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TRANSCRIPT:

Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to the B.rad podcast, where we explore ways to pursue peak performance with passion throughout life without taking ourselves too seriously. I’m Brad Kearns, New York Times bestselling author, former number three world-ranked professional triathlete and Guinness World Record Masters athlete. I connect with experts in diet, fitness, and personal growth, and deliver short breather shows where you get simple, actionable tips to improve your life right away. Let’s explore beyond the hype, hacks, shortcuts, and sciencey talk to laugh, have fun and appreciate the journey. It’s time to B.rad.

Brad (00:00:41):
It’s super popular to eat in a compressed time window for the purported benefits of autophagy and giving your digestive system a break and not over consuming calories. These are all important benefits of fasting and time restricted feeding. However,

Brad (00:00:54):
How about some lifestyle tips for natural testosterone optimization and what can be better than natural? I was talking with a colleague recently about the wide world of hormone replacement therapy and how prevalent it’s becoming in life. And as I’ve said a few times on the show, I’m not opposed to using modern interventions to improve my health and extend my longevity, but I feel like we are essentially in a society of taking shortcuts and easy routes instead of putting in the the time and the energy to live and optimize life. And thereby en enjoy all the benefits. And there’s always a consequence to, uh, consider when you’re taking a shortcut such as pharmaceutical intervention to optimize your hormones. Now we’re gonna revisit this topic every five years or so as I age because there might be a point where someday I’m doing the absolute best I can honoring all these tips that I’m about to dispense to you and things are still not going as I’d wish.

Brad (00:02:00):
And I look for a little boost. And I don’t know if that day will ever come because I’m really inspired and motivated, especially by the Masters track and field athletes that are performing amazing feats at advanced age. So proving that one, when one monitors their lifestyle practices, they can continue on without that accelerated decline that we’ve all come to believe or accept is a normal consequence of aging. And it doesn’t have to be that way. And the information that I’m about to dispense, none of it is, none of it’s going to be overwhelming in terms of a commitment of time, energy, and expense. It’s mostly free time efficient and will give you an immediate payoff in the form of feeling better, both physically and psychologically ’cause you’re taking care of yourself and you’re prioritizing. So let’s check some of these things out and perhaps you can comment and share through the podcast@bradventures.com email address, and I’ll talk about some of the comments and questions at a future show.

Brad (00:03:08):
But I’m gonna jump right to fitness first and then talk about some diet tips for hormone optimization, a little bit about supplements, and then finally ending of some lifestyle stuff. One person who’s put out a lot of good content in this area is Ben Greenfield and the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast, my longtime colleague and buddy. And, some of these tips are directly inspired from his information. And then other of from my own research and also from, uh, a lot of the content that Mark and I have been putting out in the Primal Blueprint and ensuing books. And this is simple, non-exotic stuff, except you might challenge that when I talk about certain recommended supplements. But again, I’m trying to stick to the big picture here and keep things simple and doable rather than drift too far into that realm of biohacking where I’m asking you to purchase expensive contraptions and go through elaborate protocols every single day as if you didn’t have a job, a family or wanting to spend free time without highly sophisticated health protocols that you need to adhere to.

Brad (00:04:18):
So with that, let’s get into fitness and tops on the list here. For hormone optimization is sprinting and there is no workout that comes close in terms of return on investment than brief explosive all-out sprints performed properly because sprinting can also be exhaust exhaustive and injurious because it is so physically stressful. So you need to, uh, carefully build up your overall flexibility, mobility, and baseline status of fitness before attempting something like a sprint, especially a low or high impact a medium or high impact sprint. But you can do low or no impact sprints, even if you are a novice fitness enthusiast or have some weight to lose or have been off for a while, there’s a safe way to sprint, such as on a stationary bicycle, rowing machine or other cardiovascular machine where there’s no impact. But the best hormonal and musculoskeletal benefits of sprinting happen when you are sprinting with impact on flat ground.

Brad (00:05:27):
That’s when you get the best signaling for bone density as well as fat reduction and muscle building due to the difficulty of the a activity when you’re sprinting on flat ground, sprinting uphill is the next best. So you’re still getting some impact, but it’s much safer than sprinting on flat ground. So if you have like stadium stairs or a steep hill that you can, uh, dabble in sprinting that way and then eventually aspire to once in a while, sprint on flat ground, and again, sprinting a little goes a long way. So the workout is very short in duration. I’m going to repeat my recommended template as I do so many times shortly. But again, this is a short duration workout that you do once a week as plenty, and it will give you phenomenal benefits, especially with that spike of adaptive hormones in the bloodstream right after you during and right after you complete the workout.

Brad (00:06:18):
And that’s testosterone, human growth hormone and epinephrine, norepinephrine, all that cocktail of boosting hormones that will over time as your body works hard to get back to homeostasis, will contribute to improved testosterone status, uh, improved muscle building and improved fat loss. If that’s your goal. And I’m talking about very short duration sprints. The research is revealing that they have a profound impact on boosting testosterone. And there’s research that was cited by Ben Greenfield saying sprints as short as six seconds. This uses the ATP creatine phosphate pathway only. So it’s before you need to dip in to make glucose for energy. It’s using the energy that’s stored directly in the muscle cell, and that’s why you’re able to perform a true all-out effort only for around seven seconds. So anything, any maximum effort that lasts longer than seven seconds, you’re transitioning away from the immediate energy pathway called the ATP creatine phosphate pathway and then moving into the next stage of energy production which is sometimes referred to as the lactate pathway.

Brad (00:07:29):
And that gets you from eight seconds to 30 seconds. And then anything you try to do at maximum effort longer than 30 seconds, you’re starting to get into the glycolytic pathway. A burning glucose. A quick science aside, that’s not terribly important to the message here except to convey that those really short duration sprints where you’re really powerful, that will give you a fantastic hormone boost. In contrast, doing a prolonged HIIT style workout that stands for high intensity interval training, where you are over and over again sprinting for a longer duration than 20 seconds, that’s about the maximum that I recommend to get these hormonal benefits and prevent the risk of exhaustion, depletion burnout that happens when you’re, doing a workout that’s overly stressful. A pattern of HIIT workouts that are exhausting and longer lasting than a true sprint workout can actually diminish hormone status.

Brad (00:08:26):
It can make you tired, burnt out, and have lower than optimal sex hormone levels because of the exhaustive nature of your workouts. And again, I’m talking mostly about a pattern. So if you do one super brutal workout every month where you are doing a CrossFit standard like the Murph workout, or you’re showing up poorly prepared for a really difficult CrossFit session or the Tuesday night track workout where you’ve just been mostly jogging and now you’re doing punishing intervals once in a while, that’s not gonna have a tremendously detrimental effect, but what we wanna watch out for is a pattern of overly stressful workouts. So if you’re doing a sprint session where you’re only going for six seconds, you have a very low risk of overdoing it and becoming exhausted, depleted, and a very high potential for a huge immediate boost in energy, vitality, mood, and feeling great for the rest of the day, not feeling exhausted, and also getting that hormonal spike.

Brad (00:09:27):
Now, the proper way to sprint in this context is to give it a near maximum effort. So let’s say 92 to 95%,. Whenever we hear the word a hundred percent effort, what typically happens in real life is people are compromising their form and flailing around thinking that this is how to achieve a hundred percent performance, when in fact you can perform better and more safely saying to yourself, I’m gonna give a 92 to 95% effort. What was the most famous example of this? It’s the 1968 United States Olympic team sprinters who shattered all the world records when they went to Mexico City. It was Jim Ray Hines in the hundred, Tommy Smith in the 200, Lee Evans in the 400 meters. And these guys were from speed city of San Jose State University. So all the fastest guys in the world were training together in the sixties.

Brad (00:10:21):
Bud Winter was the coach, and he was a pioneer in emphasizing relaxation in the act of sprinting so that you could generate maximum force production without tensing up. And he did a famous educational lesson to his athletes one day during practice so that they could buy into his philosophy. And he said, okay, I’m gonna time you and I want you to run an all out effort and I’m gonna time you for whatever it was, 80 meters, whatever. And then he said, okay, now back to the starting line. And this time I’m gonna ask you to give a 95% effort, and I’m gonna time you again. And to the astonishment of all the athletes, he showed them the stopwatch and said, look, you actually went faster when you gave the 95% effort instead of the a hundred percent effort. So today, you know, a half century later, you see the top sprinters in the world in the Olympics, and they have the closeups on their faces.

Brad (00:11:16):
So watching Sydney McLaughlin come in at the 400 hurdles breaking the world record, her face is a picture of composure and there’s no tension whatsoever on her face. Femke Bol, the other hurdler from the Netherlands who came from behind with a spectacular gold medal run in the mix four by 400 relay to kick off the proceedings in Paris, her face was so serene that you would not tell the difference between her jogging a warmup lap and coming from behind on the final lap of the Olympic relay to win the gold for the Netherlands. It’s amazing the level, the extent that these athletes take this desire to keep the muscles tension-free, keep the face tension-free, and just focus on generating maximum power into the track. And I talk more about that on my show dedicated to sprinting. So for now I’m talking about six-second bursts where you’re very powerful with excellent technique taking it up to 95%, but backing off from that tightness and tension that might kick in if you were asked to do a hundred percent and, and tried to hit that objective inappropriately.

Brad (00:12:23):
So with the objective to put out a near maximum effort of very high quality, you also want to take super long recovery periods or what seems like super long recovery periods, and I often recommend a six to one ratio of rest to work. So if you’re sprinting for six seconds, that would technically be a 36 second rest period. But a lot of times I say sprint for 10 seconds and rest for a minute. And if you’re truly becoming competent in sprinting, like my former podcast guest Lion Martinez of Spain, the world record holder in the men’s 45 and over a hundred meters where he ran the phenomenal time of 10.79 seconds to bust the world record and be the fastest 45-year-old plus of all time, he actually detailed how he would like to see even longer rest intervals. So someone who sprints for only 10 seconds might rest for up to two minutes, three minutes.

Brad (00:13:22):
He wants you to rest a minute for every 10 meters that you sprint. So even someone taking this recommendation of doing a six second sprint, you’re probably going to run 40 meters, maybe 30, maybe 50. So you wanna rest around four minutes in between each very, very brief sprint. This is an absolutely mind blowing recommendation because you’re sitting around there for a long time. You might even want to, uh, get your phone out and send some text messages or scroll social media, not the best recommendation to stay focused during a workout, but you want to take an extremely luxurious rest period to help partially regenerate the ATP that is fueling these maximum efforts. Remember I said the energy stored in the cell, so even on a six second effort, you’re gonna deplete some ATP from the cell and you’re gonna wanna regenerate it, and that takes a few minutes.

Brad (00:14:19):
So that’s a huge difference from the typical HIIT session where the instructor on the spinner bike or on your home video or your home exercise equipment is saying, okay, we’re gonna sprint for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds, sprint for 30 seconds, rest for 30 seconds. That’s not really sprinting, that’s interval training. And it can be stressful and exhausting if you do it too frequently. So we’re focusing here on sprinting, especially as we keep the conversation in the context of hormone optimization. So going up to a rest period of one minute for every 10 meter sprint, or at the minimum a six to one ratio. When I go out and do my sprint workouts, I’ll just tell you about my template, and it’s different than this because I’m training for track and field competition, especially at 400 meters. So I’m doing more longer intervals than pure sprints, but I do have a day dedicated to pure sprinting, and that workout is typically three times, three times 60 meters.

Brad (00:15:22):
So that would be nine times running around 60 meters, which I would say takes me, I don’t know, seven or eight seconds, and then taking extensive rest interval between each one. And when I say three times three, I’m doing a set of three, and then I’m taking a longer break between those three before I get into another set that is to say that is a workout dedicated to near maximum 92 to 95% effort with a lot of rest. And I always warm up extensively before doing any kind of sprinting. And that’s an edict for everyone to listen to. So when you’re gonna go out there and sprint, you wanna do extensive warmup and preparatory drills to make sure that your body’s ready to unleash a near maximum effort. So my template is typically riding my bike around 10 minutes to the track. I’ll do two laps of warmup drills, and you can see these drills on the PELUVA website where I show beginner sprinting drills, running technique drills, and then intermediate to advance running technique drills.

Brad (00:16:23):
So these are things like A skips, B skips, C skips, stiff leg drills, hamstring kick outs, all kinds of fun stuff that kind of exaggerate the range of motion and help cement correct technique that you’ll use when sprinting. But they definitely loosen you up. They elevate the heart rate and they get you focused to do the proper sprint session. So I do two laps of drills. Those are interspersed with walking, maybe a tiny bit of slow jogging, but it’s mainly like this set of drills which maybe takes 10 seconds. Some walking, little bit of jogging, and then another set of a different drill. And I’ll complete two laps around the track. It takes probably 10 minutes. So again, a half mile in 10 minutes, that’s a pace of 20 minute mile, right? Some the, the walkers are passing me when I’m doing these drills because I’m interspersing so much walking and rest.

Brad (00:17:15):
And after I complete the two laps, then I’ll go to a set of eight times 40 meter strides. And when we use the term stride in a sprint practice, what I’m talking about is kind of accelerating up to my typical sprint speed. But as soon as I accelerate up to near what I might run for a proper sprint effort, I stop. So it takes about 40 meters. So I’m just kind of starting accelerating, accelerating, getting into a good stride pattern, and then taking it down. And I take the football field and break it into zero to 40. And then I’ll jog very slowly from the, from the home teams, 40 to the visiting teams, 40, and then take off again and then have a longer rest period in the end zone, walk to the other side of the field, and then sprint 40 there, sprint 40 there.

Brad (00:18:06):
So after the two laps of drills and the eight times 40 meters, then I’m ready to step on the track. I mention the pure sprint session of three times, three times 60 meters. And then if I’m working on my longer endurance to perform at something like the 400 meter run, I’ll do things like a set of four times 200 meters at 95% of my capacity, 92 to 95%. And on occasion, a longer set of, uh, efforts where I’m going at 80% of my capacity, so perhaps something like four times 204 times 100, but quite a bit slower than let’s say my race pace. And I’m, uh, I’m still learning the patterns and the protocols and how to balance the, the different types of workouts where that one might be called a tempo session where I’m working below my capacity, but doing more volume versus a proper sprint session where I’m doing nine stretches down the track of 60 meters.

Brad (00:19:13):
And this stuff is pushing it out there beyond what you know is the four to eight times 10 to 22nd sprints that I often recommend as the baseline template for anyone to get into sprinting and include that in their overall exercise protocol. And again, that’s because of my race specific goal. So I have to be careful not to overdo it there. But if you can honor that template of going out there and doing four to eight sprints of 10 to 20 seconds duration with a six to one recovery to work interval, that is a fantastic template to add into your fitness program. If you can do it running on flat ground, that’s great, or running up the stairs or running up a hill. And if you’re a novice or you have injury concerns, you’re gonna do four to eight sprints on the stationary bike, on the rowing machine, on the stairs, whatever you can manage.

Brad (00:20:03):
And you can, you can drift up to the higher duration there that I recommend between 10 and 20 seconds if you’re doing no impact, such as on a bicycle. And you can, uh, keep it down around 10 seconds if you’re doing high impact sprints on flat ground. But again, the six to one ratio rest to recovery is gonna give you a two minute rest for every 20-second sprint that you perform on the bike. And in fact, that’s one of my favorite bike sprint workouts that I’ve been doing lately is I’ll go for around 20 to 30 seconds. It takes a while to accelerate on the bike. So it’s when when the clock strikes zero and I take off, I’m gonna keep going hard until I see that 30 second come up up because the first few seconds are just getting the gearing right. And then I’ll take a six to one recovery period, which is if I’m sprinting for 30 seconds, that’s a three minute rest where I’m just pedaling easily on the bike path and getting ready to slam it for another one. So that’s a great low impact option that gives you tremendous fitness stimulation and hormone boost.

Brad (00:21:09):
Now, we will go to strength training. So we still wanna offer the most important philosophical protocol here, which is to perform a brief intense workout where you’re doing full body functional movements in an explosive manner. So the emphasis is on correct form, precise technique, keeping your core stabilized, and all those posture fundamentals that apply to virtually any strength training exercise, getting expert guidance if necessary. But if you’re a novice, the machines are the safest way to go in the gym. And we wanna function we wanna focus on, actually focus on lower body movements because as many experts have suggested, there is more androgen receptor density in your lower extremities and androgen receptors are sites on the on the muscle cells where they are receptive to the sex hormones floating around in your bloodstream and taking them in and improving your testosterone status by working your legs hard with strength training.

Brad (00:22:18):
Of course, upper body strength training is great too but you get the most bang for your buck if you can integrate these sweeping full body functional movements, especially the centerpiece lower body exercises that all gym experts recommend, which would be squats and dead lifts, and for a much safer option, the seated leg press where your torso is anchored against the bench and the the backrest, and you’re just pushing on the plate to get a simulated squat much more safely than if you were to put weight on your back and, uh, lower down with that squat bar hanging over. And the same with the deadlift. Pulling the bar off the ground, I would say is an advanced exercise even with the hexagonal deadlift bar, which is much safer than the straight barbell. But you wanna dabble carefully into those areas with expert guidance.

Brad (00:23:10):
And I’ve received expert guidance for many years on my deadlift and my squat form, and I’m still trying to perfect it, and I’m still suffer from occasional injury by tweaking my back because somehow my deadlift session was beyond my capacity for that time. So it’s a little frustrating, but I’m still dedicated to trying to hoist some heavyweight on occasion to improve my, not only my testosterone status, but overall leg strength. And this is a key factor for aging gracefully and avoiding the loss of muscle that’s called sarcopenia. That’s the age related loss of muscle mass, which is a huge component of accelerated aging. So when we lose muscle mass, we speed up our rate of aging and we put ourself at high risk for the number one cause of injury, demise, and death in Americans over age 65, which is falling and falling related consequences.

Brad (00:24:08):
So once an elderly person falls and breaks a hip and they become bedridden for eight weeks or whatever it is, they oftentimes don’t get outta bed. Peter Attia talks about this and his number one bestselling book outlive, I think it’s 38% of elderly patients who fall and break a hip are dead within a year. Shocking and scary. So we don’t want to go around falling because our legs turn into stick figures. And you see a lot of seniors where they get outta shape, they develop a huge abdomen from the accumulation of visceral fat due to adverse lifestyle practices, especially eating processed food. And then their legs are a little sticks below that because they don’t put enough load on their legs due to insufficient daily activity. And also a complete lack in often, often cases, a complete lack of strength training. So it’s never too late to start strength training.

Brad (00:25:01):
And in fact, research shows that octogenarians, people over age 80 have the fastest rate of strength gain of any age group. So my son, who’s 26 and can deadlift 405 pounds, and he wants to gain 10% of his strength, it’s going to take him a couple years to progress from 405 to 450 on the heavily weighted deadlift bar. But mom, who’s in incredible shape at age 87, and she just started in the gym with a personal trainer, and let’s say she started out on her first workout and could push 80 pounds on the leg press, she might be pushing 160 in a year’s time, doubling her strength, which is virtually impossible for someone who’s already built up high competency in a lower age group. So the seniors and any person who’s intimidated about going into the gym can realize that tremendous gains can be made.

Brad (00:25:58):
And this can be one of the most important areas for anti-aging and also maintaining healthy hormone status. We’re all familiar with menopause, and the male counterparts of that is called andropause, and that is an age- related decline and sometimes steep decline in blood testosterone levels. This can be largely mitigated by maintaining muscular strength and athletic competency and fitness. So the sprinting and the strength training centerpiece, and of course the maintaining a frequent everyday movement. So we want to get out there and walk and do a comfortably paced aerobic exercise. But there’s a lot of fitness enthusiasts that stick to that. You see them in the gym, they’re walking on the stair machine and watching television for 45 minutes, and then they go home. And the only people over there clanking the weights are the gym bros that already possibly do too much of that.

Brad (00:26:56):
So I’m encouraging everyone to venture over there and put your body under some form of resistance load. It does not have to be clunky plates at the gym, excusing yourself as you meddle in with the big gym bros. You can do this pulling tubing at home with the handles on the end. I have a product called Stretch Cords that I recommend frequently on Amazon for $50, and you can get a fantastic upper body workout, but as far as the lower body, find a venue to get in there and push some weight with the major muscle groups of your lower body. It could save your life according to prominent statistics about the disastrous consequences of falling. And again, the leg is the safest, but if you can somehow work up to being able to pull a deadlift bar off the ground or put a weighted bar on your shoulders and do some squats, and of course they have the rack to do squats much more safely than moving the bar through open space.

Brad (00:27:52):
So you can ask your trainer, sign up for a session and say you want to get started doing some squats with the bar. The bar runs up and down on a vertical track so you don’t have to guide it through space. And when you get too tired, you simply put the bar on the hooks. So deadlift, squat and leg press are the fundamentals of boosting hormone status with strength training, exercise, there’s a lot of recommendations floating around about what the best workout is. I don’t want you to get too caught up on the details and the particulars, but you wanna find a venue and exercises that you’re comfortable with. And the widely recommended number of reps is find a way that you can do around 12 reps before you achieve failure or very close to failure. So if you pick a weight where you can only do it once or twice or three times, that’s gonna be in the ill-advised category, especially for a novice, because that’s a pretty super heavy weight.

Brad (00:28:49):
And if you pick a weight where you can only do 20 times, like some of my mom’s early sessions with the personal trainer, and I’m like, this lady’s tough, give her more because she does 25 and then stops and says, what’s next? And it doesn’t look that tired <laugh>. So we wanna get to somewhere around 12 reps where that 10th, that 11th, and that 12th is really difficult and you’re feeling a little bit of lactic acid burn and strain in your muscles, but I want you to always stop your strength training reps when you reach what my trainer buddy Jeff Page calls “technical failure” as opposed to actual or total failure. So technical failure is when you notice a slight degradation in your form. That is when you’re done, even though you could do three more if someone came in and put a gun to your head, but you might be twisting in your bench and taking your lower back off of the padding and arching your back or doing something to recruit possibly inappropriately recruit different muscle groups or different joint leverage to move the weight for a few more reps.

Brad (00:29:58):
That’s not what we wanna accomplish in the weight room. So we wanna do really precise, excellent technique. Take it up to the point of technical failure where your muscles are about to fail. That is the most safe recommendation. And these lower body compound movements that work, the major muscle groups of the body allow testosterone to enter the cell and exert its anabolic effects. So lower body prioritize, and of course, upper body also has a wonderful spot in your overall strength training regimen. And now I’m talking about the heavy weights and the dead lift and the squat. But if that’s not your thing and you’re feeling a little intimidated, realize that you can get similar strength benefits from jumping up and down one of the greatest workouts known to mankind. So if you’re unsure about your competency and the weights, again, jumping’s not the safest activity if you have joint concerns or you’re novice, but simply doing a set of 10 jumps up and down on a nice safe landing, safe footing can give you some excellent strength and conditioning effects.

Brad (00:31:03):
Same with jumping up onto the elevated perch, the box jumps and all kinds of things that’ll work. Those legs sprinting up stadium stairs, anything that, uh, gets the burn going and challenges the major muscle groups of the lower body.

Brad (00:31:19):
Now we’re going to go into some dietary tips. So you got the big ones for fitness are sprinting and strength training. And notice I didn’t even mention cardio or high intensity interval training as a recommendation. I talked about it as a risk. And the same goes for cardio, extensive cardio. Excessive cardio will cause hormone suppression due to the chronic overproduction of stress hormones that goes hand in hand with, for example, a typical endurance athlete training protocol, whether it’s a marathoner, ultra marathoner, triathlete. And even when I was in my peak hormonal years of ages 20 to 30, which coincided with my career as a professional triathlete, I tested my blood levels of testosterone many times and they were in the clinically low category even as I was competing as a high level professional athlete, I was typically testosterone, reading testosterone around 200 to 300.

Brad (00:32:20):
That’s a total testosterone reading back in my twenties. And today in my fifties, I’ve tested it many times over the last five years. I’ve done entire show talking about this, I think, and reading off my numbers, but I’m typically averaging around 750 for blood levels of serum testosterone rather than 250 back when I was a young guy. And that was, uh, directly attributable to my overly exhaustive training patterns, the hours and hours I spent training as a triathlete and also all that jet travel and more overproduction of stress hormones as I traveled around the globe competing in these races. So I’m watching that hormone status very carefully, more carefully than I’m monitoring any other blood levels. So sure, I’ll get a complete panel once a year. I have one coming up with family practice physician, and we’re gonna look at all my lipids and all those other things which are almost always normal and superior, no concerns.

Brad (00:33:20):
But I’m watching that testosterone, that free testosterone and that sex hormone binding globulin because that goes hand in hand with my overall level of energy vitality, uh, anti-aging longevity status, and of course also peak performance status. And I have noticed a significant range in my blood testosterone values. Again, I’m talking about total testosterone here with all these numbers, but the range in tests in about 25 tests over the last five years have been from a low of 550 to a high of 1004. So almost double. And I attribute that range to a normal routine fluctuations in blood values. But also when I was getting those low readings, it was most likely associated with overly stressful training patterns. I was in a recovery period, and of course when I was off the charts with a thousand, which is 99th percentile for even people in their peak hormone years, even males in their twenties, that was probably when everything was really dialed in and I was recovered well, and I was also performing and doing great sprint workouts and strength training sessions.

Brad (00:34:27):
Okay, there are your marching orders for fitness, for exercise, and now we go into diet and our very first and foremost objective is to consume sufficient protein in the diet from high quality animal-based sources. The collective momentum promoting protein as the dietary centerpiece is growing and growing in recent years to the extent that some of the previous warnings that you might’ve heard in recent years, in past years have been discounted strongly with evidence showing that it’s really difficult to over consume protein and put your kidneys or your liver at risk because you’re slamming too many eggs or steaks or fish or protein powder. Your body does a good job metabolizing protein, using it and excreting any excess. So does your appetite, because once you consume sufficient protein, protein is very highly satiating in the diet. It’s the most satiating macronutrient, even higher on the scoreboard than fat.

Brad (00:35:32):
And you can probably reference this anecdotally, that once you eat once, once you eat two steaks, you don’t really feel like a third. Once you eat four eggs, that’s probably enough. You’re not feeling like 5, 6, 7, and eight, unlike the indulgent foods that are made to please our palate and cause us to overconsume things like ice cream, potato chips where they’re pairing processed carbohydrates with processed fats together and triggering the appetite center in the brain to where we can’t eat just one Pringle, we have to eat the whole jar. And same with the Ben and Jerry’s pint and all that processed food that is not highly satiating and causes us to overconsume. So protein, it’s difficult, if not impossible to get in trouble by quote, consuming too much protein end quote. And so that must be the dietary centerpiece because it’s much more common and much more risky to under consume protein and even habitually under consume protein, which is a huge problem for developing and maintaining muscle mass and promoting longevity.

Brad (00:36:35):
And when I talk about sarcopenia, the age-related decline in muscle mass, that is the essence and the number one risk factor for accelerated aging. We’re talking about a population that A does not exercise sufficiently, especially with high intensity strength training and sprinting. And B also at the same time does not consume sufficient protein protein. And there’s wide swaths of the population that have been brainwashed and socialized to avoid high protein foods in the name of health. And I’m talking to you all vegans and vegetarians, where by definition your diet is going to be devoid of the most plentiful and bioavailable sources of protein, which are the animal sourced proteins. Can you succeed and thrive on a vegan or vegetarian diet? Of course, you have to be very careful, very astute, and be diligent in your efforts to consume sufficient protein. And if you insist on consuming only plant-based sources of protein, realize that they are much more difficult to digest and assimilate than the animal based sources, which are in their quote unquote complete form.

Brad (00:37:48):
That means they contain all nine of the essential amino acids that we must obtain from diet. So if you’re going for a hemp and pea, strawberry protein powder every morning in your shake, you can reference commentary from Dr. Paul Saladino leading advocate for animal-based carnivore style eating, where he says that plant proteins are 21 times more difficult to digest and assimilate than animal-based proteins. So now the collective recommendation from, uh, some of the favored people in the space like Dr. Saladino, Dr. Sean Baker, Tommy Wood, Robb Wolf Lane Norton, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, they’re touting a consumption rate of around one gram per pound of body weight. And that’s also super easy to remember, isn’t it? Rather than those calculations, which even Mark Sisson and I published in the Keto Reset Diet, where we took the consensus around that time 2017 was 0.7 grams per pound of lean body mass.

Brad (00:38:48):
So not only do you have to use the 0.7, but you have to subtract your estimated body fat from your total weight. So that’s quite a bit lower protein consumption than one gram per pound. For example, let’s say I weigh 165 pounds and I’m around nine or 10% body fat. So that’s around 150 pounds of lean body mass times 0.7, that’s five, subtraction. So that’s 105 grams of protein as my target in years past from expert recommendations, 105 grams. And what are we going for today? One gram per pound. So I’m, I’m going from 105 grams to 165 grams. That’s a huge difference. I called out the vegan vegetarians as having a very difficult time getting up to your body weight in protein, even for a very female of 110 or 120 pounds. It’s very hard to get that much protein from lentils, brown rice and other such vegetarian and vegan fodder.

Brad (00:39:52):
So we’re talking about operating at a deficit. And the other high risk category is people who, excuse me, I’m blanking. It’s the other high risk category. We’ve got the vegans, vegetarians, oh, people who engage in intermittent fasting, time restricted feeding. So it’s super popular to eat in a compressed time window for the purported benefits of autophagy and giving your digestive system a break and not over consuming calories. These are all important benefits of fasting and time restricted feeding, however they put you at risk of under consuming protein. Dr. Don Lehman, who’s been on the major shows, one of the world’s leading protein experts, he was the mentor for students like Lane Norton and Dr. Gabrielle Lyon. He recommends consuming protein first thing in the morning because you’re in sort of a catabolic state after an overnight fast, even though you’re sleeping and consuming protein toward the end of the day to set yourself up in the evening in the sleep period for anabolic processes.

Brad (00:40:53):
So that kind of goes against people that recommend fasting in the morning hours. And also we’re also told not to eat calories after dark or not eat late at night. So toward the end of the night, you can get that final shot of protein, and that’s where I like using the powder, especially the B.rad Super Fuel because it’s so pure and has a nice pleasant natural taste. It’s not overpowering bubble gum, cotton candy sweet. So I’ll just stir one scoop into a glass of water and drink that in the evening to make sure that I’m dialed in with my daily protein goal of one gram per pound of body weight. And actually the clarification, the refinement there, it’s one gram per pound of your ideal body weight. So if you’re dealing with a lot of excess body fat and you weigh 200 pounds and you’d like to get down to 180, you want to go for 180 grams per day of protein.

Brad (00:41:47):
Oh, the third high risk category besides vegan, vegetarian, besides people who engage in time restricted feeding are seniors. Because as we age, our protein synthesis diminishes our ability to digest and assimilate and use protein as the building blocks for muscle and all other organ and bodily functions starts to weaken. So we actually have an elevated need for protein as we age. And going for that one gram per pound is absolutely essential to ward off sarcopenia while you are honoring the fitness recommendations that I just stated earlier. So that’s a big one. And horrifyingly and shockingly, so there are quite a population of people who raise their hand and have all three of those risk factors baking right now. That is the elderly or the, you know, advanced age group, vegan, vegetarian, who also likes to fast. So if I can convince you to unwind a little bit of that in the name of hormone optimization and the name of anti-aging, that’d be great.

Brad (00:42:52):
Now, when it comes to talking about the other macronutrients, fat and carbohydrates, and we’ve argued about this so long, and try to decide and and see who’s shouting louder about what’s the best diet, should it be a low carb diet, should it be a low fat diet? The main point I wanna make to you is that the first and foremost objective, and this is indisputed, so I’m gonna feel very strong starting out saying, look, if you can just eliminate the nutrient deficient processed foods from the diet that interfere with metabolic function and also diminish your hormone status, that is gonna be a huge victory. And then you’re going to eat to your heart’s content the natural nutritious foods of the earth being, natural nutritious fats as well as natural nutritious carbohydrates. So as I’ve dedicated a lot of content to and done entire shows on, uh, the evolution of my dietary habits, uh, I’m enjoying an increased level of carbs in recent years where I go for things like raw honey, dried fruit around workouts, which is amazing ’cause those are the kind of things I stayed away from during the peak years of primal paleo and ketogenic eating and working on those books.

Brad (00:43:58):
Fresh fruit, of course, sweet potatoes, sourdough bread from the Farmer’s Market. And you know, my new rule about that, which is the bread has to go stale in like four days. And that is my guideline for choosing and allowing bread into my diet. The super ultimate fresh bread, and nothing ever from the store in a wrapper that has a lot of those preservatives and chemicals in there to give it even a, a decent chance at a shelf life. So I find my favorite booth at the Farmer’s Market and grab that sourdough loaf, slice it up, and if the Farmer’s Market’s on Saturday morning, literally by Wednesday, I go to the Ziploc bag and the bread is already getting stale and it’s past its peak, that is bread that you want to eat. And who does that really well? The countries of Europe where they have a tradition of going to the bakery every morning, grabbing the baguette in France or wherever they are, and consuming it fresh.

Brad (00:44:55):
So that’s a huge difference from having on your shopping list a loaf of the mass produced bread that’s just gonna be cutting corners and inviting much more difficulty with digestion due to the, uh, widespread condition of glu uh, gluten sensitivity and gluten intolerance. I’ll even have other types of carbohydrate in the course of eating some of my favorite cuisine like Mexican taqueria. So I’ll have those corn tortillas, I’ll get their corn on the cob. We go to a nice Italian restaurant. I’ll order some risotto with spare ribs on top. Yeah, so the carbs are not evil and they’re not gonna give you a maximum amount of nutrition when I’m talking about those other ones outside of the true nutrient superstars in the carb family, which are the fruit, the honey, and the, the starchy tubers like sweet potatoes. So the bread and the rice and the corn tortillas and the risotto, those are for enjoyment of my meals.

Brad (00:45:49):
And of course, I’m getting energy that I’m, uh, burning off through my, uh, intensive training regimen. So some people advocate for earning the indulgence of carbs that are not high nutrient density, and that’s fine too. But again, I’m not talking about anything processed in a box or a bag or a wrapper or frozen ’cause that’s where we really run into trouble. And I think my frequent podcast guest, Jay Feldman, did a good job detailing just why the processed foods are the ones that really hamper your hormones, your metabolism, your fat burning, because these chemicals prompt you to release an internally manufactured toxin, toxin in the digestive tract called lipopolysaccharide, interferes with your ability to burn energy internally. Then you become kind of reliant or dependent upon doses of processed food just to give you quick energy spike and a corresponding crash. And you’re on the rollercoaster of the standard American diet.

Brad (00:46:48):
And all the while you’re accumulating higher levels of visceral fat, that’s the, that’s the firm fat that collects around your abdomen. And speaking of that, that will trash your hormone status to the extent of a few other things. So if you start to accumulate a little bit of a spare tire as you age, this is a slippery slope that begets the accumulation of a bigger and bigger spare tire and an accelerated demise and decline of your adaptive hormones. For females, that’s estrogen, for males, that’s testosterone. So once you pack on a little bit of spare tire, this is such a health destructive type of fat that it is actually and technically classified as a separate organ because it has the ability to release agents into the bloodstream just like your thyroid releases chemicals and your adrenals and your kidneys release hormones and substances into the bloodstream.

Brad (00:47:49):
Visceral fat secretes these, what they’re called inflammatory cytokine proteins. And they are responsible for assorted types of health destruction, including diminishing your testosterone level by prompting the process of aromatization. That is the conversion of testosterone into estrogen. So you aromatize testosterone into estrogen when you have a spare tire, and when you get outta balance with diminished male hormone and too much estrogen, that is what causes you to accumulate a further spare tire and then feel less, less energetic, less motivated at getting your butt in gear and getting your butt in shape. So the spare tire is a sign of a serious health disturbance, and you really need look no further. So you want to go run your blood test, you want to get your doctor physical, whatever you wanna do, a performance test like timing yourself on the one mile run. All these things are gonna provide further information.

Brad (00:48:52):
But if you have a spare tire going, that is the number one most important battle that you want to focus on as you age. And just to clarify, the visceral fat is distinct and separate and distinct from subcutaneous fat that gathers in the favored areas around your body based on your genetics. So some people hate their thick, ugly calves, and some people get a lot of subcutaneous fat accumulating around the rear end and the thighs and other people even on the belly. But it’s soft and squishy and you can pinch it and it’s on the surface of your skin whereby the true spare tire, the true beer belly, is firm where you can like flick your finger onto the abdomen and it feels like a beach ball or a basketball. So the subcutaneous fat is not pleasant. It’s certainly not indicative of being in top fitness, however, it’s not as acutely health destructive as the visceral fat.

Brad (00:49:51):
So the good news is visceral fat is metabolically active, as I described it, secretes substances and so forth. But because it’s so metabolically active, it’s also the easiest to burn off if you get your act together, clean up your diet from these nutrient deficient processed foods that are the strong driver of accumulation of visceral fat alcohol counts in there too, because alcohol calories are completely devoid of nutrition. And so they can contribute to that Beer Belly. They don’t call it a Beer Belly for nothing. So when you get those substances out of your life and you naturally build your energy, you start walking more, and then you start dabbling in these brief high intensity explosive exercises, that’s when you can really improve your hormone status and your waistline in a short time. And those things will go hand in hand together. So the high protein diet is an excellent gateway here because you’re going to get highly satiated when you sit down and have a protein smoothie in the morning and eat four eggs and have a nice big steak in the evening and fill in whatever you want.

Brad (00:50:56):
If you like salmon, you know, the favored sources of protein in your diet. Again, animal-based is vastly superior to plant-based protein sources. But if you prioritize protein, you’ll be less likely to reach for those nutrient deficient processed foods that cause all these hormonal and visceral fat problems.

Brad (00:51:17):
Okay, that is a quick presentation of the dietary priorities, and now I’ll do a quick section on recommended supplements. And the first two on the list, as fate would have it, are whey protein and creatine, which is the ingredients in my B.rad Whey Protein plus Creatine Super Fuel. And the reason we brought this product to market and sourced the very best, cleanest, freshest, most natural source of protein on the planet and then added creatine is because these are widely regarded and heavily researched as the two most important and beneficial supplements to the diet.

Brad (00:51:59):
I talked at length about why prioritizing protein and getting your daily protein needs met is so important. And a lot of times it’s difficult to get all the protein you need from meals because they require preparation, especially when you’re thinking about the best sources of protein such as eggs and meat and so forth. You can’t really grab a quick steak on the go and rush out the door like you can with a Pop-Tart, right? So the protein supplements are key here because they’re convenient. And when it comes to whey protein that is widely regarded as the single most potent and most bioavailable protein supplement in the world, there’s not a lot of dispute here. The plant-based community might not like anything that’s sourced from an animal for whatever reason that they’re arguing for, but you can’t dispute the DIAS scores. That’s a, that stands for digestible, indispensable amino acid score.

Brad (00:52:52):
So they can measure the quality of the protein you’re consuming with this DAIS score and how it’s providing various levels of the important amino acids. And when it comes to creatine, this is the single most studied performance nutritional supplement of all time. There are literally thousands of studies validating its effectiveness to help provide the muscle cell with energy and even help improve hydration in the muscle cell. And emerging research is showing tremendous benefits with creatine for protecting brain neurons from age-related decline. So creatine helps fuel your cells with energy. And what are the most sensitive and energy ravenous cells in the body? That’s right, it’s the brain cells. So supplementing with around five grams of creatine a day, it’s really, three to eight grams recommended, according to your body weight. So let’s take a hundred pound person at the lower end recommendation, perhaps three grams a day, 200 pound person recommendation, perhaps eight grams a day.

Brad (00:54:00):
It’s very, very difficult to obtain sufficient creatine from diet alone. I believe the quote is getting that five gram in supplemental form, which is a tiny little scoop, five grams would be like eating two pounds of meat. So when you boost creatine and take that five gram additional serving every day for the rest of your life, you will enjoy comprehensive cellular energy recovery, muscular benefits, and also protection from age related decline in the brain neurons. As you probably know, creatine has been a favorite supplement for the bodybuilding and the muscle growing world for many decades. And people have sort of a, have developed a misconception about it that it’s for big guys who want to get even bigger muscles. And it does work for bodybuilders to get bigger muscles, but when you supplement sensibly rather than load like a bodybuilder does with 20 or 30 grams per day, so six times the recommended or the baseline dosage that will help most people, that’s when you just get better brain function, better hydration, better muscle performance, better muscle recovery.

Brad (00:55:09):
As you might’ve heard me talk about on recent shows, I have a shelf full supplements. I’ve been taking all kinds of different stuff for years and I’m kind of getting tired of the regimen, the routine, forgetting to take stuff. I’m looking with my eyes. If you’re watching on YouTube at my huge shelf here, some of the stuff runs out and goes past its expiration date. And I’ve had a few occasions where, you know, I took my 25 pills or whatever I’m taking at present time with not enough food in my stomach and had these occasions of nausea that lasted for a few hours actually. And these have caused me to reflect like, what am I doing here? And my wife’s looking at me who takes just a few key supplements, like a probiotic every night, you know, very minimal, vitamin D probiotic, but that’s her regimen for a long time.

Brad (00:55:57):
And she’s looking at me like, <laugh>, what’s wrong? You’re feeling nauseous again. So Mr. Health Guy here, I’m going, what am I doing to myself when I’m laying on the ground moaning and trying to get out of this nausea by inhaling bananas or doing whatever to, to correct the problem? So I’ve been kind of on a kick to minimize and streamline my commitment to supplementing, believing that my high attention to natural nutrient-dense diet and my aversion to processed nutrient deficient foods is going to carry me a long way. And I don’t have a desperate need to throw all this stuff down my throat, but I do really favor the animal organ supplements. As you know, I’ve promoted for a long time. And the reason is this is really food in a capsule. So it’s in a different category than a laboratory derived agent that’s put in a bottle and touted with the latest commercial or the research showing that resveratrol is a miracle antioxidant.

Brad (00:56:57):
And some of this stuff has now been refuted. But when you’re talking about animal organs, the most nutritious part of the animal, something that many of us don’t consume sufficiently because it’s not available in the marketplace, or we have an aversion to the taste, that’s a great way to boost the nutrient density of your diet. And over, over the years, I’ve taken a bunch of other stuff. Magnesium is often touted as a really important supplement to take because we don’t get enough of it in our diet due to nutrient deficient soil. I have made an effort in recent years to consume mineral water out of the glass bottle. You know, the fancy stuff, you can get it at the big box stores for a reasonable price. So I get like Pellegrino glass bottles. I feel a little guilty about recycling all that glass. But true bottled mineral water is one of the last resources in the modern diet to get some of these important micronutrients like magnesium, zinc, and things that are deficient in our soil.

Brad (00:57:56):
So that’s my justification for taking a supplemental magnesium or drinking it in my, my bubbly water. You’ve probably heard a lot of talk in recent years about these exotic herbals that are touted as boosting testosterone. And I’ve done a lot of research in this area and tried some of this stuff. Some of the names are Tongkat Ali, Tribulus, Horny Goat Weed, Panax Ginseng, Ashwagandha, Black Pepper, Maca Root, Long Jack Fenugreek, and Pine Bark. These are herbal preparations that have long been believed to enhance strength, energy, build muscle and increase libido. And so they have a popular following. If you search for these on Amazon or a T boosting product, you’ll see a lot of options to consume these exotic plants. And we’re talking, uh, in some cases going back like with ginseng, thousands of years to ancient Eastern medicine.

Brad (00:58:57):
And there is some respected research that shows that these agents can have a positive impact on libido, but less, less research suggesting that they can actually significantly boost your blood levels of testosterone. Now, testosterone and libido are typically going hand-in-hand, but not necessarily. So we also must remember that the placebo effect is really strong and it’s validated by tremendous research. So if you’re buying a bottle of your energy boost, hormone boost and you think it works, keep doing what you’re doing. But some of this stuff is going in my garbage can from hitting the expiration date ’cause I’m just too lazy or can’t be bothered to continue to take it.

Brad (00:59:45):
Now, we will be remiss unless we hit some of the, the outside of the core stuff when it comes to hormone optimization. And my great shows with my main man, John Gray, get into this extensively and his book does a great job in beyond Mars and Venus talking about the hormonal underpinnings that influence relationship dynamics in the modern world and in the traditional male, female romantic relationship.

Brad (01:00:13):
John Gray talks a lot about how dysfunctional relationship dynamics can tank your testosterone like nothing else, or at least right up there with eating junk food and not exercising. So that’s pretty sobering to think you’re doing all this stuff for your health and your fitness and you’re going to the gym and you’re walking around with your glistening six pack, but you’re being a jerk to your girlfriend and she’s being mean back to you. And you guys are feeling disconnected and at your wit’s end that can tank your male hormones. And on the flip side, a successful, loving, exciting, sparkly romantic relationship can boost your hormone levels like virtually nothing else. So John Gray gives us precise recommendations to have sex at a certain frequency, no more and no less. His quote was every seven days and there’s some, uh, dispute and discussion about that.

Brad (01:01:08):
But if you are not immersed in a wonderful romantic relationship, you can, you know, aspire to do, do your best here and, and be the best you can be by connecting with, you know, someone you’re attracted to and you can build a life with and all that great stuff that are known to build and sustain good levels of not only testosterone, but also the other hormones that contribute to a happy, fulfilled and satisfying life. You’ve heard of serotonin. Oxytocin is known as the bonding hormone or the love hormone. And that is also released when you’re immersed into a successful romantic relationship. And in contrast, when you’re in a dysfunctional relationship dynamic, what happens is you chronically overproduce stress hormones and the preeminent one cortisol that we hear about a lot, cortisol antagonizes, directly antagonizes testosterone. So if you’re under stress at work or with your partner and you’re arguing too much and you’re feeling disconnected and you’re not getting enough sleep or you’re over exercising or some combination of all of those, but especially when it comes to dysfunctional relationship dynamics and arguing and taking things into the the gutter, you will tank your testosterone tremendously.

Brad (01:02:22):
So we need to focus on healthy relationship dynamics. John Gray talks about, you know, the essential male assignments to be a good partner, and I will repeat, I did entire show on this, but the male number one assignment is to remain calm, cool, and collected at all times like a kung fu master. That means maintain control over your emotions and never speak to your partner when you are experiencing a negative emotional charge. If you begin to argue and, and prolong the discussion of an unpleasant situation or circumstance, you will tank your male hormones and spike your stress hormones and it’s very difficult to extricate from that. But if you do need to extricate from relationship tension, you are to go off and do testosterone boosting activities. John Gray calls it going into your figurative cave. That’s the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus initial premise that women need to nurture and connect and socialize and talk at length about their day.

Brad (01:03:25):
And men thrive on solving problems and taking on challenges and dominating in their environment. So they thrive on competitive sports. Even watching competitive sports counts for a testosterone boosting activity. Tinkering with the motorcycle in the garage or doing a home improvement project. Those are things that men need to do to nurture their testosterone and return to the relationship refreshed, and of course, sex is a huge driver of hormone optimization. So when you come back refreshed and energized and feeling like all the man that you can, then you will feel more at attractive and attracted to your partner, and that’s when things can really thrive.

Brad (01:04:08):
I’ve also talked a lot about on the show, about my fondness for certain of the most proven biohacking type strategies. And one of ’em is red light therapy. There’s a ton of science that the proper exposure for the proper duration can help with testosterone production. And that’s why as you hear on my commercial message when I’m talking about my MITO red light panel every morning I expose my eyeballs and other important balls to direct red light to help boost that mitochondrial function, which especially in the testicles, which are the signaling for making testosterone, you want the mitochondrial function to be optimal there. So that’s part of my regimen. I said everything was gonna be a free or low cost, but you know, investing in things like a red light panel to me, since health is my absolute priority, I do not think twice on getting into the most scientifically proven in validated. So you can go check out MITO red light.com and I just purchased this fabulous desk lamp. So it’s a miniature version with the same scientifically validated red light benefits at the proper wavelength on the UV spectrum.

Brad (01:05:19):
And it’s a little portable desk lamp battery powered. So I can take it when I’m traveling and I use that at my bedside so that at nighttime we can walk into the bedroom and have this beautiful, mellow, calming red light experience rather than blasting the disturbing brighter lights that you might do when you switch on a switch. Oh my gosh, I’m giving it out to everyone for Christmas. I’d love to give one to you, maybe I’ll give one away for free if you really, really help our podcasts rise in the rankings and reach more people. So <laugh> send a screenshot of your review and I’ll put you in a drawing. I’m gonna give away one of these fabulous, uh, mito red light desk lamps.

Brad (01:06:09):
I think it’s one of the great inventions of the 21st century. Really. It’s so cool and it’s super affordable. It’s only like, um, 50 or 60 bucks. They’re selling on Amazon. They’re selling at mitoredlight.com. Red light is, is definitely proven. It’s not iffy, iffy. Same with cold thermogenesis. Those brief exposures to cold water, I talk about the protocol in detail on my online course. So if you go to brad kearns.com, you can sign up for the course called Taking the Cold Plunge, and I’ll help you get started. The simple way with cold showers and then progressing to using a source like a cold tub or going into cold open water for those brief exposures can also give you a testosterone boost.

Brad (01:06:50):
And now we’re gonna finish off quickly with things to avoid that tank your testosterone. So I I already talked about relationship dysfunction. We’ve done more content about exposure to environmental estrogens or endocrine disruptors in the environment. And these can come in the form of plastics, especially on things that you eat or drink. So no more drinking outta plastic bottles. That’s why I mentioned glass bottles. Stay away from plastics that you have the potential to ingest. And then the chemicals that you put on your skin are also super important. So when we’re talking about detergents, deodorant, cosmetics, things you put on your face, on your body in the shower, we wanna get absolutely natural as possible and away from any of those hard to pronounce ingredients that you see written on the side of your shampoo bottle. I use Castile soap for just about everything, including shampoo, including soap, and you can use it as a cleaner around the house and just being mindful of all the chemicals that we’re getting bombarded with when it comes to laundry detergent.

Brad (01:07:53):
Hey, Dr. Saladino washes everything in just vinegar. We’re pretty close to that ’cause we use it for like spot removal and for fabric softener, but you can also get those really eco-friendly detergents that have no chemicals and they have designations on their label saying, we’re free from this, that, and the other thing. So look for brands that are making an effort. I also love Mrs. Meyers Clean Day line of home cleaning products because they’re all natural naturally derived. It’s not that big of a deal to switch from, you know, the major corporate name brand crap that have been using chemicals for decades and causing health disturbances, especially in sensitive people. We also wanna make an effort to avoid excess exposure to electromagnetic fields. So don’t plug in your phone by your head all night, you know, try to take a break from WIFI, be mindful of that stuff.

Brad (01:08:44):
I know it’s a pain and it’s another thing on the to-do list. But since we don’t know the long-term effects of this new digitized electrified life that we’re living in, I’m a little scared enough to pay attention. I talked about the fitness objectives and the thing that we want to avoid in fitness is chronic cardio. So this will tank your testosterone if you’re in an overly stressful exercise program featuring prolonged medium to difficult intensity workouts with insufficient recovery between those workouts. Those are going to be chronic overproduction of cortisol and the other stress hormones which are directly antagonizing testosterone. So male hormone status is about sprinting, lifting weights, moving frequently at a slow pace and avoiding chronic cardio. Interesting, another entry here is prolonged periods of stillness, which as you heard a little bit from my interviews with Dr. Herman Pontzer, author Burn. A sedentary lifestyle, promotes chronic inflammation.

Brad (01:09:45):
The human body, the homo sapiens, is not meant to sit for long periods of time. Our genetic expectation for health is to be a near constant everyday movement. We can cite wonderful research from modern day hunter gatherers like the Hadza in Tanzania. They’re up and about virtually nonstop all day long. Even when they’re resting, they’re resting in a squat position so their muscles are under load as opposed to our life, which are dominated by sitting in chairs, sofas, and in transportation vehicles. And that causes in systemic inflammation and undesirable system-wide chronic inflammation in the body, which also runs counter to hormone optimization. So getting up and moving frequently throughout the day, even for brief periods. If you’re super busy and jammed and slammed at the office, you can get up a minute for every 20 minutes and move around and thereby get a boost in your hormone status and your brain function and the oxygen and circulation throughout the body so that you maintain alertness and stay in that peak performance state when you’re doing demanding cognitive tasks.

Brad (01:10:57):
Okay, I think that is a great summary. We got the things to avoid here at the very end. And then to recap, we had that sprinting even as short as six seconds with long rest periods. We have strength training emphasizing functional multi-joint, lower body movements like the squat, the deadlift, and the leg press. You don’t have to do it too often, but you wanna make sure your technique is precise. Stop at technical failure, go for 12 reps to failure. And then when we came to diet, we wanna emphasize protein as our number one priority, striving to get around a gram per pound of body weight each day. And when it comes to fat and carbs, we’re gonna choose natural nutritious foods that you enjoy eating, and your natural appetite will guide you in your satiety factor when you eliminate nutrient deficient processed food that interfere with digestion and fat burning.

Brad (01:11:48):
And the scoreboard here is that visceral fat accumulation of firm fat around the organs and the abdomen. We wanna do everything we can to fight that battle, get that stuff off your body immediately by cleaning up your act and doing proper exercise. I talked about contributors to visceral fat. One of ’em is chronic cardio. So that chronic overproduction of stress hormones drives visceral fat accumulation, which secrete inflammatory and cytokines into the bloodstream and tank your hormone status. Then we went to supplements with the main emphasis on the two most validated and beneficial supplements of all time, arguably, but pretty strong evidence that it’s whey protein and creatine. Then I talked about the great information from John Gray that you wanna nurture a loving relationship to optimize hormones and honor those essential male assignments for relationship harmony. You can dabble in things like red light therapy and cold thermogenesis and get those boosts.

Brad (01:12:46):
Just make sure you’re, you’re picking up on you, you’re dialing in the, the fundamentals of healthy living. And of course we can go into the deeper into the biohacking and the anti-aging medicine and consider hormone replacement and all those things. But my personal opinion is that you’ve gotta get the lifestyle factors dialed or as I talked about in that discussion of aromatization, if you have visceral fat, if you go on hormone replacement therapy and you inject outside sources of testosterone into your unfit, unhealthy, inflamed body, you will aromatize that extra testosterone into more estrogen. So there is no free lunch when it comes to hormone replacement. Two of my close associates and buddies that are huge fans of hormone replacement, Mark Sisson and Mark Bell, they both talked extensively about their own hormone replacement regimens that have been going on for many years. They’re huge fans.

Brad (01:13:44):
They think it’s awesome to peg their testosterone at a high level. But guess what? Both of those guys stepped into their first doctor’s office appointment jacked and tan and Mark Bell’s words with a six pack with a long history of hard athletic training and healthy living. So they’re going for a little boost and some optimization. Good for them. I’m going the natural route for as long as I possibly can until I’m desperate and exhausting every possible lifestyle resource. And that is my pitch here with this show to get all this stuff dialed in. I hope you get some value out of it and I’d love to hear how things work for you already thought you have. So, email podcast@bradventures.com and oh my gosh, if you could go leave a review, take a quick screenshot, send it in. I’m gonna send somebody a fantastic MITO red light desk lamp. Go buy one yourself right now. If you win the other one, you can give it to your partner and put it on the other side of the room like I just did for Mia Moore on her birthday. How about that? Happy birthday from Brad. Here’s one of Brad’s favorite things on the other side of the room. Oh my gosh. And that is the end of our show.

Brad (01:14:50):
Thank you so much for listening to the B.rad Podcast. We appreciate all feedback and suggestions. Email podcast@bradventures.com and visit brad kearns.com to download five free eBooks and learn some great long cuts to a longer life. How to optimize testosterone naturally become a dark chocolate connoisseur and transition to a barefoot and minimalist shoe lifestyle.