Jason Actualization

@Michael569 I believe this is spot on. OP, could you please delineate, as granularly as possibly, what exactly your goal(s) is/are? I like to start with the end in mind, and then formulate apt markers to gauge progress from there. Without knowing what your end game is, it's not immediately obvious that getting your body adjusted to ketosis is a necessary, or frankly, even vaguely appropriate intermediary.

Bingo!

Indeed, there may not be, you're correct. This is simply the best explanation I have encountered that, in my mind, ties up the loose threads that other explanations do not (i.e., viewing CVD through the lens of oxidation). Bingo, they substitute one problem for another, and now that I'm living in Australia I'm trying to get into contact with Paul Mason to explain this to him. In short, he is the closest to arriving at this understanding that I've seen in the influencer sphere, but his clotting theory is still slightly off base. Grass-fed butter is the way to go, that is a solid substitution you've made. Carnivore proponents get two things primarily wrong: 1. they demonize all carbohydrates (when it's merely excess fructose that is problematic in metabolically healthy individuals) and 2. they demonize all plant foods which are actually the most potent way to counteract oxidative stress. At the end of the day, being omnivore is optimal, and I would apply that assertion unanimously to mankind (people with severe autoimmune issues may benefit from carnivore as a door to walkthrough, but it's not a room to reside in indefinitely).

Sure thing, great questions by the way, I'll do my best here. 1. Yes, I want to be very clear here. There is no shortage of things that correlate with CVD, i.e., LDL, ApoB, diabetes, smoking, OxLDL, hypertension, seed oil consumption, etc. You are 100% correct in that I acknowledge all of these correlations, even with oxysterols by the way. If something is causative, it is also correlative, but not vice versa. So the question we must ask, is if CVD is the smoke, which of the myriad things that correlate is the true gun (surely at least one must be)? I'm submitting that oxidized cholesterol (oxysterols) is the unifying factor and that in fact, it's our own immune system responding to this oxidation that renders the chronic inflammation that lays down plaque in the end. LDL and ApoB correlate, but if one mistakes them for the cause, they will employ the wrong strategy to reverse or prevent CVD (lowering LDL via statins will decrease the opportunities for oxidation but if you understand the actual causal pathway of CVD, this strategy seems beyond silly and imposes more issues than it resolves, not least the precipitation of cerebrovascular disease, i.e., Alzheimer's, due to the deprivation of cholesterol in the brain). To be absolutely crystal clear, cholesterol, irrespective of serum concentration, is not atherogenic in its native state, but all else equal, someone with more circulating lipoproteins will, on average, have more absolute oxidized lipoproteins (the answer still is not to bottom out said lipoproteins). 2. You've hit the nail on the head, that's right, we must accept some degree of oxysterols, both those ingested exogenously and rendered endogenously (both to a certain degree are inevitable). Oxidation of lipoproteins is unavoidable, but it is the unfavorable imbalance (i.e., excess) of oxidation relative to ones antioxidant status that results in net plaque formation. The single best way to protect yourself is with a strong antioxidant (I highly recommend 250 mL of 100% pomegranate juice per day which I consume without fail and is reflected in my bloodwork, including low OxLDL). I advise against consuming raw food, and rather, I advise folks pressure cook at the lowest heat and pressure possible for the least amount of time. I use an Instant Pot on the low pressure setting for 6 minutes to prepare my beef, eggs and basmati rice. Overcooking meat, and worse yet, reheating/recooking (people who meal prep) will greatly potentiate oxysterol formation which is bad news, yes. Meat has myriad benefits, just be sure to not overcook it and to monitor your iron levels (the storage form specifically, ferritin, which is pro oxidative). I know folks aren't going to like this, but yes, the saturated fat in meat, but also coconuts, dairy, etc, is in fact protective, but perhaps that's a story for another time (it entails epistemology and the erroneous pedestalization of human outcome data, which in principle, I agree with, but there are deep issues in this arena that I believe are not being understood). The study linking ghee to increased heart disease risk should ring the alarm bell for everyone given that it has much, much higher oxysterol levels than that found in cooked meats. I cannot stress enough the importance of this: I would consume industrial seed oils before I would ever touch ghee, and that's because my antioxidant status is amazing, so I'm less worried about oxysterol formation endogenously, which I am protected from, as opposed to oxysterol consumption exogenously which I cannot fight off. You will not find non-mechanistic studies showing a causative link between oxysterols and heart disease because these studies would never pass ethics. Why haven't we replicated the rabbit study with humans? It would be very simple to do, feed one group of humans oxidized cholesterol and feed another group unoxidized cholesterol and observe the differences. It will never be done because it will never pass ethics. One last thing I should mention about industrial seed oils that I've never seen pointed it, is their phytosterol content. Just like cholesterol, phytosterols can become oxidized, and they are even more susceptible to it. These industrial oils not only contain ancestrally inconsistent amounts of linoleic acid which increase LDL (and other lipoproteins) susceptibility to oxidation, but considerable amounts of phytosterols which can be independently problematic.

Alright my friends, I am going to be addressing the issue of whether or not ghee, due to its oxysterol content, is directly atherogenic, and this will necessarily morph into a discussion of the actual underpinnings of cardiovascular disease (CVD). I want to preface the delineation of these ideas by saying that I don't expect anyone to believe me, but that I have confidence in the fact that, as Leo followers, you will honestly entertain this information by at the least ascertaining whether or not it agrees with your own logic. I have zero need or desire to convince anyone of these ideas, I’m simply sharing a perspective that if right, would radically recontextualize a disease that every 33 seconds in America alone, someone drops dead of. This is a perspective that resonates with my own reasoning, but again, if it doesn’t agree with your own logic and intuition, then I completely understand. I'm about to present an epiphany that one of my close friends and mentor had over 20 years ago after the tragic, sudden cardiac death of his maternal grandmother, which plummeted him into the depths of a rabbit hole, the likes of which necessitated a frankly autistic effort to come out the other side of. This friend Luke had a deep need to know why such a thing could ever happen, and the answer he arrived at, I personally find exceedingly compelling, and one that connects seemingly disparate dots in a self-consistent fashion. I am going to incorporate a handful of studies since they were requested, but I also want to be very clear that this perspective cannot be found in any one study because it is a synthesis of several thousands of studies and observations germane to the subject matter. This study here just illustrates the appreciable oxysterol content of ghee, and negligible amount found in butter, and explores the possibility of the sky high ghee intake being implicated in the otherwise unexplained high risk of atherosclerosis in Indian immigrant populations (the full text from The Lancet unfortunately requires institutional access): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2887943/). This is a great review from 2017 published in "Lipids in Health and Disease" exploring the pro-atherosclerotic properties of oxysterols: https://lipidworld.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12944-017-0579-2 This study here demonstrated plaque reversal after supplementing with one of the most potent sources of antioxidants on the planet, pomegranate juice. After one year, the patients who supplemented had a 30% reduction, as opposed to 9% increase (seen in the control group) in their common carotid intima-media thickness. They also showed that these patients who began reversing their cardiovascular disease had serum LDL with reduced basal oxidative state and susceptibility to copper ion-induced oxidation (by 90% and 59%, respectively). https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(03)00213-9/abstract The bottom line my friends, is that I believe we have misidentified the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease, and the necessary consequence of that is we have been optimizing for the wrong metric, namely the assault at all cost to bottom out LDL cholesterol. The most profitable drug of all time, Lipitor, having amassed some 131 billion in sales during its protection period, something I have dispensed thousands of tablets of to my everlasting shame, is actually predicated on a lie, or at best, cognitive error. Having been a pharmacy student during the time my friend Luke communicated this to me some 8 years ago, I'd like to just share with you the reasons why, after being catapulted through much cognitive dissonance, I have come into alignment with Luke's thinking and why I deem it so compelling. If native LDL were in fact atherogenic, then it's quite odd that the serum concentration we target via statin therapy is akin to a goalpost that is being continually shifted downward. It’s furthermore odd and ostensibly unexplainable within the conventional paradigm how both people with sky high, and bottomed out LDL can both succumb to CVD. It's also quite odd that smoking is such a strong risk factor for cardiovascular disease despite cigarette smoke not being known to elevate one's circulating lipoproteins (the chemicals in it however do increase LDL, among other lipoproteins, susceptibility to oxidation). The fact that fruits and vegetables, potent antioxidant sources, correlate favorably with cardiovascular outcomes is then not surprising when viewed through this lens. The fact that CVD was undetectable and unheard of in the Tokelauan people, who consumed diets wherein north of 60% of their energy intake came from coconuts which are north of 90% saturated fat (which decreases LDL susceptibility to oxidation). The fact that any condition that increases oxidation, diabetes mellitus among them, increases CVD risk, also aligns favorably with this hypothesis, as do conditions such as familial hypercholesterolemia which increase the number of opportunities for oxidation. I must however underscore that I would submit the best strategy to counteract such conditions, be not to optimize for bottoming our total lipoproteins in circulation, but rather, mitigating the total oxidized species by opting for actions that decrease LDL, for example, susceptibility to oxidation (eating fruits/vegetables, pomegranate juice and wild blueberries most notably, avoiding cigarette smoke and toxic exhaust fumes, keeping ferritin in range, emphasizing saturated and monounsaturated fat relative to PUFA, not overcooking meat which forms oxysterols, not consuming ghee and minimizing phytosterol intake). The fact that, all else equal, having a higher ApoB (which is a proxy for the number of circulating lipids that could conceivably oxidize) puts one at more risk, is unsurprising given that there then would be more opportunities for oxidation. That said, the notion that ApoB is causal is absurd, and optimizing specifically for its mitigation is not well-founded. Viewing CVD through the lens of oxidation (any circulating lipoprotein, not merely LDL, but also even the cellular membranes of red blood cells) also explains why these so-called "lean mass hyper-responders" and keto/carnivore proponents at large, are not being shown to have potentiated plaque formation (their diets are extremely low in linoleic acid which will making circulating LDL, for example, less prone to oxidation). That said, folks who adopt this diet are missing out on the strongest lever in the equation which is an augmented antioxidant status (derived from fruits and vegetables). The increase consumption of linoleic acid over the past century, not least evidenced by adipose tissue biopsies, moreover corroborates with the view that oxysterols are atherogenic because of the increased susceptibility to oxidation that this facilitates. There are many more lines of logic/reasoning supporting viewing CVD through the lens of oxidation, and there is a 2018 publication from the BMJ titled “Omega-6 vegetable oils as a driver of coronary heart disease: the oxidized linoleic acid hypothesis” which excellently expounds upon such in box 1 with 29 supported rationales: https://openheart.bmj.com/content/5/2/e000898.long Consuming oxidized cholesterol has been shown to directly increase fatty streak lesions in rabbits (https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.ATV.18.6.977#:~:text=Thus%2C%20very%20small%20quantities%20of,present%20in%20the%20oxidized%20form.) and this has never been replicated in humans for reasons of ethics. When something is studied, the hope is that the intervention confers an actual benefit. A study feeding humans oxidized cholesterol would never get approved because it’s neutral at best, and fatal at worst, i.e., there is no benefit to be garnered when the hypothesis is that oxysterols are atherosclerotic. At the end of the day, you have to opt for the nutrition and lifestyle that agrees with your own intuition, because you are the only arbiter of what is and is not worth putting into your body. I just wanted to share this perspective because I find it incredibly compelling, and I’m genuinely happy to have had the opportunity to share this with you guys. Be well my friends.

I didn't even consider that, good catch. I suspect so.

I agree, but the quantum leap is then presupposing that the whole foods one does consume should be raw/uncooked, and to that I strongly, respectfully disagree.

Lol, precisely. Raw milk is overhyped, but it is very nutritious (as is pasteurized).

I can't imagine why sharing your experience with something you've found to be fruitful would be in any way frowned upon.

The primary drawback is that it would precisely distract you from excavating for, discovering, and reconciling the underlying issue that is giving rise to the reason you feel you need them in the first place. The cure hides where the cause resides, and these chemical crutches, while useful to lean on initially, will paradoxically cripple you long-term as they merely address the downstream effects of the actual upstream issue(s) at hand.

The rationale is that a wide variety of high-quality foods keeps you out of ketosis, which is far better for fostering optimized endocrinology (i.e., lower cortisol levels, higher free testosterone). Fair enough my friend, I had just never encountered the concept of "crude, adolescent-like energy" but you've certainly piqued my curiosity. I eat 300+ grams of carbohydrates daily, predominately from white rice and am able to weight train for hours on end, performing 60+ set workouts, but I am equally able to be perfectly still in meditation, or look deeply into a girl's eyes as an active listener, being present for her. It's important to note however that I am unusually insulin sensitive and that most people will not thrive in the context of the high carb diet I consume, because they lack the metabolic flexibility. On November 28th last year (2023) I did an oral glucose tolerance test. I downed 75 grams of pure sugar in the span of 5 seconds, and you can see here my glucose and insulin levels 1 and 2 hours later. My fasting glucose was 76, and 1 hour after consuming the sugar drink, it actually dropped to 68, and then even further to 59 at 2 hours post consumption, primarily because of my appreciable muscle mass which serve as a glucose sink.

You just responded to my genuine question by posing a totally tangential question to me. Please reread my question and actually address it if you don't mind. Yes, give me some time to compile the relevant literature and I will streamline it as much as possible for you. It's not well known yet, not dissimilar to the deleterious impact that ancestrally inconsistent and frankly impossible amounts of linoleic acid intake is conferring mankind with. I did my best to warn you, but as promised, will compile the relevant literature which hopefully will convince you otherwise. You've arrived at a point in your physiology optimization that sadly will be shared by very few humans that you cross paths with in your life, well done my friend.

What constitutes "very low quality" energy in your estimation? I am typing this now 1 hour after consuming a 1500+ calorie breakfast, and I am experiencing no compromise of mental clarity. Did you ever find it odd that heavy supplementation and nootropic use was necessitated for optimal performance after adopting their way of eating? I prioritize starch over fructose, which is one of the reasons I had 0 detectable visceral fat on DEXA scan while being 12.4% body fat overall (not even remotely shredded). This is all great my man, with the exception of ghee, which is one of the most toxic products in the food supply chain that nobody mainstream enough has caught on to. The process of clarifying butter to ghee, gives rise to an appreciable amount of oxysterols which are directly atherogenic. There are several studies, one such titled "Oxidized Cholesterol in the Diet Accelerates the Development of Aortic Atherosclerosis in Cholesterol-Fed Rabbits" showing a 100% increase in fatty streak lesions in the aorta after feeding rabbits oxidized cholesterol. By consuming ghee, you are ingesting copious amounts of oxidized cholesterol. This stuff is nasty my friend, and unfortunately most everyone is praising it unknowingly.

Not nearly enough B12 my friend, is there something holding you back from consuming meat/milk/eggs daily, and incorporating beef specifically?

100%. Some folks put way too much stock into these tests, and they are notoriously unreliable. In this case it's best not to outsource your firsthand experience and to ascertain your intolerances entirely empirically (you are more in tune with your body than anyone alive).

Yes, the best way is empirically like you've laid out here. Red meat and white rice is the reset/elimination diet I recommend for most. You can add back broccoli later if you wish, but for now, if it's relieving you of this pain, I would actually remove it just to help you better discern the specific food(s) that is giving rise to these issues. Personally I drink 1 liter of whole milk daily, but MANY people have difficulties digesting it and would be fare far better if they went dairy-free. I believe you will be able to quickly discover what is causing issues, i.e., within a few weeks, and thus don't need to concern yourself with micronutrient deficiencies in the short-term, but I am a strong proponent of intelligent/spot supplementation and feel strongly that optimal health hinges on such.

Bingo. I have and never will recommend pre-workout supplements, when a full night of sleep trumps them all.

Fruits and veggies are great antioxidant sources and they offer our best protection yet against cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease, but my preference is to opt only for the absolute epitome of such foods, which in my strong opinion is 100% pomegranate juice (wild blueberries are great as well, and fruit/berries in general are perfectly fine assuming you keep your fructose intake below 100 grams daily from any/all sources as a hard limit, but <50g ideally). But yes, my preference is to use highly specific/targeted supplementation, chelated minerals not least of which, as opposed to going out of my way to derive absolutely everything from whole food, which invariably adds such things as phytoestrogens, oxalates, and antinutrients which would render a net negative all things considered. I will make a video delineating the rationale for each and every one of these supplements that I take. There are so many futile and often times counterproductive supplements (vitamin E products that lack gamma tocopherols as one example or the use of vitamin K2 MK-7 as opposed to MK-4) on the market which makes it confusing and difficult to navigate. Great question, so gelatin is something I take (10 g of) alongside 500mg of vitamin C every morning several hours before my first meal (I separate my vitamin C from my beef to ensure my ferritin levels don't become excessive, other folks may actually benefit from increasing their iron absorption so this is highly individual). The benefit of taking gelatin is that it increases circulating glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, and hydroxylysine levels which are primary and rate-limiting amino acids involved in connective tissue (tendons etc) protein synthesis. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is a cofactor in this process. Having high levels of circulating glycine, proline, hydroxyproline, hydroxylysine and ascorbic acid at the same time fosters an environment conducive to accelerated connective tissue repair/regeneration. Consume it in whatever way is most palatable to you (I toss and wash it with ease, but you could experiment with dissolving it in a greater volume of water as well). Amazing, thank you so much! When I encounter people in my life with low self-esteem, it reminds me how remarkably important this work is, which from where I'm standing, starts with putting food and physiology first foundationally, and then emphasizing other elements of the dynamic puzzle of life later on, from a solid foundation that quite frankly, almost nobody has properly constructed.

Such a chemical crutch is okay to lean on, but long-term, paradoxically, the crutch will cripple you. Similar to how, while useful, vitamin D3 is not in and of itself a sunlight substitute, neither is coffee/caffeine or any wakefulness modulating agents such as modafinil. I strongly advise against its use. Any ballpark idea of what your macronutrients are (grams of protein, carbs and fat) on average per day? Personally, I would add in some white rice to increase your carb intake, but of course prioritize how you feel energetically over any estimate I offer (i.e., 150g of carbs daily).

Try to derive it from foods my friend. The problem with these tests (MMA) is that they are drawn from the serum and don't shed light on how much actual stored vitamin B12 you have. You're on the right track now, and while unfortunate that these doctors will not sign off on a vitamin B12 shot, it's really just a matter of time until you properly recover from this deficiency.

I personally advise against it, albeit, I appreciate anyone who approaches their nutrition with deliberation, as plant-based folks do. There are a plethora of potential problems I could expound upon that would discourage one from adopting a plant-based diet, but quite frankly, such pales in comparison to the problems inherent to the Frankenfoods that profoundly permeate the modern food supply chain. I buy 90% beef, by the kilogram, and eat approximately 400g per day as the primary staple of my nutrition, alongside 2 whole eggs and a liter of whole milk. Meat is divinely healthy, but unfortunately there are no, as far as I can tell, sequence of syllables that I could construct to convince you of that in a forum post. Fortunately, my goal is not to convince folks, but rather, to invite them to explore the power of a food-first approach to optimizing their experience of life. If you are open to adopting a new approach nutritionally, I'd love to learn about the one you have previously and are currently adopting, and what elicited the curiosity you seem to have regarding potential alternatives.

Best wishes my friend.

Much appreciated man, that means a lot. In the future I'll be releasing much more methodical content in the form of "sanitized" and streamlined articles that I will also discuss on camera/YouTube for those who prefer that form of content.

Context is king my friend. Under those circumstances, I would seek the assistance of anyone offering it, ideally that of an air traffic controller. My concern is that you've just illustrated a far-fetched example that doesn't even remotely resemble what we are discussing, which is talking to and attracting the opposite sex. The vast majority of men have and never will, nor should spend time receiving training on how to actually land a plane, but they have, hopefully, interacted with women before, many a time. To clarify, "landing the plane" means just shut up and get whatever job done that you're doing, and similar to how a pilot already has all of the training that he needs to make it happen, so do you in your intimacy endeavors (assuming you act, not intellectualize). A stainless steel spork.

I got you man: