What is going on guys? Welcome back to eat train prosper. Today is episode 209. It is Brian and myself and this episode is titled the TRT episode. So figured now that I've been not natural for it's actually just about two years, like two years and two weeks or something like that. At this point, Brian is seven ish weeks into his experience with, with testosterone replacement therapy. And we're going to sit here and talk about it from a subjective lens through our own experiences. Now, one of the reasons before we dive in or before we jump into some short updates that I personally wanted to do this episode is, I think, a little bit different than most people might expect. um Most of the time, people who are on TRT or effectively use it as like a sales pitch to encourage everyone else to use TRT for whatever reasons they may have. But one thing I wanted to do is to try and provide a very honest middle of the ground, experiential sort of thing, talk about some of the positives, some of the negatives, some of the really important considerations before making a larger in health impacting decision sort of thing there. So we will get into. all this and more on the episode, but we'll start with a few brief updates. Brian may have some, may not. Uh, sure. May as well while we're here. Um, bro splits going really well. I'm now like five weeks in, um, still training one muscle group a day, basically six days a week, taking a day off each week to do some cardio fit in one other cardio session. And at some point that's been the biggest question I've gotten from people is what I'm doing with my cardio. And so, uh, Pretty much almost no zone two at this point. Like if I have the time and I can get outside for a 90 minute bike ride, I'll do some zone two. But for the most part, with only two cardio sessions a week, I've been doing higher intensity stuff, like an interval run one day and usually like an interval bike another day, something like that. Just try to get it in in like 30 to 40 minutes. uh Lifting session still under 40 minutes. Been going great. Still getting really sore. which has been kind of surprising that there hasn't been a ton of repeated bout effect coming in. I think the seven day uh break between training the same muscle group directly again has been enough time to get me really, really sore every time. uh Just did hamstrings yesterday. They're already fried right now. I woke up this morning that way and I guess the only other update is I'm old. So my heel started hurting yesterday for no reason. I was just out taking a walk and suddenly my right heel started hurting and I started limping and I was like, I guess this is 43, you know, random body parts just start hurting. And then I got home and my right elbow started hurting literally for no reason. So I iced it. Elbow feels pristine now. Great. He'll still not great. Not sure how that's going to go, but Both kids are making fun of me for being old, so that's my update. What's going on with you? The biggest update I have is I took my, I guess technically it's my fourth. I don't know if it's technically a fertility test. Sperm analysis would be, I guess the proper terminology. And things are looking really, really, really good, which is really. cool. That was I'm always like super nervous every time I go to take it because in the back of my mind, I'm just have this fear that you know my decision to go on testosterone and to use the gear and things like that just gonna fuck me up and I'm not gonna have a family and know, Jenny's gonna be disappointed probably different words than that um and and and so I was like super nervous to do it and every single time the numbers just got like better and better and better. But how your production cycles work in like kind of a 90 90 day window is like a production cycle and then like there's like a new 90 day window so now that I'm into like what would effectively be my like second production cycle at all the number like every number like double or tripled from what was already passable before which is really really cool so that is definitely the best news of the day um for me So I will continue on that protocol, but it is working very, very effectively with some downsides, which I believe we spoke about last week. So I won't bring that up um again. But if we meander into that part of the episode, I'm happy to. um That's the big update. Second update. Undefeated is just humming along. Now it's really, really cool to see, except for there's parts that I I just didn't really think about I had to wait for machines today. I had all three that I needed were being used and I was like, oh, fuck, this sucks. So uh that was an interesting one, but it has been like really cool to see. We have a girl who's a figure pro from Germany hosting a camp. undefeated right now and it's just it's so cool to see girls like training hard as fucking all hell and you know getting after it it's just turning into this environment that I really really or I should say we really really hoped it would and it's it's just fulfilling on the back end to just watch it happen in real time so that's been very very exciting for me this week from just the fulfillment standpoint What's her name? John and that is a J E A N N E. Oh, I don't know her last name. Something that starts with a K. No, some of the K. right, all right, I'm trying to look her up. Jan Kirkpatrick, no. All right, I'll fang it another time, that's cool. Sweet, well, that sounds fun, man, aside from waiting for machines, but that's, guess, part of the deal when your business grows. You can't just always have top priority all the time. Yep, yep, definitely a good problem to have. Okay, cool. So let's dive in. And I'll kind of run through a little bit of a high level of the outline of the ways in through which we are going to break this episode down. So the goal here, like I said, is to hopefully provide an honest, hopefully neutral and nuanced take on a polarizing subject. So we're going to walk through kind of symptom management versus optimization culture, which I think is a very good place for Brian and I to start because we kind of come from the one versus another sort of thing. Our subjective decision framework for starting. Long-term commitment concern, expectations versus reality, estrogen management and issues downstream of that, fertility, which is a really, really big one, and then any kind of wrapping and closing thoughts that we have. Now, kicking back to that first one, the symptom management versus optimization culture. I think this is really, prevalent to speak about, especially because most I would I would even argue greater than 50 % if not significantly higher than 50 % of the time. It's a pure optimization culture sort of I want this thing and like in full transparency. That's where I fall under it was a decision that I decided I was going to do. I didn't have any symptom necessary or anything like that. My testosterone levels is an actual work. adequate. I just wanted to know, you know, what was under behind door number two sort of thing. Whereas I feel like you Brian, if I'm not mistaken, and you can obviously start speaking and tell everyone what really happened, it was your did your doctor not suggest it? No, not really. I mean, I guess there have been like soft suggestions for it for like the last year or two. ah But no one ever really was like, hey, this is something you should do. The uh every time I would approach my doctor to kind of bring it up, the response was always kind of the same, which was, you know, if you're not symptomatic, then why would you treat something that's not a problem? So even though my levels were, I would say, on average across the last decade. around just above 300 total T and you know, 7.5, something like that for free T. So both are like borderline low, but neither of them were what would be described as like clinically low or hypogonadal or whatever. And so when I would talk to my doctor about it, or really talk to anybody about it, the outside view was, you know, you're training six days a week across these various domains, you're sleeping fine. Subjectively, you know, my scores were in the mid 80s. Like I was doing okay, I wasn't killing sleep, but it was fine. My body comp was fine. I was parenting, I had fine energy, I was doing my work, like, there really weren't any outlandish signs of like, hey, this dude is really struggling, he needs some TRT, you know. uh So I, it's tough for me to reckon with kind of because now like seven weeks in, I still can't really say that there's been any like, wow, like, I'm so glad I started TRT. This has been totally life changing for me or anything like that. Like, in reality, I don't think I noticed that much difference. uh Some of the first things that I'm supposed to be noticing are a little bit more preparedness or sympathetic drive in the morning. So maybe like the idea of getting out of bed and just being more prepared for the day, uh less groggy or lethargic or anything like that, like maybe very subtly experiencing that. uh I certainly experienced it through higher heart rates. Like that's been something that I actually don't love about TRT thus far has been that my resting heart rate has been up. six to eight beats a minute. And my HRV in coordination with my resting heart rate going up has gone down 15%. And so in talking to ChatGPT and some other people about this, they said that this is all par for the course. This is expected. This is part of you being more prepared for the day, et cetera. But they also mentioned that this should kind of correct itself once my body adjusts to this new hormone profile. And so I think I'm starting to get into that phase of my body adjusting to the new hormone profile. In the last couple nights, my heart rate's gone down back into the low, low to mid 40s while I'm sleeping. And then it's been in the mid 40s while I'm doing my HRV, which has now gone kind of back up. So it's only maybe 5 % down. So I'd say at this point, like the resting heart rate has come down a little, but not as low as it was. And my HRV has gone up, but not as high as it was. uh also difficult to assess whether the resting heart rate and HRV discrepancies are a result of my body weight, because we've talked about this before, even outside of TRT, when body weight goes up, resting heart rate goes up because you have a bigger engine that you have to power. uh So when I, shoot guys, I am 207.9 pounds this morning. That is 12 and a half or 13 pounds up from where I was when I started TRT. Yeah, maybe I've been eating like a little more. But I mean, you guys know, I tend to go pick out on junk food a few times a week. Like this is nothing new for me. It's not like I'm eating an insane bolus of food beyond what I was eating before. I'm simply just gaining weight. And at first it was bloat and I thought it was all bloat related and I thought it was going to dissipate. It just keeps going up. And since some days I wake up and I'm not even bloated, but I'm still 207.9 pounds. And so I don't necessarily love that aspect, but uh I'm just kind of, you know, along for the ride and dealing with these things as they come. So that's like the initial kind of thoughts on it. And I'm sure we'll get into more depth as we go. Yeah. Okay. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. And that is one of the things where I want to get into that a little bit more in the subjective decision framework uh part. But for me was more towards the I had. No symptoms right there. mean, yeah, I didn't have like boundless energy like I was 21 anymore, but we're older. We have responsibilities. And one of those things that I this is a little bit of, guess, my viewpoints on life. But as as there's like less new experiences to be had, the brightness of the world kind of starts to like dim a little bit, you know, whereas when you're like 21, like there's still so many first time experiences, right? But as you're older, you travel more, you get to cross off some of those like check boxes or line items of life. There's just a general less excitement because you've just done more, you know, and it's just not as exciting anymore because it's not the first or second time you're doing something for the 14th time. So what I really wanted to look into was one, the optimization side of things. I just wanted to know, right? It's kind of like this Pandora's box or as you know, we were the long time natural lifter, it kind of felt like the forbidden fruit sort of thing, right? And one of the things from a personality standpoint, I like to formulate my own opinions, right? That's been something that I've done. throughout oh early adulthood sort of things. I think I said this on the podcast before. I remember being in sixth grade and we had those dare classes, something whatever to drug resistance education or whatever. And I remember them like drilling into their head like, you don't do drugs, right? You don't do drugs, drugs are terrible for you. And I'm like, what? I'm maybe 11 years old and I'm sitting there thinking like, lots of adults do drugs. Like there's gotta be a reason why. And they're like just not telling us, you know? So I've always kind of had that little like inkling of like, I wanna go find out for myself. So that was one aspect of it. I also started having an increasing... higher proportion of my own coaching clients come to me on TRT and what we know the clinics out there it is a crap shoot. Some are pretty decent, some are downright awful and I found myself having to figure out and learn new things to be able to better serve them because there would be experience things like I don't want to call it uncontrollable, but like really unpredictable weight gain and things like that. And when, when I don't have this whole subset of tools, I'm less effective as a, as a subject matter expert, because I'm just, I don't know about these things. So there was that part of it. I knew that where I thought that the world was going with our culture and things like that, that as I aged as a coach, the proportion of clients that would come to me on TRT would only increase, right? So I wanted to be able to better help them and what better way to get direct personal experience. And then I was kind of just ready for something new. I wanted to see like what happens if I do get an increased ambition, increased motivation, right? At the ultimately for my viewpoint and what was my deciding factor is Because I did. I wasn't trepidatious about it right because as a natural lifter that has had pretty good success you're proud of that you you kind of wear it as a badge and I was I was scared of disassociating with that because it was like we have found on Instagram and stuff my accomplishments as a lifter are now invalidated because I'm not natural anymore is what the general vibe of what people in my comments and DMs tell me. um So that was like a challenge for me to overcome. one my ultimate kind of and I know I'm shifting into the decision framework a bit. When I asked was like, what am I cheating at for me to be better at business to me to be? You know, a more well rounded coaching resource in a changing. coaching landscape. Like what am I actually cheating? I knew I didn't want to do any natural bodybuilding uh competing. In my opinion, it's just too fucking hard for me in full transparency. So that was kind of my decision factor and I wanted to just get that experience and I was okay with you know, some of the potential risks once I read through a lot of them and formulated my own opinions about them. Can we briefly just touch on kind of the cultural side of this? Because one of the things that I've found really interesting is I've been at like the park talking to the dads. You know, after school, we have like Friday hangouts at the park and all the dads and whatever congregate there and the kids play. And and I'm totally transparent, much like you. I don't try to hide anything. And so a couple of the dads and I were talking and they were literally just like amazed that I would. do this. They're like, wait, you're doing the testosterone replacement thing? Like very, very kind of like, slightly critical, maybe judgmental. uh You could tell that there was an immediate or at least maybe I perceived it this way, but an immediate like, wait, this guy like, appears so healthy. Why does he? Is he not healthy? Like, is this like a sick guy that that like just looks healthy? Is it all a facade or whatever? And these guys are like, for the most part not work out a holics like if anything, maybe they're like cardio guys, but also maybe just kind of like frumpy like sedentary people just kind of like a mix of the two no one's really in lifting culture. And from my understanding, it's something like 5 % of guys over 45 are on TRT, which is like a really, really low number. It's hard to be 100 % sure because of black market TRT and all this stuff. But around like 5 % of guys are And my sense, I don't know if this is right, but my sense is that it's congregated much more around lifting culture than it is around just normal, normal people that are not part of lifting culture. And I'm curious about like why, why that is because you would think that people that are lifting and taking care of themselves likely have better control of their hormone profile than people that are sedentary or cardio junkies doing things that are not necessarily at a base level, you know, keeping them hormonally grounded are optimized in some way which lifting has been shown to be one of these things that does sort of optimize your hormone profile. so why like, is it just simply because of steroid culture that TRT culture has aligned with lifting or like, like, why is it that that this is such a blasphemous, you know, situation for me to be there talking to the dads and having them critically looking side eye at me about TRT? I obviously for the listeners this is Brian and I's personal opinions on this but I would hypothesize the latter of what you said yes is true. Steroid culture then influences into the TRT culture which influences into the you know natural bodybuilding culture or I don't call that your your natty lifting culture right which is like your gym pop. persona, right I if we if we believe that to be a truthful statement something and I do think it is when we are talking about the The gen pop lifting culture who has an interest in it, but wouldn't call themselves a bodybuilders or whatever people are still referencing, well, Ronnie Coleman didn't do that or whatever. They always use a open class, heavyweight bodybuilder as their reference point. They're never talking about Brian DaCosta or Steve Hall or any of the great natural bodybuilders. Like never once are they brought up. It's always like Ronnie or Jay Cutler or something. I do for, for worse. mean, I do think it is for worse. Everything gets distilled. down from open class bodybuilders and then it somehow lands itself on your general gym population person and that's where they derive their information from or perceptions from. I just don't love the perception of like when people hear that I'm doing TRT and that I'm a lifter, that they assume that I'm doing TRT because I want to be bigger and more jacked. And like, that's just so far from the truth. Like I in reality, and I've said this a few months ago before I even started TRT, like I want to live as a smaller human. want to be in the low to mid 180s. And I want that to be my body weight. This TRT thing has pushed me like so far in the wrong direction. that now if I want to get down to the 180s, I have to lose 20 plus pounds like where how did this happen? I was 10 pounds away from my goal and now I'm 23 pounds away from my goal. uh And so that's been a little bit frustrating for me and I don't love that kind of cultural perception that I'm doing it because I want to be like bigger and more jacked. Yeah, the one thing I will, that was like, I answered the one part of your statement. The other part is, I would say your average lifter person, person who is in the gym, that sort of thing, they have a higher value on how their body feels and their connection to their body. And that's why they have a higher interest on lifting weights, eating healthier. And I think it then kind of becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy. um Whereas because you value that feeling of someone put it really good. can't I wish I could remember who said it but the feeling is that green juice feeling right in like everyone can think about what that feels like you're like that pie in the sky that like healthy feeling in my body that green juice feeling I place a high value on that feeling I want to feel that often so I associate aspects of my life that helped me feel that way. Whereas someone like a real like a gen pop m they've probably never felt that feeling in their fucking life. So it's so far of a disassociation for them. Yeah, I think that's a really good point that as a lifter or someone that's health conscious, that you're more in touch with like your body and the way your body responds and how you feel and things like that. And so it would make more sense that you want to kind of optimize that piece a little bit more. And then that actually kind of goes back to why I start, why I wanted to start anyway. And for me, it was less about necessarily trying to optimize my current state. And it was honestly more the allure. of potentially feeling like I did 15 plus years ago. Like the sense that I could have the energy and the focus and the output of somebody that's 25 again, thinking back to like when I first started the CrossFit gym and how, you know, I worked 14 hour days and slept six hour nights and I did that for a whole year. And like that sort of stuff is outlandish to me right now. I could not even imagine working from like 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. for six straight months. Like that's insane. but that was just what I did at the time. And so I think part of the allure for me was having that type of like boundless energy ah back again. So who knows? We'll see what happens with that. Yeah, one thing that I would say, I don't know how helpful this is. I have personally found that in the last like two years of my life, my energy and drive is like directly proportional to my responsibilities, right? So for example, like Tuesdays are my busiest day. We have the podcast at night. I have my busiest client check-in day. ah have a usually get like responses and stuff out. I do some content stuff on today. I will go in and train. It's my longest day. I have a lot of energy for this day and I'm kind of like buzzing because I want to get everything done. I want that that dopamine, you know, hit of crossing things off my to-do list being efficient those sorts of things. Sometimes when I get to like to Thursday, I kind of don't really have much to do unless I have a new client consult come in, I'm building a program, clients have a lot of questions, and I struggle on those days and I feel really lazy and kind of lethargic because I don't have any pressure. And that's one thing I've found. as you know I've aged is how energized I feel is kind of directly proportional to the pressure that is on me to produce or get things done. Yeah, that makes sense. And I hate it, honestly, I do hate it. Well, I want more of that as I think the thing like I think like there is a when you're in those moments where you have so much to do, it's almost like you're in a flow state and time just flies by because you're so focused intently on exactly what you're doing on the computer or whatever type of busy work you're doing. And I think that part of my desire in starting TRT was actually to get back. to having some more of those responsibilities that create those flow states because I feel like I've been lacking that where my workflow at this point is, you know, a few hours a day of work. And then I'm found, I find myself filling the rest of the day with going for walks, exercising, listening to podcasts, cooking lunch, whatever, basically making things last longer than I need to. Like a quick lunch that I could have done in 10 minutes, I expand out to like a 45 minute experience because I'm like, ain't got shit else to do today. Um, and, those days are tough. Like I feel energy draining from me on days where I have less to do. And so I really want there to be more to do. And I'm waiting for that motivation to be like, this is the thing you should do, but I think it's not actually going to happen in that way. I kind of need to create some sort of more firm structure and rigidness around how I'm going to implement my days. And then I think the motivation will come. through that process. I'm kind of thinking about it a little bit backwards where I'm hoping the TRT is going to give me that motivation. And in reality, I need to create the product or the workflow and then the motivation will come in from. Yeah, that's really good. I think I I miss spoke a little bit I hate the lazy days when I don't have anything to do I enjoy those. Yeah, those pressure days. Yeah um days. Like I feel like my days are filled with those lazy days, which then make me feel lethargic and purposeless sort of. And I want more of those days that are filled with more stuff to do. Yeah, one of the things that I think I do hope you experience because I definitely did. I wouldn't call it my motivation changed. My ambition slowly started to climb. I wanted to do more. And some of the things that used to really like terrify me and I'd be like, that's just not the type of person that I am. I can't handle those sorts of things. That's for them. I started like kind of like my mindset, like inching closer. Maybe I can do that. Maybe I should just try that, you know, or that person can do it. What they don't seem to have any qualities that I don't have. Like, why can't I do that too? So it would be like the same kind of circumstance, but my mind around it started started changing a little bit and I'm having like a little bit more confidence in myself to do things. And that's one of the things that Jenny told me this and you know, for any new listeners like my wife has been with me. I think we keep fucking it up. I think we're on year 12. It's either 11 or 12. And she said it was like a very noticeable difference in, you know, situations where I would rely on her opinion, you know, a lot more heavily because I was like timid and trepidatious around things where now I'm like, I think this is what we're going to do. I evaluated it. This is the best decision. I'm going to make this happen this way sort of thing where I just have a lot more. confidence and ambition in my ability to like navigate more challenging situations than before. Yeah, I think that that's exactly what I am hoping and expect to happen. And that's what chat GPT keeps telling me is going to kind of come online between like the eight and 12 week point. So I'm like teetering right on that edge right now. I'm at seven weeks, like literally as of today. Um, so hopefully, you know, in the next four to five weeks, some of that kind of increased ambition comes online and I'm now, uh, cautious about calling it increased energy because I think that that was a mistake in my brain was thinking that I was going to have like, boundless energy come on board. And it's not like I'm taking Adderall or a fedrin or something like that. I'm simply raising like a baseline of dopamine, which is not itself energy inducing. It's the situation that results from the slight increase in dopamine baseline that then creates the energy flow from Yeah, very, very well said. I think we've covered our decision framework decently. Is there any kind of large concerns that you had? Actually, I do have some questions for you. I know 2012, 2013, you had a blood clot in your calf. Was that something that you spoke around the doctor with? What was your kind of thought process through that? Yeah, that was one of my biggest hindrances in getting started initially because testosterone can cause blood to be a little bit more viscous. And that was something that I was a little bit concerned about given the blood clot in 2012. um I am pretty convinced at this point that that blood clot was the result of the lifestyle that I was under at the time, which was that. Like I was telling you, you up at 6 a.m., in bed at 10 p.m., or closing the shop at 10 p.m., you know, under slept, uh training three times a day on shitty sleep. I think I was also addicted to Adderall at the time because I wasn't sleeping. So there was like this kind of perfect storm of these things that all occurred that kind of brought the blood clot to the surface. However, that doesn't change that I still do have the genetic disorder called factor five lydin, which makes me more prevalent to clot. than somebody else. So I've done a bunch of research in that regard to make sure that the testosterone potentially wasn't going to increase that. um It appears as if it does not increase risk, but it maybe isn't going to like help that risk either. It's really something that I need to just keep an eye on, keep tabs on, make sure I'm getting blood work every six weeks, checking on the hemoglobin and the hematocrit and like all of these various. markers of blood viscosity and health and all that. uh that was definitely a part of the decision-making process, but I think I got to a point that uh I realized it wasn't going to inherently increase risk on its own. Yeah, that's one where I think I was I'm pretty sure in last week's episode I was speaking about the flavors that you get based off of your genetic, you know, propensity. Mine doesn't mine never changed at all. They just my hematocrit in hemoglobin has not budged at all. Even when I ran boldenone, which I'm now speaking about and boldenone is like known for increasing hematocrit that it's a steroid. Mine didn't go up at all. It's just like, you just don't know what you're going to get. So that would be interesting. You know, like you're whenever you do your follow up bloods, because it will, if you are impacted by it, will rise, but then it levels off at that rise. it doesn't just perpetually keep climbing like the longer you're on uh TRT. So that's something I'm sure you'll update us on in the coming weeks. Yeah, the blood work was done last Tuesday. So it's been exactly a week since I got blood work and it's still processing my samples. I'm looking at the website right now. So hopefully by the next time that we do this show next week, we'll have full blood. What about any long term commitment concerns? I know that is something I had a client. uh Sometimes clients ask me these things and I am very transparent in knowing and speaking what my scope is and stuff, but I will tell them my honest opinion. And he wanted to ask what my thoughts were about him doing a cycle of TRT to which I explained that's not how it works. There is no cycle. of TRT and he wanted to know that if he could he just use TRT to put on 20 pounds and then stop and I said you can try that but it will not be under my guidance like I'm not going down that road with someone so um people still have misc you know poorly formed the conceptions around it where did you have any concern around a long-term commitment or anything in that of that sort Yeah, that was actually quite a big concern for me. I asked my doctor specifically if I could do like, you know, four to six weeks just to test it out, like take it for a trial run. And then if I don't like it, get off of it. And he was like, yeah, I mean, you can, but you're looking at like four to six month recovery to get your, your hormone levels back to, to baseline without the TRT. And then if you're on it even longer, then it's going to be even longer before hormone levels are able to kind of normalize at that point. So That was a big concern for me. I don't love the idea of having another thing that I'm dependent on. In fact, like, it's kind of been irritating me how many things I do have a dependence on. And the other day when I was up in the mountains with my buddy, I was reflecting on some things and I just kept saying this sentence over and over in my mind, the fragility of dependence. And I was thinking about all the various things in life that I'm dependent on, you know. my silly vitamin routine. Like every morning I take my vitamins and then there's these other vitamins that I take at night. And like, now every time I travel, I need to pack my TRT. Like how fragile am I that there's all these things that I have to depend on all the time, you know? And it was making me angry. And I mean, not like really angry, but it was upsetting to me a little bit that I went from being this kid who was a teenager and I needed nothing. Like literally, you know, I traveled to Costa Rica for three months and all I did was pack like one bag. I didn't have any supplements. I had no protein. I just simply packed a bag and went to Costa Rica for three months. And, um and man, I miss, I miss those days. I feel like as I've gotten older and older, there's just more and more things that I've become dependent on. And it makes me feel really fragile. I don't, I don't like having to make sure that there's all these things that I'm taking with me every time I go anywhere. And so TRT is just another thing. And not only is it another thing, it's A thing that literally is like something that I'm completely dependent on. Like, shit, if I don't have my weed for a week, not a big deal. I just don't do weed for a week. If I don't have my vitamins for a week, nothing really, not a big deal. It's fine. I don't have my vitamins. If I don't have my TRT for a week, it's like my whole hormone profile gets thrown off. it's just, I don't know, man. That for me was kind of a barrier of entry. I like and appreciate that perspective on it. um I would say mine was a little bit different. I kind of just viewed it as similar to brushing my teeth. Right. Do I want to brush my teeth every single morning and night? No, I fucking don't. But it's just like one of those aspects of life where they're like, hey, You're like whatever nine years old. Now you got to start brushing your teeth every morning and night and we just like accepted it. And now it's we've done it for 30 some year odd years and I just kind of conceptualize it. OK. I'll just you know when I after I brush my teeth I spend an extra minute and a half pinning my testosterone every morning and that's just my life now. And I kind of just accepted it. The one thing that I will say in that is I am rather confident that once I no longer care about my physical appearance past a certain just be an average healthy looking 58 year old man something like that. There will be technological advances in the administration routes. Even even right now there's testosterone under canoate which comes as a pill. It's it's Kaiser tracks is the prescription that will put you out like a four four hundred four fifty something like that nanograms per deciliter. It's not great but from 60 years old what the fuck do I care about my testosterone is like my am I still alive right. Do my kids hate me like that. That's all that I'm probably going to care about at that point in my life. So I figured at that age, I'm like, yeah, there'll be something new. It's probably just a capsule. And you know, pinning will be a thing of the past or for people who want to be big still. Yeah, I mean, I guess I look at it a little bit differently in that I think like this thing is such a dependency that like if we're in some sort of, you know, apocalyptic type scene, not even like the world's ending type thing, but, know, already there's delays in the TRT uh downstream production and prescription process. Like when I went to get my initial TRT, they were like, oh, we're back ordered. It's going to be two weeks. Well, imagine if, you know, I run out of my TRT and I'm going to refill it. And now I have like a two week gap between when I was supposed to get it. And when I actually do get it now, there's like this two week period where my T basically plummets down and I have to build it back up again. You could extrapolate that out to an even worst case scenario where the whole supply chain of things gets in disarray through who knows our governments in disarray right now. Like who really knows what's going to happen? Um, that sort of stuff worries me too, as an, a dependence of like, this is something that you're not supposed to go off of. So if you can't have access to it for X period of time, like where does that put me? Yeah, that's that's a that's a very I think that's a valid point because it's it's a dependence relying upon a system that is inherently kind of poor in its functioning capacity that I don't really see is going to improve to any meaningful degree over the next handful of years that that that could happen. um A quick aside that I it's not overly relevant to the episode. I do foresee. m With I have heard some trickling down that there may be some changes from a from a government standpoint of the how the TRT prescription model is working out. It's all hearsay right because you never know things there but but I've actually have this kind of prediction and I and I do know some friends who have actually done this and some clients who have done it too not under my uh under their own accord, where they've used the TRT company for however long and they're like, you know, they're not really that helping me that much anymore. I don't think the service is great. I'm just going to go underground and just manage it myself. And I do envision some level of that happening if the government does come in and say try to crack down on the TRT a lot of these men or individuals who have seen a different life a life that they I guess prefer and they'll say all right well I'll just go underground and do it that way which I think is really interesting because it's kind of like a full circle event because it all started hey do this the right way under supervision like and and and that's kind of getting bastardized and um taken advantage of and it may just end up coming completely full circle, which is kind of hard to actually believe, but. Yeah, I wouldn't even want to do like the underground route. Like I feel confident in the fact that I know I'm getting like medical grade, you know, over the counter or prescription type stuff like that. That would make me a little bit uh uncomfortable, I think. Yeah, it's definitely more moving pieces and just, it's a nice, you just pay for a peace of mind, which, know, it's really not that expensive. It's literally cheaper than protein powder. Prescription testosterone is cheaper than protein powder. um That was a hard truth for me to accept once I looked at those numbers. Okay, so long-term commitment concern we've kind of addressed for ourselves expectation versus reality and there's three subsets of this one physical cognitive slash psychological and the energy the energy I feel like we've kind of already touched upon neither Brian or myself really noticed any boost in energy there. Let's work backwards. How about that? cognitive or psychological? Have you noticed anything kind of yet there for yourself? Not a whole ton. uh I would say maybe there's like slight less, slightly less friction in getting started with my workouts. That's tough to say, just because like even when I wasn't on TRT and I did have like the slight friction in starting my workout, you know, within five or 10 minutes of starting it, I'd be like, yeah, this is great. Like, why did I, why did I not want to start this? And even like now, even with the TRT, like I think I still have a sense of slight friction getting started, but maybe it's it's a little bit reduced. then maybe the time to me being like, this is great. Instead of being 10 minutes in, maybe it's like three minutes in. I do like a warmup set. And I'm like, yeah, this is great. Like, I'm really glad I started this. But yeah, certainly like a little bit of friction and getting started. That's one of the main things I wanted. to change upon starting TRT was I remembered the passion and excitement that I had for training in my 20s and how I would literally wake up every day like excited to go to the gym. I was biting at the bit or whatever, ripping at the bit to get to the gym and to do my workout. And I haven't had that sort of passion and excitement for my training in a long time. And part of that could simply be because back then, you know, it was relatively new. I believed that this could be the new routine that like, you know, gets me the results I'm looking for. And there was like a certain sense of excitement about that. And now maybe the nihilism has set in and I'm like, it's all kind of going to do the same thing anyways. ah So I'm aware of that. I'm not naive to it, but, but I do, you want, and I have noticed maybe a slight less, less friction in getting started. That is a really, really good way to put it. can't say I think that I have noticed any cognitive improvements in my ability to analyze my speaking, anything of that regard. I would say psychological, I have had improvements in what I would consider improvements around things that I already mentioned in an episode, belief in myself, belief that I'll be able to figure out challenging situations. uh assertiveness has also increased what I would to what I would call an appropriate level of assertiveness. I would, mean this is goes back years and years of my life, there would be things where I would inconvenience myself just to avoid any slightly uncomfortable situation unless I felt so strongly wronged that I was I would become like infuriated or raged by it right so an example would be someone like fucks up your order at the restaurant right and I ordered whatever a burger and fries and I get I don't know fucking pasta and potato salad and I would just be like Well, I don't want to say anything. So I'll just eat this fucking thing that I didn't order and just be like a people pleaser and just be miserable. And then as I'm leaving, be like, fuck that restaurant. never gone back there. Like I'm so upset as opposed to just being like, hey, this isn't my fucking food. Right. So I would do these things that were like unreasonable to myself just to everything else would be smooth. Whereas now I'll be like, hey, sorry, I didn't order this. let's figure out what I did order. So I would say I moved to like an appropriate level of assertiveness, whereas before I would be like incredibly under assertive and I would just like swallow things. that can't be like a real example. There's no way someone would serve you like potato salad and pasta and you wouldn't send it back. like, let's say, for example, my order was like forgotten at a restaurant, right? And I'm like the first table in and like four people come in after me and they all get their food. And I would just like sit there and be like, well, it's gotta come, right? I'm not gonna say anything. I don't wanna make it awkward. When I know like, you know, it's not gonna come unless you say something. And it would be like this huge deal in my head. uh where it really isn't whereas now i'm just like hey i've been here way longer than those people can you double check on my food it's a simple thing like i'm i'm acknowledging like what i would do is absolutely ridiculous um it is wonder how much of that has to do with upbringing to like maybe less even to do with whether testosterone is on board or not, but maybe upbringing because that example for me makes me laugh because I come from, you know, Jewish parents and every single thing at the restaurant is like, I want this without this, but add this, take that out, exchange this. And like, if it doesn't come right, it's like, no, no, no. You forgot the one thing that I said I wanted off or on this thing. You know, I'm sending it back. Bring me a new order. And so I was always so embarrassed by my parents doing this growing up. And so I gravitated to the other side of it, but never to the extreme. Like I still was to the point where, know, if my shit doesn't come the way I want it, I'm letting them know like, hey, you didn't put the grilled onions that I asked for on here. Can I please get a side of grilled onions or something like that? So I'm doing it in a what I think is a friendlier uh manner than more accommodating manner than my parents would. but still doing it, you know? And I think another example of this is like when Kim and I are different in this way, where when someone asks us to do something, if I know right off the bat that like, you know, timing's not gonna work out or I'm not gonna wanna do it, I'm like, no, I don't think I'm gonna make that. And Kim's like, yeah, text me, you know, we'll figure it out. And she knows like full well that she's not gonna go to the thing. uh So. So I think in both of those examples, like I've always been, my nature has been to be a little bit more direct and confrontational with things. So I don't know how much of that is TRT versus just simply like cultural upbringing and stuff like I mean, uh I do think you have a point because me and my mom are very similar with like just never try and just like always let it slide. But now I've been I've definitely been able to be like, no, I'm not letting that one slide. This is you know, this is what I'm going to say about it. So that one I will say has been a positive, but that is a slippery slope. I will say. um And I think that is, like if you think about your stereotypical like douchebag toxic male like energy, it's like a really high testosterone vibe. So it's a slippery slope of like becoming that sort of. I don't wanna say becoming that sort of person, having those sorts of things influence you in that way. So if you are going to move to like higher doses and stuff under your own accord, that is something that you have to become self-aware of so you don't end up becoming a person that you never wanted to become. uh And then lastly physical now, this is the one thing I obviously I have a lot more time under the curve than Brian I would say reality exceeded expectations in terms of the difference made there Yeah, I mean, my only real physical response has been the weight gain and then the resting heart rate and the HRV changes. I can't really say that there's too much more physical that I've noticed. um I mean, I guess I'm continuing to progress in the gym, which is something maybe like I'm getting a rep or 2.5 pounds here and there on stuff when I'm kind of like, wow, that's surprising. But I also would probably correlate that just as much to weight gain as anything else. Like I think simply gaining 13 pounds of body weight mass moves mass, you would you would be able to lift more weight that way. So yes, the weight gain is likely from the TRT, but the training response is likely from the weight gain. So it's kind of like downstream from from the TRT a little bit. the true test would be like if my body weight was the same, but I was still being able to progress week to week, then you'd be like, wow, the TRT is like really, really doing its thing. ah Yeah, I can't say I've been at it long enough to probably have much more like what are the main things that you notice like aside from just simply putting on weight and muscle and all of that like, have there been other physical things that you've noticed? staying leaner is significantly easier you just get an improved caloric partitioning specifically carbohydrate um now it's one of those things where you have to know how to play the game to for those physical uh expectors for the for the reality of the physical changes to be as potent, right? If you're just eating like whatever and higher fat diet, it's not going to necessarily change that. But I think something that's a little bit different with with the two of us and for every client that I have previously managed their nutrition, and then they start TRT, the physical changes are undeniable. um because of there's certain, like I said, aspects of understanding how to play the game to your advantage. There are certain levers, specifically carbohydrate partitioning, caloric partitioning that are, it is a non insignificant change that I feel very, very confident making that statement. Do you have any like blood work that could demonstrate that partitioning is better or it's simply just the manifestation of that on your physique? I don't know that there would be blood work that could change that. can't I mean maybe fasting blood glucose, but I don't I don't I don't even think that's because my my fasting blood glucose is no different now than it was then and I'm Yeah, yeah I don't know how you then can know that the partitioning is better aside from, guess, just simply seeing it manifested on your physique. I mean, body weight increases, gym performance uh increases in the visual perception of body fat is the same, but body weight's going up week over week. Hunger is very, very healthy. Recovery is great. ah I have no less than seven, eight clients that I've seen this with. I mean, it's the same reason why If you extrapolate to, you know, steroid use, it's undeniable that that changes your caloric partitioning of food. We are just at a significant less dose than steroid use, but still much greater than zero. Yeah. Yeah. says Gemini at least says that it does in fact, uh, more efficiently shuttle nutrients toward building and repairing muscle tissue rather than storing them as fat, creating a more anabolic environment, improving insulin sensitivity, boosting metabolic rate and supporting body recomposition. So, um, yeah, I guess that seems to be a common phenomenon. Anything else in terms of uh the expectations versus reality? My, would in full transparency, libido is in real waves that I can't say I've noticed over a long enough time horizon, a meaningful difference. There's very acute patches, but I kind of everything reverts to the mean I would say from my experience. I've noticed the same, uh that initial libido that I talked about it, like the three week mark was pretty significant, at least acutely temporarily. was like, wow, this is wild. And then it kind of leveled off and then it came and it dipped and it came and it dipped. And I would say at this point, it's like, I like to catch those, those patches that are high and be like, yeah, let's take advantage of that. And then there's other times where it's like, eh, back to normal or slightly below normal. So yeah, it hasn't been like the game changer in that regard that, that I thought it would. I have a buddy. who I was telling about this and he said, yeah, every morning I pop however much low dose of Cialis. And I was like, wait, really? Like every day you pop a Cialis in the morning? And he's like, dude, it's a game changer. He's like, you have no idea. And I was like, all right, I'll let you handle that one for now. uh I still haven't messed with those types of things in my life ever. Even though I had friends in college that would be like just for a night, like let me pop a Viagra and see what happens. uh I never have done any of that. So I don't really know how big of a change that one would make. But yeah, the T has been the testosterone has certainly been kind of in waves, like you said. Yeah, I had a section about estrogen, it's it's really it's a really lot to talk about. And I think we might cover it at some other point, but I don't want to open this gigantic can of worms. But one thing I will say is it is in my experience. And in my experience coaching with a lot of people, one of the largest facets to manage potentially because of the, you don't know what flavor you're going to get. I would say that's been the single largest. moving target. for me is estrogen is it's when it's great, it's great, but it never just stays put it like kind of will slowly creep up on me over time. And I don't really I can't because it happens so slowly. I don't realize it. And then I'll be like, man, why have I felt so awful for like the last like four days, you know, and it normally happens in the latter parts of the week when I don't have as much pressing work or things to like really stay focused on. And then I realized I'll be sitting there and I'm like miserable and I'm like looking outside and I'll have all these like terrible thoughts about myself. And I'm looking out in the garden where we have all these, you know, vibrant green plants and the sky is like super blue and everything just looks like a muted like gray wash and it'll hit me and I'm like, God damn it. My estrogen is too high. And then I take one of the AIs and like 48 hours later, I feel perfectly fine again. So that's been one of the, would say the single uh the worst part, considerably. you take? You take one of the AIs? in aromatase inhibitor. Yeah. prescription thing or something over the counter? Well, what country are we in? Let's talk about that. In the United States, it will be prescription. Yeah. Yeah. we'll have a little more to say on the estrogen stuff once my blood work comes back. We can probably include that into the conversation and maybe use that as a jumping off board to kind of assess the estrogen conversation. different and that's the hardest part. Everyone is so vastly different there. Yeah, cool. And then the last final one to talk about fertility. Right. So I think in a context please correct me if I'm wrong Brian but do you guys have any potential plans for more children in the future. No, I got a vasectomy a few years ago, so we are uh done. Okay, right in the case like that you are removing an entire massive vector of your decision tree away from this. um If you still do want kids in the future or you do not have any children like myself that is a it's it's a pretty big thing to think about. Now it's not a death sentence like some people say it is but as someone who like I said in the early the earliest parts of podcast right I've got my fertility back. Numbers look great, but it is a lot to manage in full transparency. ah And you are using... female pregnancy hormones that work as analogs to follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone that the endogenous or sorry, exogenous testosterone down regulates and they are not a free lunch, right? So it's possible more baggage. I would say this would be the largest considering factor of all that we talked about from my opinion. If you are m Potentially, you know, looking to start a family within like a two-ish year period of your consideration of it. I would encourage you to just wait those two years until the family is started in full transparency. Yeah, my uh self stipulations to doing it were always that I wanted to be in my 40s and I wanted to be done having kids. Those are kind of two of my big ones and I did it. So here we are in my 40s, got two kids, done with it. Yeah, and I've heard the same that it's just, you know, one of those things where if you don't wanna create more friction in the process of having kids then already exists and probably just makes more sense to wait. as someone who did the opposite and is knee deep in it right now. Okay, so Brian, do you have anything else to add on the back end of this one or is that it for the TRT episode? Regarding the body weight increase that I've experienced with the 13 pounds over seven weeks or whatever it is, and some of it likely being like water and fluid retention and stuff like that, is from your experience with yourself and with your clients, what happens to this runaway train of body weight? Like, does it eventually start going the other way? uh Does it just continue going up for a really long time? Like where is it going to stabilize? Like what can I expect in that? It's definitely not a runaway train that it's just going to continue going and going and um Part. So there's an initial like. Because the change in the androgen and the estrogen environment and those do have impacts on the renin angiotensin aldosterone system, which is basically our how our kidneys, you know, regulate fluids with sodium potassium pump and a lot of those things so that we're like rocking the boat, right? And then the rest of the system kind of sloshes around and eventually things normalized. So that's the fluid the pure like extra cellular fluid side of it. You will eventually drop a little bit of that. But part of using exogenous testosterone in the higher testosterone levels is increased nitrogen retention, increased glycogen storage, right? And that comes with extra weight. Technically, some of that is water, but it's water stored inside the cell. Depending on who you ask, you know, and what technicalities some of it is technically lean body mass, although it's not. hypertrophy or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So I do. You said you're up how many pounds 13 pounds. 13 in seven weeks, so almost two pounds a week, yeah. Yeah, I, I, of that 13, I would say you will maintain at least seven to eight of it, I would say at the very least. Yeah. then, like if I do set my mind to getting into the mid 180s, which is, you know, what my goal has been the last year or so, um is it then going to be harder to get there because of where, because of taking the TRT or is it simply just that my starting point has gotten higher? It's hard for me to kind of wrap my head around all of this. I guess in theory, if I have more muscle then. I am essentially raising that baseline seven pounds or so. So maybe what was 182 for me as a goal, maybe becomes 189 or something like that. Yeah, if we're taking into consideration like body fat, leanness and those sorts of things. Yes. um Or there may be there the most kind of public. uh Example of this I know is Ben Pekulski was an open class bodybuilder in like the 2012 2014 era and then he like retired and he wanted to he didn't want to be that big he wanted to get back to like You 215 pounds or whatever. It was like a like a years-long process of like Catabolizing, you know some of that muscle and stuff to do that Obviously the example uses a much, you know smaller scale, but there may be some of that necessary you may need to do some Fasted like actually fasted hit cardio and you know Break some of these you know forbidden rules sorts of things to catabolize some tissue to get to what you want Well, you're fucked that Brian that the body it's not going anywhere that All right, sweet. Yep. Okay. Well, hopefully that was helpful for you guys. Hopefully we tried to provide a pretty balanced and nuanced conversation around it and not shill it like everyone else does. There's no promo codes on the end of this one, so you can get those somewhere else. All right, guys, as always, thank you for listening. Brian and I will be back next week.