yep. touché. All right, my man. Well, it's called a wrap. All right, till next time, TA. TA.