With the launch of Ancestral Supplements Male Optimization Formula with Organs (MOFO), I present to all MOFO’s out there a comprehensive lifestyle plan to fight the battle against epidemic testosterone deficiency in hectic modern life. Did you know that the average American male testosterone level has declined at a rate of one percent per year since the 1980s! That’s crazy, and it’s time to fight back.
MOFO is a unique supplement made with nutrient-rich animal organs from 100 percent grass-fed cattle from New Zealand. It’s designed to naturally boost your testosterone production, increase daily energy levels, and help replenish your body at the cellular level. However, for a testosterone boosting supplement to have a maximum beneficial impact, you must implement a comprehensive lifestyle plan to avoid the major stressors of modern life and give your body the food, exercise stimulus, rest and recovery, and emotional stability it needs to thrive. This recording could change your life, as it details 10 lifestyle tips that form the foundation for the MOFO movement.
I am so pleased to embark upon this joint venture with the amazing tribe at Ancestral Supplements. These folks walk their talk like no other company you will ever find. Get a dose of the “Liver King”, Ancestral Supplements founder Brian Johnson, at one of the single most informative and inspirational web pages ever published to the Internet (not to mention best six-pack ever on the Internet), at the Ancestral Supplements “About Us” Page.
Here are the 10 lifestyle objections from your MOFO mission, as reprinted from the MOFO website. I’ll provide further details and inspiration for each item of the assignment. It will take some focus and discipline to correct some of the flawed patterns and bad habits you have fallen into, but everything on this list will feel natural and easy to maintain because it will give you more energy and peace of mind.
- Sleep is #1: Health, vitality and peak performance all flow downstream from getting outstanding sleep. Minimize artificial light and digital stimulation after dark, perhaps the worst genetic disconnect in modern life.
- Clean Up Your Act: Ditch toxic foods, toxic relationships, toxic substances, and toxic energy in your life. Summon the courage to face life’s challenges and take action, instead of drift into familiar–but dysfunctional–routines and ruts.
- Eat Ancestral Foods: Eat sustainably raised animals in a “nose-to-tail” strategy, complemented by nutritious whole foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Establish a zero tolerance policy for refined grains, sugars, sweetened beverages, industrial seed oils, heavily processed crap, and inferior quality feedlot animals. Emphasize superfoods like grass-fed liver and other organ meats, pastured eggs, oily cold water fish, and fresh local berries.
- Pound The MOFO!: Take six capsules per day for at least three months to fully replenish and rejuvenate your energy and help optimize male hormone function. This is honoring our ancestors by putting back in, what the modern world has left out. Guaranteed extra bounce in your step or your money back!
- Move Frequently: JFW—Just F—ing Walk—is the key to healthy fat metabolism and stable daily mood, appetite and energy levels. Take frequent walking/stretching/exercise breaks during the workday. Sprinkle formal movement practices (yoga, Pilates), calisthenics, and flexibility/mobility drills into daily life. Humans are meant to move!
- Hit It Hard!: Challenge your body with brief, intense strength training sessions and all-out sprints. Explosive efforts will prompt a spike of testosterone and human growth hormone in the bloodstream with tremendous adaptive, anti-aging benefits. A couple formal sessions a week lasting 10-30 minutes is plenty. Also include “micro-workouts” where you haul off a single set of deep squats in your office, or a set of pullups when you walk through the bathroom door. These really add up over time.
- Take Control: Overcome nonstop digital stimulation and distraction by focusing, prioritizing, and powering down with unwavering discipline. Implement proactive daily rituals, such as morning exercise before you reach for a bloody screen and kick into shallow, reactive brain function. Daily exposure to cold makes you more resilient to all other forms of life stress.
- Avoid Estrogens: Eliminate all plastics touching your food or drink; use stainless steel or glass containers instead. Ditch soy, flax, and corn-based foods; they have 100x more phytoestrogens than other plants! Use all-natural skin and personal care products, such as castile soap, zinc sunscreens, and eco-friendly home cleaners and laundry detergents.
- Rest Like A MOFO: Slow down and reclaim the lost art of down time. Try a midday outdoor stroll, a park bench meditation, or afternoon power nap. Rest and recover with the same focus and dedication as your ambitious workouts. Integrate more days off, easy aerobic sessions, foam rolling, breathing practices, and temperature therapy.
- Quit Being A Dick To Your Wife/Girlfriend: Real MOFO’s display emotional stability, kindness, and vulnerability. Relationship expert Dr. John Gray (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus) says your primary biological drive is to protect your female from danger, but in the modern world her main threat is your own anger and emotional outbursts! Remain calm, cool, collected, and clear thinking amidst the daily stresses of life. “Don’t speak if you have a negative emotional charge,” commands Gray.
Dudes, these are the marching orders of life and the time to start is right now. As you can read in detail on the website, if you fail to accept this MOFO mission, you can experience a slippery slope effect with dynamics such as prolonged periods of stillness and adding a lil’ spare tire around the midsection as you age. When your day includes long periods of sitting — commuting, office job, and digital entertainment leisure time, you become insulin resistant and glucose intolerant. This leads to sugar cravings and fat storage. When you pick up a bit of spare tire, known as visceral fat, it secretes inflammatory cytokines into the bloodstream that inhibit fat metabolism and make you more likely to increase the size of your spare tire. If you are occasionally a bitchy boy with your wife/girlfriend, it tends to happen more and more often. Why not instead become a full-time, full-on MOFO?
TIMESTAMPS:
How are you going to get your MOJO back? No matter how busy you are, no matter how stressed you are, you can do it. [02:50]
Making an effort and improving is the secret to self-esteem. [04:45]
Sleep is of number one importance. A dark room is a must. [05:29]
When we are in constant summer mode, we are in constant fat storage mode. [07:00]
Our hormonal processes are calibrated to wake up with the rising sun. [11:21]
Make sure your bedroom is as totally black as possible. [14:11]
You want a cool temperature in your room for optimal sleep. [16:59]
Clean up the toxic portions of your life. [17:55]
Just getting rid of the crap (processed foods, feedlot animals and sugars) in your diet puts you way ahead of the game. [19:55]
Get your MOFO (male optimization formula with organs) to get your body rejuvenated. [22:09]
Four pillars of human nutrition are organ meats, meats on the bone, fermented foods and fresh foods. [23:38]
Get up and move throughout the day. It makes your body work better and brain work better. [26:02]
Brief explosive efforts don’t have to be long duration. Hit it hard! [29:55]
Take control of technology. Connect with nature. [33:27]
Get rid of the estrogen in the environment. Avoid all plastics touching your food or drink. [38:16]
Rest; not just talking about sleep. We are talking about downtime. [41:11]
In modern life, the male’s anger and emotional outbursts are a threat to the female. You need to get into testosterone balance. [44:16]
Brad summarizes the ten points for getting your MOFO. [48:21]
LINKS:
- Brad Kearns’ Morning Routine
- Brad Kearns.com/MOFO
- Podcast with Ashley Merryman
- UVEX lenses
- Deep Nutrition
- Brad Kearns Cold Therapy
- Active Couch Potato Syndrome
- Podcast with Jamieson
- Podcast with John Gray
QUOTES:
- “Making an effort and improving is the secret to self-esteem.”
- “Go for the SMASH foods. (Sardines, Mackerel, Anchovies, Salmon and Herring)”
LISTEN:
Download Episode MP3Get Over Yourself Podcast
Brad (02:50):
What’s up MOFOs? Let’s talk about your mission. You should choose to accept it. This message will self-destruct in five seconds after you play it, just like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. Ah, that was good stuff. Huh? Good movies. Anyway, let’s get to it. As you probably know, on the MOFO webpage: Brad kearns.com/MOFO. I give you your comprehensive lifestyle assignment to make the most of your supplement regimen, nourishing your body at the cellular level, getting your energy back, getting your MOJO back MOFO, but supplement is just a supplement and it has to be taken in the foundation of healthy lifestyle habits. And there are some issues we got to handle. We’ve got to get our shit handled right now in this hectic high stress modern life.
Brad (03:43):
I’m going to read you 10 objectives and add some color commentary. You can read the list on the website too. They’re pretty simple. They’re not time consuming. They’re not stressful to add to your already busy daily to do list. Some of these are common sense. Some of them require a bit of focus, discipline, repetition and endurance. For example, to get your morning routine started, which is so important to lock your brain into proactive mode and get the blood flowing, the oxygen, moving through your body muscles joints, connective tissue tuned up and ready to go for a busy active day. But no matter how busy you are, no matter how stressed you are, you can do it. And remember baby steps and small victories count for a lot. They build momentum and make these habits more and more robust over time. So if you can just turn off the screen a little bit early back off from four shows to three that you’re binge watching and keep progressing in the right direction, making an effort and improving is the secret to self-esteem.
Brad (04:49):
That’s from my former podcast, guest, Ashley Merryman wonderful stuff, not just making the effort. We’ve always emphasized that with our kids. Make an effort, make an effort. It’s all about effort, not the results, but it’s the combination of making an effort and validating it with some measurable improvement. That is the secret, not just making the effort go every day, slog, slog away. You’re not getting any better. That’s going to make you discouraged and not anywhere near the combination of effort and improvement and redirecting your effort to always pursue improvement and becoming a better person every day. That’s cool. Cause if you make mistakes, you get back up, try it again. The next day you don’t feel bad. You don’t get discouraged.
Brad (05:29):
Here is your mission. Your MOFO mission starting with sleep. That’s right. Sleep is number one, health vitality, and peak performance, all flow from getting adequate sleep. It starts with minimizing artificial light and digital stimulation after dark. That is the key genetic offender for, we have lived two and a half million years calibrated, strongly our circadian rhythm by the rising and setting of the sun. So all kinds of hormonal and genetic processes strongly tied to the rising and setting of the sun. And only in the last couple centuries, starting with Thomas Edison and moving forward into Steve jobs and Joe Netflix and all the genetic offenses that have accelerated here in high tech, modern life. Now, instead of winding things down, when it gets dark, when the sun sets, we blast our eyeballs with artificial light after dark and digital stimulation and keep going in this high stress hormonal mode rather than allowing the beautiful, natural genetic process of dim light melatonin onset to work its magic dim light melatonin onset is when the prominent sleep hormone and restorative repair hormone melatonin starts to flood the bloodstream, making you feel sleepy and facilitating the transition into a wonderful night of sleep, where you cycle optimally through all the stages of sleep and wake up feeling refreshed and energized near sunrise. So when we mess that up with screen time, after dark, all kinds of downstream effects mess us up
Brad (07:09):
Them is that we are basically living in perpetual summer mode because we have these long artificially illuminated days, year round, even in the middle of winter, we’re still using light bulbs until 11:00 PM. And so when your body is stuck in the summer mode, genetically you are in this fat storage pattern because that is our ancestral example. During the long days of summer, we consume more sugar cause that’s when the fruit was ripened. And we started to store that extra carbohydrate intake as fat in preparation for the long dark cold, short days of winter ahead. So now we’re in constant summer mode, constant fat storage mode. It messes up not only fat storage, but all kinds of things like hormonal restoration at night, getting the human growth hormone to pulse in, in the middle of the night, that’s all predicated by a nice dim light melatonin onset after it gets dark.
Brad (08:04):
So when the sun sets, wherever you are, whatever time of year, so you have more leeway in the summer, right on those long days of summer, the sun doesn’t set in Portland until 9:30, 8:00 PM or whatever, of course you can stay up a little bit longer and have these longer days. But in the winter time, when the sun sets at 4:27, that’s when you really want to tone things down in the hours after dark. So it’s 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 PM. In the winter time, you should be creating an increasingly dark mellow indoor experience. You can don those wonderful UV blocking eyewear, go on Amazon and type in UVEX. And you get these orange lenses that you can see plenty out of, uh, in your home. But when you have these protective lenses on it minimizes the stress and the negative impacts of the blue light spectrum, going into your SCN, your super charismatic nucleus, that’s the light sensor that sends the messages to the hypothalamus and controls all manner of hormonal functions.
Brad (09:02):
So when you’re blasting your eyeballs with screen light unprotected, that’s when you get the most negative effects, you suppress melatonin and you spike the stress hormone cortisol. Instead wearing these orange lenses is believed to offer tremendous protection. Because again, it’s UV blocking eyewear, right? We’re familiar with that with sunglasses. So when you’re doing that indoors, you are blocking a lot of that harmful offensive. They call it the blue light spectrum that comes from, uh, the white light bulbs and the white screen light. You can also choose softer light sources in your house like those nice orange bug light bulb that you can get at a home supply store or the beautiful pink salt lamps, the Himalayan pink salt lamps. So when you have candle light, fire light, pink salt lamps, or the orange light bulbs, you are minimizing the harmful effects of that blue light spectrum coming from screens and regular light bulbs.
Brad (09:55):
So you’re making this dark mellow evening experience. And then in the final hours before bed, we want to transition away from screen. So if you got to finish up your emails or whatever, do that earlier on in the evening and reserve those last precious hour or two for mellow socializing, catching up, maybe having the whole family, put their iPhones into a mixing bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. I know some families that do that, toss them in there. Let’s talk, let’s connect, let’s play cards. You can have mellow socializing, reading, particularly pleasure reading like fiction rather than nonfiction or work related things. And evening stroll is a fantastic idea. Get out there in the cool air, open space, calm the brain and getting that body temperature lowered with exposure to outdoor weather is also a great way to facilitate a peaceful night’s sleep.
Brad (10:47):
And of course, engaging in these soothing rituals that Arianna Huffington is so big on in her book, the Sleep revolution, talking about how she takes this elaborate bath experience, changes into her robe has all these cues. that’s preparing her body for sleep. So pick a nice soothing ritual, sorry, uh, watching Netflix doesn’t count, but foam rolling, writing in your gratitude journal or taking that final walk around the block with the dog. And if you own a dog, you’re obligated to treat that animal with respect and give him or her the life they deserve by getting them good outdoor exercise time. There you go. That is your nice peaceful evening.
Brad (11:24):
And of course you pair that very importantly, to set yourself up for success in the evening, you pair that with awakening in the morning as close to sunrise as possible, because remember our hormonal processes are calibrated to wake up with the rising of the sun. So you entrain your circadian rhythm by exposing yourself to direct sunlight. First thing in the morning, no sunglasses allowed. We don’t want that UV blocking in the morning because that’s when we want the serotonin and the cortisol to spike and give us the energy and the mood elevating effects of that sun exposure. Even if it’s cloudy out, of course, let me make that distinction that, uh, don’t worry. When you get outside and expose yourself even to a cloudy day, you’re getting a tremendous amount of UV exposure that gives those hormonal benefits. Doesn’t have to be a bright sunny day in the desert. Okay? So the morning is all about getting up near sunrise, getting outdoors, exposing yourself to sunlight and performing a deliberate movement, mobility routine to get the blood flowing and the oxygen circulating. Look on YouTube, Brad Kearns morning routine. I’m so happy to report that I conduct this session every single day, and it’s sort of a custom designed flexibility, mobility mobility series of drills, where I’m working the core and I’m working on hamstring and hip flexor mobility.
Brad (12:40):
So that I have a higher platform from which to launch my sprint workouts. When those occur once a week or whatever regularity that I’m doing, them at, at least I’m spending 12 minutes on the ground. First thing I do every single morning before reaching for my phone, I launch into this thing and it’s become an automatic, repetitive behavior. I don’t even have to think about it. I go through my count. I do 30 scissor kicks. I do 20 frog kicks. I do 20 the other direction, et cetera, et cetera, finish this thing up. And then I feel awake and energized for a busy day. You can also pair that with cold exposure in the morning to get that hormonal burst. That’ll wake you up better than any cup of coffee on the planet. Sorry, Starbucks. This show is not sponsored by Starbucks, but it’s sponsored by my Brad Kearns chest freezer, cold plunge. Look on YouTube. It’s so fun. I can’t wait to share with you this wonderful morning regimen that not only gives me that hormonal spike studies show that even brief exposure to cold water. Dr. Rhonda Patrick’s paper talks about a 22nd exposure to 40 degree water causes a spike In the prominent mood-elevating focusing motivation, hormone, norepinephrine the mood-elevating spike for about an hour, 200 to 300% above normal.
Brad (13:54):
So you get that hormonal burst. I’m sure you’re familiar with it. If you’ve ever jumped in the icy river or a cold lake or ocean, first thing in the morning, and you get all pumped up and excited and you feel great and it lasts for an hour, great stuff. So look at my YouTube video, Brad Kearns, chest freezer, cold plunge. That was just number one. I know we got nine more, but I wanted to spend a lot of time on that sleep thing because everything flows downstream from good sleep habits. So you have those, uh, practical steps to mellow out your evening and have a high energy morning.
Brad (14:27):
And I also should mention that you want to have a optimal sleeping environment. So you want total darkness in there cause even small amounts of light can mess up your melatonin onset and your hormonal function during the evening. So instead of nightlights and LCD screens from your digital alarm clock, if anyone still owns one of those, you want to get that thing as dark as possible and find a red colored flashlight. My head beam, I have one of those straps that I will read with at night and it has a red choice on the bulbs. So if I do have to get up at night, I have a red light or an orange light by my bed and can get up. But I’ve pretty much memorized my way around the room. So I don’t have to turn on any light if I do have to get up and hopefully I don’t have to get up to pee. Everyone thinks that’s normal. Dr. Phil Maffetone reminds us that it’s not normal. Dogs can hold it all night and humans should too. And if you have to urinate in the middle of the night, remember your kidneys are next to your adrenal glands, adrenal in Latin, add renal next to kidney. Uh, that means that you possibly are suffering from overstress patterns because the adrenals are being stimulated and causing the kidneys to want to release fluid when really you should be able to comfortably hold it all night. So there goes that excuse for getting up to pee and having to turn on light. So you want that dark environment, especially for the key. According to Dr. Jack Kruse and his wonderful article on his website about the various patterns and circadian rhythm functions over the course of a 24 hour day. And he claims that from midnight to 3:00 AM is the prime time for human growth hormone to flood the bloodstream and do its wonderful repair and restoration work and rebalancing back to homeostasis.
Brad (16:11):
And if that’s interrupted by light exposure, it’s very, very sensitive. You want pitch dark, just like our ancestors were in the cave. So no light allowed in the bedroom and also no clutter. You want it to be very Spartan environment. So you don’t have that visual stimulation that can provoke a stress response. And studies have shown, we have some of this data in the new book, Keto for Life, Mark Sisson. And I studies have shown that just looking at a pile of clutter can provoke a stress response, even if you don’t verbalize or even have the conscious thought that, Oh yeah, I got to finish those pile of bills. And I think the deadlines, uh, at 30 days just looking at it will flash into your brain a stress response. So we don’t want any clutter or unfinished business, unfinished home improvement projects. None of that is allowed in the bedroom.
Brad (16:59):
So we want tidy clean, especially pitch dark, and also, uh, have the proper temperature. Um, just starting to do some work with chiliPAD, go look at their website, a very, very interesting product where you can set the temperature, uh, with a water cooled device, uh, and actually, uh, pair with your partner to a different preferred temperature. But if you can get that cool water and facilitate a preservation of a lower body temperature all night, rather than dumping under a zillion covers and trying to keep warm, your body actually sleeps better when you are a little bit cool. So minimize your a blanket sheet comfort or use, and that will facilitate good night’s sleep. Especially if you’re one of these people that has a tendency to wake up, we got to handle all these matters and try to do the best we can with our environment. And of course our scheduling. All right, that’s number one, you ready for nine more?
Brad (17:55):
Number two is clean up your MOFO and act clean up your act. Ditch, toxic foods, toxic relationships, toxic substances, and toxic energy in your life. Summon the courage to face life’s challenges and take action instead of drifting into familiar, but dysfunctional routines and ruts. Ooh, anyone raised their hand on that one? Aren’t we humans interesting where we have a comfort zone and I’m not using that in a positive or negative connotation. I’m just saying that we exist in these comfort zones where we lock into patterns, our brain prefers patterns rather than chaos and constant striving and challenging for a breakthroughs of any kind, right. We’d rather sink into naturally speaking. We’d rather sink into, uh, the mean, the average rather than constantly push and challenge ourselves. And those people that have those wonderful peak performance attributes in place, they’re still mindful and conscious. You have to make a concerted effort to get your butt out of bed and get to that early morning workout.
Brad (19:03):
So it takes some motivation willpower, and then locking those into habit. But generally speaking, Oh my gosh, we love routines. And they can often get dysfunctional, especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships that start to turn South in this degree or that degree. And then you just kind of regress down to, uh, dysfunctional communication, dysfunctional energy in your workplace, uh, in your circle of, uh, social and even in your family. So we got to wake up, we got to wake the MOFO up as it’s written on the website and start living by Deepak Chopra’s four daily intentions. And I described those on the website now doing another blip show, just to have it at your fingertips. When you want to push a button and remind yourself of this beautiful, uh, comprehensive, uh, mission for how to live your life.
Brad (19:55):
So we go to number three and that is eat ancestral foods, such as sustainably raised animals, not feed lot animals, no argument there, right? But if you can find your sustainably raised animals easier and easier to source today and eat them in a nose to tail strategy, that’s especially including the stuff that we don’t get much of in ordinary life, like organ meats, bone broth that have the special agents not found in the usual steak and burger type of strategy. We also want to compliment that with nutritious whole foods of your preference: vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds establish a zero tolerance policy for refined grains, sugars, sweetened beverages, industrial seed oils, heavily processed crap and inferior quality feedlot animals. How about that? If you can just get that stuff out of your diet, then guess what? You’re so far ahead of the game, you can certainly make it if you want to be a whole foods plant based person, that might be a choice that, uh, Brad Kearns and other guests on get over yourself podcast might disagree with, but people are making it work.
Brad (21:05):
And many of the benefits of a clean style, whole food plant based diet is what you don’t eat. Same with, let’s say a carnivore style diet is that the magic solution to all your health ills and the greatest way to eat. Maybe a lot of people will disagree with that, but guess what Carnivore eliminates? It eliminates the Slurpees, and the Ben and Jerry’s and the heavily processed crap. So the first objective is to get the junk out of your diet, and then you can pick and choose and do some personal experimentation and see what works for you when you’re emphasizing the foods of the planet that humans have evolved on. So I say, especially emphasizing those super foods like grass fed liver and other organ meats, pastured eggs, oily cold water, fish, and fresh local berries. The best of the fruit category, uh, with the oily cold water fish. Have you heard of the acronym SMASH? So go for the SMASH fish, some of the most nutrient dense foods on the planet stands for sardines, mackerel, anchovies, salmon, and herring. Oh yes. SMASH.
Brad (22:09):
Then we go to number four on the list of your mission assignments. Pound the MOFO male optimization formula with organs. The centerpiece of this whole mission is to get your body rejuvenated at the cellular level. So you have the energy, the motivation, and the focus to carry out the comprehensive lifestyle plan. The suggestion on the bottle, take six capsules per day for at least three months to fully replenish and rejuvenate your energy and help optimize male hormone function. This is honoring our ancestors by putting back in what the modern world has left out and believe me, man, I’ve been trying to eat so healthy and clean for my entire adult life starting back in, let’s see, when I was in college in the mid eighties, the popular bestselling book was called Eat to Win that the athletes were picking up on. So I went all in on that and started my long quest to optimize my nutritional intake and get peak performance out of my body and the endurance sports. And it’s been a long journey with a lot of different twists and turns including times where I was experimenting with vegetarian eating cause that seemed like the best thing to do. Uh, the Eat to Win plan was, you know, the grain based commentary that the dogma of the day, but I was faithfully following it, trying to get the best out of my body. So here we are in modern times, and we’re still suffering from this disastrous, uh, consumption of these toxic foods that are causing disease patterns, epidemic rates of type two diabetes, obesity, cancer, and it’s largely to blame not entirely, but largely to blame on the food supply.
Brad (23:43):
And even someone like myself has been into this game all the way in for so long. What was this? Now two or three years ago, consulting with Dr. Cate Shanahan. One of the brilliant leaders of the ancestral health movement in her great book, deep nutrition had what she calls the four pillars of human nutrition. And they were organ meats, meats on the bone, fermented foods, and fresh foods. So fresh foods would be all the nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, all that stuff. But I realized I was deficient. I was almost entirely deficient in two of the four pillars of human nutrition and pretty sorry, ass on the third one. I didn’t eat hardly any organ meats who knows how to cook a liver and don’t even like the taste of it. So I shied away from it had a lot of steak and burgers and turkey, chicken salmon, but not a lot of liver or heart or kidney or those nutrient rich organ meats that I’m now all over and enjoying as a centerpiece, the central focus of my diet today.
Brad (24:39):
So what I’m saying is, even if you’ve tried really hard to eat healthy and get that junk out of your diet, you still may be depleted at the cellular level because you’ve been missing out on the most nutrient dense foods on the planet, particularly liver. And when it comes to your hormone optimization and you have even minor nutrient deficiencies, especially if you’re a peak performer, trying to get the most out of your body, Oh man, we’ve got to do the very, very best we can to get super nutrition, not just good nutrition, but re-energize those cells that have been depleted over time. And that’s where the MOFO product comes in. I’m a believer, man. I wouldn’t put my name on it. If I wasn’t, this stuff can really, really help you. Some people experience a quick burst because they’ve been severely depleted and some people want to load up on this stuff and make a commitment for six months, especially if you’re already doing well. And you’re going for fitness goals and don’t have major health complaints or auto immune issues. You’re just trying to get a protection and kind of leather allowed in my experience. Uh, it’s the leveling out of those lows where you kind of feel fried you overdid it a little bit. It happens to me with my training still, even though I’m trying to be smart, I want to level out those lows so I can pop back up two days later or three days later, rather than a week later. So that’s where I feel like the supplement really does come into play is to get that deep, deep nutrition into yourself. So that’s number four pound.
Brad (26:01):
The MOFO number five is move frequently. J F W. Just F’…ing walk is the key to healthy fat metabolism and stable daily mood appetite and energy levels. So the assignment is to take frequent walking, stretching exercise breaks during the Workday and sprinkle in things like formal movement practices. If you like yoga and Pilates calisthenic sessions where you’re just move in doing some stretches drills, uh, flexibility, mobility, drills, like I have on YouTube, the Brad Kearns morning routine. Sprinkle these things into your day. Humans are meant to move. When we move, we optimize hormonal and genetic functions. We’re good at burning fat, our brains work better. There’s all kinds of research showing that when you’re walking, your brain is better at problem solving. When you take frequent breaks from prolonged periods of stillness in the workplace, you reenergize refresh the sodium potassium pumps in your brain neurons that cause your brain to work at maximum effectiveness. In contrast, when you sit around and sit at your desk for an hour, two hours, three hours at a time you experience a steady decline in cognitive function. Sometimes this can be represented by a lack of discipline, where you’re more likely to drift over to watching those funny YouTube videos.
Brad (27:20):
Instead of stay focused on the presentation, you’re working on things take longer. You’re forgetful all of these kinds of symptoms that you’ve been sitting too long and also on a metabolic level. When you’re sitting for even as short as 20 minutes of stillness, you can experience acute insulin resistance and glucose intolerance. You stop burning fat well, and you start storing it. Instead, your bloodstream becomes devoid of energy and you start getting hungry for a snack that is associated directly with stillness. So get up and move throughout the day. It makes your brain work better. It makes your body work better. And it’s as simple as walking. The other stuff throwing in is great. The flexibility mobility, the foam rolling counts as a movement objective, but basically you want to take every opportunity you can to just walk and guess who I’m especially talking to on this note? Athletes that’s right, MOFOs.
Brad (28:16):
Cause we give ourselves free hall passes all the time. If you wake up in the morning and you run that seven mile or at 6:00 AM, then you sit around the rest of the day, your pound in the ice cream at night, your thumbs up because you got your mileage in, in the morning, but there’s a serious disease condition known as the active couch potato syndrome. Yes, it’s an actual thing whereby those with a great devotion to daily fitness activities. So they go to the gym and get an hour workout every single day or whatever the study showed that those people are still succumbing to the same disease, risk factors and adverse blood findings as people who are sedentary because the rest of their lifestyle patterns are sedentary. So if you get up, get to the gym, you do your hour workout and then you’re commuting for an hour.
Brad (29:04):
You’re sitting at a desk for eight hours. You’re hanging out on the couch in the evening, watching hours of screen entertainment. You are not immune from these sedentary related lifestyle disease patterns. It’s called the active couch potato syndrome. So even athletes are obligated to get up and move around more. And I find, especially in the recovery period, after my most intense workouts. So after my sprint workout in the days and hours and days following my sprint workout, I recover better when I move around more, not less. So you’d think, Hey, the day after a hard workout, uh, you’re going to sit around more or you’re going to take some couch time. You’re going to skip the trip to the gym, but if can just get up and do that basic movement, you will actually recover more quickly. And there’s some good shows on that, where I talk about the active couch potato syndrome and recovery based workouts with Joel Jamieson. So listen to that show.
Brad (29:55):
Number six. Oh yes. Let’s review. The first five sleep is number one. Clean up your act is number two. Ditch toxic foods, relationships, substances, and energy in your life. Eat ancestral foods is number three. Pound the MOFO, the supplement is number four. Move frequently number five. Number six, hit it hard MOFO challenge your body with brief intense strength training sessions and all out sprints explosive efforts will prompt a spike of testosterone and human growth hormone in the bloodstream with tremendous adaptive anti-aging benefits. This is the use it or lose it principle. That’s one of the fundamental laws of nature in the universe, right? Especially as you get old and you naturally lose that explosiveness with each passing year over the age of 30 or 27, or whenever you peak and everything comes easily to you and you can still dunk without running up.
Brad (30:50):
And now I need a big run up before I can dunk, so to speak hypothetically speaking, but especially as you age, you still want to include that explosiveness in your workout regimen. And unfortunately, so many people, especially devoted fitness enthusiasts who are out there putting in the mileage and heading to the gym and going through their circuit of weights and doing what they’re supposed to do much, much better than sitting on the couch, of course. But if you don’t push yourself really hard, once in a while with these brief explosive efforts does not have to be a long duration session. 20 minute workout is fine. A seven minute workout is fine. Some micro workouts where you go through your day and you haul off a set of pull ups. When you walk through the closet door where the pull up bar is hanging, or I have a hex bar deadlift in my backyard.
Brad (31:41):
And when I throw away the garbage going through the side yard, I will hit that deadlift bar for a single set. And I might do that once or twice a day, a few days a week. And guess what? That really it’s up over time. Because when I do a formal workout, when I’m doing my five sets of five reps or whatever on the deadlift, I’m launching from a much higher platform than if I never touch the thing except on the formal workout days. So we have to get out of this mindset where it’s an all or nothing workout where you get in your car, drive to the gym, wait in line for a towel and to scan your ID tag and go do the whole rigmarole for an hour and 27 minutes round trip session. No, those are great. Of course, those fit in there if you’re so inclined and devoted.
Brad (32:24):
But if you can just haul off a set of deep squats while you’re working in your cubicle, a couple of few times a day, right now try to do 20 deep squats, push the recording on pause. You have, man, your legs will start burning. It’s an excellent session, asked to grass. I’m talking about lowering that, but all the way to the ground and tracking back up nicely with your knees, tracking over the midfoot and doing some proper squats. If you can do that every single day, even if it’s just one set at first, you aren’t getting that intensity, that explosive work and sending the message to your genes that you want to preserve that muscle mass and preserve that explosiveness over the course of your life. Keeping that testosterone and human growth hormone flowing really. There’s nothing comparable to some brief intense workouts to get your hormones optimized. So micro workouts, the formal workouts, make sure they’re explosive. And don’t last that long to where you become fatigued because you’re hitting the weights or hitting the sprints or the interval workouts too much, a little goes a long way. So that’s number six, hit it hard.
Brad (33:27):
Number seven is take control, MOFO. Control of technology. Oh, isn’t technology wonderful. Don’t you like the map navigation system in your car? So you don’t get lost anymore or fuss with paper maps on the side of the road. Yeah, it’s great. But guess what? It’s our responsibility to unplug and disengage and balance high-tech hyper-connected life with natural human ancestral experience of being outdoors connecting with nature. You may have read some articles about earthing, where there’s science showing that just having your bare feet connected to bare ground, not cement, not pavement, but grass or dirt, uh, has a tremendous effect on your polarity, your cellular function, your cellular health. There’s a concept called Forest Bathing in Japan, where they actually have tested and done medical exams on patients in a forest versus a hospital setting. And they have lower blood pressure, lower stress hormones, and amazing effect of just being in nature.
Brad (34:29):
So overcome nonstop, digital stimulation and distraction by focusing, prioritizing and powering down with an wavering discipline. Uh, I remember when my kids were little around the turn of the century, the new millennium and, uh, the mobile devices were just coming into extreme prominence, right? The iPhone, uh, came around in like 2005. So before that, I think we had Blackberries and uh, texting and cell phones. But I remember writing and talking about the idea that when you’re at the park, pushing your kids on the swing, it’s a good time to put that phone away and engage and be fully present in the moment. And the joy of the simple experience of sharing the park with your little kids. And now my kids are adults. That was a long time ago. Uh, but the words, the prophetic words were, man, those days are gone so quickly. You better enjoy the crap out of them with complete presence.
Brad (35:21):
And I see this in daily life now where the mobile device is interrupting the flow so frequently, it’s kind of discouraging and upsetting because it didn’t exist in half of my life. Right? I have the unique experience of being born at a time where, uh, you know, a couple of decades of experience here with, uh, hyper-connected modern life, but a great memory, a clear memory of before that time, when we didn’t have mobile devices and we were, uh, directly engaged with, uh, people in our immediate environment rather than having this digital world. And boy, sometimes I long for those days. And Oh, I think we talked about this on one of the Mia Moore shows where, uh, she called me out for getting butt hurt. When I’m telling a story, you’re talking in the car and Siri makes an announcement about the next turn coming up.
Brad (36:09):
And she was right, man. It’s like, I don’t like my flow being interrupted by any sort of digital stimulation, but of course there’s no turning back. Uh, it’s part of our lives now. So we have to make the best of it. And we have to have that unwavering discipline to power down when we should power down. One way to do that as I spoke about previously is that morning routine. I can’t emphasize that enough is if you start out your day in a proactive manner, you walk into that higher brain function mode, that proactive problem solving strategic thinking, mindful conscious mode instead of the reactive mode that happens as soon as you reach for the screen. 79% of Americans in a recent ad week survey reach for their screen is the very first thing they do every day. And we quote a technology, psychological expert, uh, in K for Life I believe.
Brad (37:05):
And it’s been on some blog posts too, that, uh, the doctor said, once you do that, you’ll never recover is the quote. Your brain will never recover because all of a sudden it’s in reactive mode, they thought start in whatever text message came in, whatever information you saw puts you into reactive mode rather than proactive mode. So important. So we do not want to reach for that bloody screen and kick into shallow reactive brain function. Daily exposure to cold makes you more resilient and more focused, more resilient to all other forms of life, stress and more focused for all of the things that you face the rest of the day. So I’ve talked about my cold exposure routine ad nauseum. Some people are probably sick of it. I don’t know. Some people have probably bought their own chest freezers. I don’t know why don’t you let me know, getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com.
Brad (37:52):
If you got yourself a chest freezer, I’d love to hear about that. I’m working on a complete ebook. So to give you a step by step instructions and all the science to make you a cold exposure enthusiast, but when you do that first thing in the morning, Oh my gosh, I feel like it builds focus and resilience, and you can have a better chance at controlling the runaway technology that overtakes our life. So number seven was take control.
Brad (38:16):
Number eight, avoid estrogens. We have all kinds of estrogenic compounds in our environment that we never ever had prior to modern times, listen to Dr. Paul Sandino’s awesome podcast called fundamental health and his guest, Dr. Anthony Jay, who wrote a book about these estrogenic compounds in the environment. So especially top, top, top priority is to eliminate all plastics, touching your food or drink. I know we got to buy stuff at the store in a styrofoam, but come home and put it on a plate, especially do not ever, ever microwave anything in plastic because the molecules go right into your food when you heat up plastic molecules.
Brad (38:57):
So if you can get your Tupperware, uh, into the garbage can, if it’s made from plastic and use glass, instead, a lot of times we have plastic lids, right? But the lid is not touching the food. So that’s okay, but try to use glass. And of course the stainless steel drink containers, clean canteen, and the other brands that are so popular now much, much better than going with those plastic water bottles, especially if you’re talking about, uh, them ever getting heated up. And I talked about on previous shows, uh, with the nourish balance thrive kingpin, Chris Kelly, where I talked about my blood results, where I had a plastic toxic plastic residue in my bloodstream, healthy mr. Healthy guy here. Yeah. I had plastic residue and rubber residue in my bloodstream. And Kelly speculated that the plastic residue possibly came from drinking water out of the disposable single use plastic bottles that might have been exposed to heat.
Brad (39:52):
For example, uh, sitting in my car during the day and then they’re in there overnight. And the next day I take a swig and all that plastic due to the heat coming through, uh, has leaked into the water supply. So these estrogenic compounds are everywhere, especially in our food supply. They’re also in foods that are soy, flax, or corn based. That’s stuff’s nasty anyway. Right? I know people think flax seeds are good, but we want to strictly eliminate soy, flax, and corn foods because they have 100 times more phyto estrogens than other plant foods. So we want to completely eliminate those. We want to eliminate all food, that’s touching plastic. And then when it comes to personal care, home cleaning products, especially skincare products, we want to get rid of the, uh, mainstream stuff that has, uh, adverse chemicals in there. Estrogenic compounds, estrogen, stimulating compounds, and instead go for the natural stuff. I know, go to the, uh, uh, the hippie aisle in the supermarket, in the natural foods market and get your Castiel soap. The Dr. Bronner’s brand and the others use zinc for sunscreens instead of the, uh, chemically laden sunscreens, and then find the ecofriendly home cleaners for your laundry detergent and dish soap and hand soap. All right. So get rid of those estrogens in your environment.
Brad (41:11):
Number nine, rest like a MOFO. We already talked about sleep, right? I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about just resting and slowing down and reclaiming the lost art of downtime and hectic modern life. When do we ever have downtime anymore? I’m super guilty of this because I don’t like wasting time and I get bored easily when I’m standing in line at the bank. But in the old days, when I was standing in line at the bank, daydreaming looking at the wall, Oh no, it was maybe talking to another human, such as a riding public transportation. Now we’re engaged with screen at all times. And our brains are worrying from sunrise when we are, when we get up reaching for the screen all the way till the very last thing. When we shut the screen and finish our binge watching of Netflix at nighttime. So we want to slow down reclaim the lost art of downtime. Try a mid day outdoor stall stroll without your phone. How about a sit down on a park bench for a little meditation? And if you’re not into formal meditation, sit down on the bloody park bench and watch the birds. Guess what that counts as meditation, who says great new age author, Dan Millman. He says we can meditate at all times any time. I love his example of he was relating a story, an anecdote, but the example is a grab a set of car keys and throw them to your friend.
Brad (42:31):
Then your friend, you say, Hey, don’t, don’t warn them in advance. Just go, Hey, catch the person reaches out and catches those car keys. And in the act of catching the car keys, they are in a meditative state because they were forced to remain completely mindful and present in to react to the stimulus of the car keys of floating through the air. So that’s a form of meditation is catching car keys. How about juggling, uh, some tennis balls or watching the birds or counting as I do my scissor kicks in the morning, that’s a form of meditation counting my breaths when I’m in the chest freezer, cold tub, I’m deeply in a meditative state because that’s the only way that I can withstand the sensation of extreme cold. When the water temperature is 34 to 38 degrees. And I’m in there now for up to six minutes.
Brad (43:18):
Ah, so any time, any time you’re mindful and focused on something besides a screen, you can count that as meditation afternoon, power nap, of course is a great way to rest like a MOFO. And you want to rest and recover with the same focus and dedication as your ambitious workouts, integrate more days off, easy aerobic sessions, where the workout is not at all strenuous and you feel refreshed and energized after rather than trashed foam rolling is a great way to stimulate parasympathetic nervous system activity very quickly in a matter of a few minutes of rolling and it’s believed because of the, uh, the good pain, the good sensation, where it’s very uncomfortable when you’re rolling through tight muscles, but that stimulates the release of these endorphin light chemicals, these pain killing chemicals, and launches you into that rest and digest parasympathetic mode. Also, of course, formal breathing practices and temperature therapy will contribute nicely to your rest objectives.
Brad (44:16):
Number 10 last and most definitely not least quit being a dick to your wife or girlfriend, real MOFOs display, emotional stability, kindness, and vulnerability relationship expert, Dr. John Gray, the number one bestselling relationship author of all time with his men are from Mars. Women are from Venus book series that has had a wonderful 25 year run and still going strong. Oh, this guy changed my life with a single podcast. It was a fantastic show. I encourage you to go back and listen to that. If you’re interested in a healthy winning relationship and optimizing your hormones and how important and how powerful the impact of a romantic relationship is on your testosterone function and on your female’ds estrogen balance. So he talks about that with his new book called beyond Mars and Venus, his recent book, a couple of years old, but he’s talking about the hormonal underpinnings that affect relationship dynamics, such a wonderful show.
Brad (45:15):
I was so inspired after talking to this guy that I propose to Mia Moore my girl, the very next day. How about that? Well, you know what he said in the show, Dr. John Gray says that your primary biological drive in life, the male’s primary biological drive is to protect your female from danger. Of course, in primal times, you know what this man who was protecting the pack, the stronger male, the physically stronger male would go out there and battle the, the mighty beasts that were, uh, threatening our lives and, uh, keeping the, the women and children safe back in the camp. Of course, things are different today. You know how different it is? John Gray contends that in the modern world, the main threat to the female today is your own anger and emotional outbursts. These are extremely destructive to the female’s wellbeing, the females hormone balance.
Brad (46:07):
And when you get into it and you get cranky and bitchy as a male, you are showing signs of testosterone imbalance. And when you argue and complain and plunge further into dysfunctional communication dynamics, you further and further deplete testosterone, a very, very interesting insight. So John Gray says, quote, and I’ve been trying to live by this since I heard him say it many months ago, quote, Don’t speak if you have a negative emotional charge. How many times do I have to tell you,? Shut up, don’t speak, go off and do some testosterone, nurturing activities, such as problem, solving, tinkering with your motorcycle in the garage, going and lifting some weights, doing a workout, even playing a video game or watching an athletic contest on TV are all examples of testosterone boosting activities. He calls it going back into your cave, your man cave and regenerating your hormonal balance from alone time, uh, downtime, focusing time, problem solving mode, rather than engage in a destructive manner.
Brad (47:11):
This takes you further and further into testosterone deficiency so much so that Gray made the wonderful insight that when you see the jacked up dude, uh, at the pickup basketball game or the guy who cut you off in traffic and flipping you off and challenging you to a fight, uh, pulling over at the side of the road, that kind of stuff is a sign of extreme testosterone deficiency, not extra testosterone. So those, uh, those quips that we, uh, offer up to these, uh, jacked up males like, man, you got too much testosterone, actually more accurately biologically, as well. You have too little testosterone. And the true sign of a testosterone balanced male is that they act like a Kung Fu master, especially under stress and pressure of all kinds of, uh, all kinds of different stresses and pressures in modern life, especially relationship stress and relationship conflict. You’re calm, cool, and collected like a Kung Fu master under pressure, especially when you’re having communication with your romantic partner. So protect your female from your own anger and emotional outbursts. And that is a great way to nourish and boost testosterone.
Brad (48:19):
Ah, what a list, what a mission mission possible, not mission impossible in summary. Number one, get your sleep handled, calm, dark mellow evenings, and high energy mornings with immediate exposure to sunlight. Number two, clean up your act. Get rid of those junk foods, sever those toxic relationships. I know it’s tough to step out of your comfort zone and your ruts and your familiarity, but make shit happen every single day in life. Wake the MOFO up, live by Deepak Chopra’s for daily intentions. Number three, eat ancestral foods with special emphasis on nose to tail sustainably raised animal foods and all the wonderful, colorful, fresh foods of the earth.
Brad (49:00):
Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, and especially get rid of the crap. Man. Grains, sugar, sweetened beverages, and refined industrial seed oils. Number four, take the product. It’s the best you can get. It’s potent it’s directed, especially to nourish testosterone production and help your reproductive and your male health. So pound the MOFO six capsules a day. Number five move frequently, J FW just frickin walk,. Take frequent breaks from stillness so you can maintain healthy cognitive function and physical function and fat burning. Number six, hit it hard. That’s right. Get in there and hoist some weight. Man. Look at Brian on the website doing his barbarian workout. Oh my gosh. That’s so epic. I can’t believe the picture. It is a global exemplar of a true ancestral style workout. So you want to do these brief intense bursts of high energy performance. These will stimulate testosterone and growth hormone release into the bloodstream.
Brad (50:00):
Number seven, take control, man. We’re in the digital age, the age of hyper-connectivity and nonstop stress and stimulation. So you have to power down with unwavering discipline and fight this battle against hyper-connectivity with pro active daily rituals, such as my beloved morning exercise routine and cold exposure too.
Brad (50:22):
Number eight, get rid of those estrogens in your environment. Most the plastic that’s touching your food, toss it out into the garbage can right now and go by glass and stainless steel containers. I just bought a huge container. 64 ounce from clean canteen to sit my beloved Kombucha all day long. I love that thing. Number nine, rest like a MOFO, slow down and recover the lost art of downtime with a mid day outdoor stroll or an opportunity for meditation being mindful and present putting the technology away, regenerating nourishing, taking days off, learning how to do recovery workouts. Number ten, quit being a Dick to your wife or girlfriend. Be a calm, cool collected Kung Fu master, especially under pressure. And if you have a negative emotional charge, go off and regenerate your testosterone do not engage. Do not speak. Thank you, John Gray. And thanks for listening. Take the assignment. Let me know how it goes. Email me at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. Thank you for listening MOFO.
Brad (51:29):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com. And we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to thanks for doing it.
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