Michael569

I don't disagree on that. Food doesn't need to be blackened tho to be already loaded with hydrocarbons especially when you cook on an open flame. As with everything, moderation is the key. Don't barbecue 3 times a week and you'll probably be fine. Okay, you asked for this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6121943/#!po=30.0000 This is one of the best reviews to date on this topic. Short summary: they pooled results from 54 clinical trials, and controlled trials, this is no epidemiology. The RCTs’ length ranged between 3 and 27 weeks; the mean age of the participants was between 22 and 84 years and their BMI was between 20.2 and 31.1 kg/m2. - so basically you are looking at young and old people, most of which were not overweight and/or sick and the duration of studies was long enough to see reasonable changes. Basically, when it comes to pulling nutritional data, it doesn't get much better than this. The only downside is that this is a 2018 review and we need a refresher. FINDINGS: LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) Each 10% of dietary energy from butter replaced with an equivalent amount of safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed, corn, olive, soybean, palm, and coconut oil, and beef fat was more effective in reducing LDL-C (−0.42 to −0.23 mmol/l). Safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, corn, and soybean oil had a more pronounced effect on LDL-C when compared with lard (−0.33 to −0.20 mmol/l). Moreover, sunflower oil was more effective in reducing LDL-C than olive and palm oil (−0.10 to −0.09 mmol/l Triglycerides (TG) Likewise to LDL-C, each 10% of dietary energy from butter replaced with an equivalent amount of safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed, corn, olive, soybean, palm, and coconut oil, and beef fat was more effective in reducing TC (−0.49 to −0.18 mmol/l). Safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, corn, and soybean oil were more potent to improve TC in comparison to lard (−0.42 to −0.25 mmol/l). In addition, safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, and corn oil resulted in stronger decreases in TC when compared with palm and coconut oil (−0.31 to −0.13 mmol/l), while safflower, sunflower, and rapeseed oil were more effective in reducing TC compared with olive oil (−0.21 to −0.10 mmol/l). Oils compared to eachother I don't know if you know how to read forest plots but go to Figure 3.I appreciate if you've never seen one of these, it is a bit intimidating, but this is basically how claims need to be made. This chart represents actual people in clinical settings. These are data when people are actively observed and monitored. They include meal replacements, and food being delivered to people's homes. Main observations here: Butter is the worst of all the fats and oils for cholesterol Beef Fat and Lard are following closely Coconut is kinda meh. It is worse than most plant oils and even comparable to beef fat. Still better than butter Sunflower, Rapeseed and Safflower oil are all pretty comparable and they are absolutely tanking everything else (in a positive way) . If I HAD TO say which one is the best, I would say that Safflower Oil is probably the king with Rapeseed (Canola) coming close by at the second place. Flax oil is kinda neat too and so is Soybean and Corn Oil Olive oil is no better than any of the plant and seed oils, in fact it is a bit worse (but still beneficial overall) there is little difference between all vegetable and seed oils when compared to one another but most of them beat lard, beef fat, butter and coconut Hope that helps! That was exhausting 30 minutes

Yes, burned meat is associated with colorectal cancer even when controlled for calories and meat quantity. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30275115/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21533415/ The guy in the video is all about maximising enjoyment and pleasure from the food, I doubt he gives a shit about heterocyclic amines and PAHs and all those wonderful carcinogenic particles being created in gazillion/per gram once you burn red meat on something with as shitty concentration of antioxidants as butter. If he at least made it on vegetable oil, it would be safer. Yes, you absolutely don't burn animal flesh and eat it. You shouldn't even eat burned carbs like toast or burned potatoes, This is an absolutely idiotic trait of stage orange people who somehow think open-air grilling and being the "barbecue operating dude" who drinks beer while serving everybody cancer makes them more manly. I do get the social benefits of grilling, tho, although I'd still prefer to get a burned aubergine to a burned steak.

definitely not, however, it is possible to go there for a variety of reasons, some of which can be pretty shallow. I'd say the aesthetic part is just a cherry on the cake compared to some of the deeper long-term benefits of resistance training. nobody is forcing you to go to the gym stop playing a victim. If you hate it, then don't go. Plenty of ways to get exercise outdoors.

I like Joseph Everett's content, however, this particular one is riddled with pseudoscience, appeals to expert opinions, rodent research and low-quality evidence. It is clear that he bit off more than he could chew and this video has been heavily criticised on medical Twitter for inaccuracies, cherry-picking and lack of human outcome data evidence. The pro-oxidative potential of PUFAs is basically negated by a ridiculously high content of antioxidants in these oils which have the ability to stop the chain of oxidation should it develop. The benefits vs cost ratio of seed and vegetable oils is strongly pro benefit which is not something that could be said of butter or other high SFA products., This video is not an accurate representation of the current nutritional data on seed oils and disease although it does seem convincing and pleasant to watch, ofcourse this is not something you'll hear a lot because most of the big names in the nutritional YouTube are marketers and smooth talkers, not researchers.

You introduced too much vagueness, she got bored and moved on. That's how most girls on Tinder will respond because she was likely texting to other guys and was not interested any longer by the time you were supposed to meet. It's not personal, tinder is a breeding ground for primadonnas and self entitled men and women who think they can always do better and many end up going from one disappointing relationship to another gradually becoming pretty much unable to sustain a relationship. Tinder dating is so f-ed up on so many levels, sorry you have to go through this. I got so lucky with finding the right girl early on, can't imagine having to Tinder date, my tolerance for rejection is fairly low Hope you'll find a girl that is worth it man! Perhaps there are better ways to meet women. Have you listened to Leo's 3 part dating series?

Yeah, there was some inflation adjustment but that doesn't count for much (definitely not 10% :D) so I ignored mentioning that well, this forum for once! But also pretty much just anything that pulls me out form the pain of deep focused work. I just get exhausted really quickly from any form of intense concentration practice, probably years of playing video games, scrolling crap on social and constantly hopping between two jobs. Cal Newport says that once neurons become dependant on constant distraction it is never fully possible to reverse that...so maybe what we got here is like when you break a bone and it regrows but never gets back its former strength and resilience. You get 70% of functionality but never quite the same. That's how I think about it now, I'll probably always be distracted but it is about controlling the degree. For me major switch was eliminating 90% of my video game time and time blocking my day into slots.

seems like @Jannes already answers most of it with great level of clarity Few outstanding points there: where this is not bringing you over the safe daily saturated fat threshold (about 25-35g) it is probably ok, although I would personally make a switch towards vegetable oils (saying that might trigger a discussion here) as the data suggests that reduction of saturated fats in favour of more PUFA and MUFA is likely to be beneficial (all things being equal) If you can make a painless switch to plant butter, I would do that, otherwise, see the comment above. As of today, I am not yet fully familiar with the data on the threshold effects of butter and whether it survives adjustment for calories (e.g. is butter bad even when calories are accounted for?) . I'm doing a cardiovascular health deep dive later in the year so more info coming on that. But my intuition tells me less butter is better than more and considering plant butters taste pretty similar, it might be an easy win for you. It might come down to fibre content rather than the type of bread. If you were gluten intolerant/allergic both of those would mess you up. I think it comes down to the composition of the plate, fibre content and the ratio of total calories: complex carbs., Overall, I think you would benefit from a bit more variety & diversity of the types of food you eat. Mainly more plants, more colours, more different produce etc. It's going to be good for your gut and immune system tolerance too and might even help with any intolerances (if any exist )

Thanks so much everyone, I have a lot to reflect on.

Thanks man! I don't mind more responsibility, it's just I already got a lot of pressure from my business and in the work as it is. I do, however agree with the second part of the argument that being an employee is easy and I could eventually learn to navigate the new role effectively. this is something I am not quite sure, but I would say at least 2 hours more per day that will need to be dedicated to 9-5 work. Yeah, I get you. These are not easy questions to answer and navigate. We all do our best with the resources we got. Sounds like you and I are in a similar boat. to a degree, yes. Most what will change is that my KPIs will change and I'll be expected to deliver more - which is fine. This is a good perspective, I can definitely see some cross-overs. For the foreseeable future, I won't have people reporting to me but that might change in the future. I am not keen on that but also realise that should my LP pick up one day, I may need to hire someone to help me so you are right, this is a very valid point. This is my main counterargument. Most of the time I dedicate to my LP is early morning, a little bit during the work time and then after work + weekends. In reality, I shouldn't lose as much but I am just not fully bought on this work I do. Like my commitment is low because I don't care as much about this company. With a promotion, I think that would temporarily change but knowing human nature, I will eventually slide back. But then seeing my colleagues who have this role already, they don't do much more than what I already do, I technically do about 70% of that work already ....having said it this way to myself actually helps, thanks for stretching my thinking Appreciate your input my friend, as always. Yes, this is exactly my line of thinking!! Thanks for bringing it up Right now, I already work with a graphic designer who is doing some branding for me and will be helping me with social post design. That extra money could go towards getting more work like this done and eventually refocusing my attention on the core part of my business which is clinic & research - these I cannot (and don't want to) unload. Thanks very much for your response and feedback! these are critical points and I have no answers to them just yet. So far money has not been a concern for me as I make more than I spend but I'm thinking about having a kid and future planning with my girlfriend within next 16 months so that would definitely help towards that cause. I think the extra income would probably balance out the extra work. thank you, these are all great questions. I don't think I've given myself enough time to consider those. I will do this exercise, thanks! thanks man, yah I have been pondering transitioning into something more aligned with my LP. The barriers I see there is that a lot of such businesses practice in a way that are misaligned with my ethics (as per our conversation about that longevity clinic), and it would also mean a pay cut and probably more time in the office. On the other hand there is a lot of benefits of actually seeing what an established and successful business does which is a lot that I probably don't do and could learn. I see this as a huge benefit. One of the greatest benefits of my current work is that I am 100% remote with a possibility of hybrid coming up, if I had to be in the office now 5 days a week that would significantly mess up my schedule and ability to work on LP. So yah, more questions than answers Appreciate your time responding. I call bullseye on this comment, aimed straight into my prefrontal cortex Exactly defines my main worries. The rise would be about 35% actually which is nice, it depends on how well I can negotiate that talk with HR. Because I have been with the company for 7 years and barely had a raise, I should have probably been on this position two years ago but because the company was struggling and I was afraid to ask for more in fear of being redundant it never happened. But now my boss is gently pushing me to go into this so there is that extra pressure. You are right about wasting time. I am actively putting a lot of effort into correction that by building more solid routines but a lot of productive time still leaks out. I am thinking this is actually time I could dedicate to my 9-5 because this time is not cognitively hard but more admin dependant and usually the hours where I am most distracted are the hours where I am cognitively the least capable anyway. To be honest, I might lose this job once I move countries next year to start a family so the way I see it it would be a nice boost of income before that happens but I am worried about losing valuable time and needing to pretend I care more than I actually do. Thanks for the comments, I appreciate the directness and sharpness! thanks man, I've added this to my trello board under recommended reading yes, I am seeing this as a potential opportunity, as others have already said, sometimes having less time actually means you become more ruthles with the time you have. From my experience the more free time I have the more likely it is, more will just be wasted on nonsense compared to having a more rigid structure in place. I am trying to include other people, right now I am paying my mentor and a graphic designer but in the future, I can see an addition of someone who could translate my research blabber into digestible content because my main struggle, for now, is to translate what I find into something that people understand and care about, that is my main source of audience retention, it is too technical. This hit the nail on the head. I do have a lot of dilemma about not being to shady or salesy but then making income in that way is difficult because most people in my industry have no problems exaggerating and dancing on the borders of ethical vs not so ethical as long as it can make them extra cash but then for many of them, health is their source of income where I am lucky that I have still 2 jobs. that is an option in the future and something I would love to do one day, yes. But not a major concern right now thanks for sharing, seems like a lot of us are sharing similar thoughts, struggles and concerns. Appreciate all your input, thank you.

Hey, welcome to the forum. Maybe the first step is to get a decently paying job, the sort that still allows you to have enough time freedom to look for your life purpose on your spare time. I am Slovakian as well by birth, although I don't live there at the moment. In the capital, there is plenty of job opportunities, and so is in in mid-Slovakia. In the East the situation is a bit more tough and if you are there, you may consider moving more west. profesia.sk is basically the easiest place to get a job as that's where most companies advertise but Linkedin hiring is being used a lot too. If you want more flexibility, you could consider a job of a courier for DHL or working for companies like Alza, they might even have job offers on their website. Alternatively, Uber drivers and other electronic app taxi drivers is a decent job, decently paid with some level of flexibility and lot of these jobs are often being taken by people who immigrated from other countries. But maybe those are a bit too shallow for what you are looking for. Plenty of jobs to be had at the big tech businesses: O2, Slovak Telekom, EY, PWC, Deloitte, Penta, J&T...all the big buildings. But if you have good skills, maybe you can work overseas with an international company. Polish your Linkedin, start sending out CVs and see what sticks. The world is smaller than it ever was before (technologically speaking) so finding a job should be easier than it was 10 years ago. Good luck!

Hey, This might be a bit too obvious but when was the last time you had yourself checked by a doctor? Like basic blood work including full blood count, iron panel, B12, folate, thyroid hormones, testosterone etc. You know the usual stuff? Sometimes symptoms you describe can be cause something as basic as iron deficiency, chronic infection of some sort. Low blood pressure can also cause all sorts of dizziness issues and brain fog especially where combined with low iron or low B12 or folate. Really hard to tell There is no harm in getting a bunch of tests done. Medical tests are actually the most reliable and accurate tests we have. Anything they use is likely to be the gold standard of what is available You mentioned "gut flora", is there anything that suggests to you it could be damaged? - things like frequent bowel motility changes, stool consistency changes, diarrhoea/constipation cycles, bleeding, mucous in the stool, discoloration of the stool, rapid transit etc. You will usually see the first signs of gut issues in the toilet rather than in your mood but it is certainly possible it might be contributing

Damn, thanks for sharing. Sounds like quite a journey. Those raw foodie communities can definitely be tempting, they know how to sell to people who are more spiritually inclined and they certainly know how to speak to those who have kinda got fed up with stage orange approach to health. But the risk on the other side of the spectrum is the one you experienced. Thankfully, it seems like the damage was still mild and you are on your way to recovery. Let us know how you get on. In this case, rebuilding your muscle, gaining some weight and refeeding microbiota should be your priority. I would put a major focus on protein intake, carbohydrate intake, fibre and probiotic foods for the next couple months and monitor your weight daily to make sure you are going up. If you want to go a bit fancy, consider doing DEXA now and in 3 months to also measure your muscle mass and bone mass

11/40 - I found a lot of those questions to be a bit black and white tho. Like, if you are already pre-biased to not come of as a narcissist, it is pretty easy to guess which is the right answer. It should have 10 times as many questions and they should be asking the same things over and over but twist it in a different shape and form kinda like Martin Selignan's questionnaire in his book or the MBTI. Not all questions should have the same weight and there should be a gravity of different options to answer. A lot of those questions were a bit dumb tbh and most required no level of deeper reflection or retrospection. Still cool to see everyone's results

I think, in some cases very small quantities of alcohol can even be beneficial especially for cardiovascular health. Red wine especially does appear to have some benefits but we might be talking like <100ml per week. But I haven't taken a deep dive into this topic so take this claim with a healthy doze of scepticism. In the countries where this research is often done, wine is a proxy for other things like social lifestyle, fish consumption, vegetables and probably even healthier vitamin D levels so it might be hard to assess the real effect No idea on the organics of it, probably better if you can afford it and are a regular consumer.

Lot of great advice above already. Couple additional things Keep a strong morning routine so that by the time you are sitting down to learn, your brian has been fully awaken cold showers in the morning may give you a cognitive peak early on, you can take another in the mid day. eating light but avoiding refined grains and too much sugar will help keep you more alert definitely avoid drinking any sugar-containing stuff take regular breaks as much as you can, whenever you can go outside to refocus your eyes on distant objects quick bursts of 5 minute cardio activity between sessions will help keep you cognitively stimulated You could get one of those hiking flasks up to 1.5 litre and then sip on it throughout the day dark chocolate can be mildly cognitive stimulating as well In terms of particular supplements, this is very individual but something as simple as mid-day espresso is likely to be more effective and safer than taking pharma-grade central-nervous stimulates such as modafinil or adderal (which is basically the same thing about 85%) You can never go wrong with theanine or rhodiola, some people respond to those nicely, but many don;t.

You might be right on the brain development thing. But you also gotta consider that we are talking about a time when lifespan was maybe 30-35 years. So yah, figuring out humans can eat meat and survive more effectively was a major evolutionary benefit. I didn't really want to go into this but how do you know brain adaptation wasn't due to survival adaptability (learning to hunt, track, harvest and preserve animals, build tools, traps, observe behaviour) rather than a meat itself. Would certainly be a question for evolutionarily anthropologist. Vegans might be prone to more psychological distress, maybe. The article you shared is based on a systematic review of cross sectional evidence. By design, cross sectional study cannot infer neither causality nor association, it is actually a pretty useless study where other evidence is available. Finally, how do you know that depression in vegans cannot be caused by extended empathy for the wellbeing of animals and the way most humans don't give a fuck about the cruelty of animal farming? I'd say vegans are depressed because they feel misunderstood and kinda facing an impossible task (we could talk about the epistemiology of stage green but this is not the time and place). It is important we don't make haste conclusions where none can be made because, again, cross sectional evidence is quite low at the hierarchy of evidence and the real answer is that we don't know why in that article, vegans showed more psychological distress. Btw hearing that you are mostly Mediterranean eater is a good news, somehow I thought you are a hard ass carnivore ? Anyways, I'll leave this thread now. Not looking for a fight here just challenging your opinions as i think you are being a bit unfair with the vegans and maybe...a bit biased? ..but then we all are one way or another. Take Care

Why do you always turn to veganism as if that was the only other option? Between Veganism and Carnivore lay a fertile ground of hundreds of variations of Mediterranean / Omnivorous types of diets. I do get that a lot of vegans tend to come across as somewhat dismissive and even arrogant. I've seen a lot of that. Some of it comes from a place of genuine care, some from place of pure superiority complex and some from a place of confusion where the person criticising is still unclear in what they believe in and their position is not too strong so they attack everyone because they feel insecure. From a personal experience, I can tell you that as somebody who has been in martial arts and fighting sports for about 16 years I don't really see much difference in energy. When I work on a boxing bag, carbohydrates rather than protein seem to be a determinant of my energy levels. I can go as well loaded on beans and tofu as I can be loaded on chicken (which isn't that often other than when I visit my home country). The main driver here is your level of experience (e.g. how efficiently can your body utilise energy before getting winded), your cardiorespiratory fitness (as measured by V02 max) and probably the sleep you had last night. In terms of brain size, that is limited by the size of your skull however, if you refer to neuroplasticity, there is very little evidence to show that nutrition (where the person is not malnourished) has a huge impact (all things being equal). If you put a 100 carnivore and a 100 vegan cohorts next to each other, make sure their diet is equal in calories and micros, they will likely perform not that differently on a series of cognitive tests. I would love to see something like that one day. I do think the carnivore diet will make you stronger tho because of certain nutrients but maybe where controlled for calories and protein, a trained carnivore and trained vegan wouldn't be that far apart in a series of strength, power, speed and agility tests. Would love to see that data too. Maybe someone could ask Andy Galpin to run such experiment in the lab.

Would you be comfortable sharing your full iron panel results? The first step is to reduce your heme iron intake (red meat, organ meat, processed meat) and switch to plant dominant diet as non heme iron is slightly less bioavailable and less abundant. Secondly, check if any supplements you are taking have iron, this often gets lost but a lot of multi supplements are loaded with iron and some people cross take the same nutrient from multiple different sources. I'm sometimes surprised how little people know about what they are actually taking. In terms of reducing it, the safest way, unless you are at toxic levels, is to wait it out and reduce naturally by reducing your intake of the top foods as mentioned above. If you are very concerned speak to your doc, I believe there might be short term pharmacological applications to increase binding and excretion but this is not something I'm too familiar with.

you're lucky, these guys just released their latest article on this topic. https://mynutritionscience.com/misinformation/ A great blog ran by a non-profit group of nutrition science geeks, worth subbing to this. Would love to be part of this team

Not at all dude, not at all! In fact, I appreciated what you said, means you are a critical thinker. That's fair. I think the science behind it is quite fascinating for anyone who is interested in understanding it, you'll quickly realise it can be so much more than calories in, calories out. This might help: Nutrition Made Simple, is a great channel for a start. Simple, clear, concise and highly researched. Gill is a likeble dude, does not stir drama and gets a lot of respected people on podcast. Anything that includes Christopher Gardner or Layne Norton as a podcast guest is likely to be of high quality If you want to geek out, then Nick Hiebert and Avi Bitterman are your guys For books, grab some generic academic nutrition textbook and start there. See what is available on Amazon, some Nutrition 1.0 or even Nutrition for Dummies (if you don't mind the pun) is quite good actually.

Not familiar with their work. At a glance you could say that put a lot of focus on employing beautiful & exotic people to appeal to young audience which can be a source of a bias as perhaps it would mean excluding more capable but less physically charming employees. The definitely also put a lot of effort into sounding scientific, progressive and cool. But of course this is nothing new in this industry. If you take their "quiz" it is basically a problem-creating thingy that convinces you that you are sick and you will conveniently be sent solution to you email. The questions they are asking are a bit random but I can see where this is heading. The messaging is highly stage orange with a lot of claims that are derived from mechanistic & speculative data. But from my experience with high-end clinics who focus on similar protocols, the process is as following: Coming onboard would mean paying thousands of dollars for their clinical assessment services with beautiful doctors and their beautiful nurses and bunch of blood tests that your doctor could run for 4th of the cost or for free if you pay insurance. You will have a private consultation with a medical doctor who will of course be bound by Non Disclosure Agreement to not tell you that what they are about to do is not just borderline unethical but also completely useless convincing you that you are in safe hands. On the top of that most likely you will receive several functional tests such as Methylation panel, Adrenocortex Metabolomix, Dutch test and Organic Acid tests or Microbiomix possibly partnered by Great Plains or Genova for a neat 25% kickback to the clinic while charging the patient extra. And while all of these are cool, fancy, give you beautiful and artistic charts representing urinary biomarkers and masturbate patient's ego, the internal validity of some of these overpriced tests is basically non existent. They are as speculative as sticking a finger into the air and saying "I think I have cancer". Some of them are pretty good tho. And then as always, based on your results (which are NEVER 100% good btw) you will be sold on an expensive maintenance protocol which will most likely include a dozen of nootropics, with a clinical markup, supplemental antioxidants, powders and all sorts of advice such as "avoid seed oils, take cold showers & eat more red meat". Finally you will be booked for a follow up in 3 months which, if you pay now, will only cost 1000 dollars and include all of these tests once again to see how you compare. Make no mistake, it will help you feel better - no doubt about that. As long as they address the basic stuff. But it is possible that could have been achieve for 10th of the cost without all the fluff. Maybe not. I am generalising and speculating but based on my experience with high-end clinics such as these in UK, who derive majority of their income from pseudoscientific protocols, overcharging clients 3 times the national standard, selling overpriced tests & supplements with no evidential basis and taking commissions on supplements. I would assume this is how it goes. I had a client once who told me that the the cost of my 3-month package was less than what he was charged in a premium London clinic at Harley Street for a single test. Do you know what that test was? Organic Acids - basically a pseudoscientific hokum that has absolutely no diagnostic value and all it does is lead to prescription of useless supplements. This is how low the industry has sunk. Guess this is why you'll see me endlessly trying to defend evidence-based practice because where we don't do that, we give rise to charlatans and scammers destroying the authenticity of the entire field of nutrition. Because in reality we don't know much about longevity when it comes to humans and the certainty of evidence is low so the gaps are filled by marketers rather than researchers. Most of we know comes from rat studies or observing blue zones. And so telling someone that the most effective way for longevity is to eat a Mediterranean diet, control calories, maintain a high muscle and bone density is boring and people won't pay you 8000 dollars for that so yah.... TRT has its value in men who are experiencing chronic health problems derived form suppressed testosterone for sure, there is plenty of good data to show that. Peter Attia did a great deep dive into this topic on his Drive Podcast. TRT is not something I would do to gain more muscle as a young dude.

haha good point ! You shouldn't

@Someone here oh god nooo don't subscribe to the "soy kills your testosterone" nonsense dude, cmon we had this conversation ??Ok, no seriously you're totally safe eating soy products. Who says there is an epidemic? If so many men are borderline infertile why do we see a boom in population growth? You know what I think there is an epidemic of? Lying shits on the internet who sell fake problems and selling fake solutions to this (which pretty much defines 3/4 of the influencers in the fitness industry preying on the insecurity and inexperience of guys who get most of their life exposure through their digital devices and are disconnected from reality ) The minds of young have been corrupted to such a degree that they are willing to give themselves cancer as long as they can get a six pack now and have an illusion of attractiveness and masulinity EDIT: btw nothing here is personal bruh, this is more of a rant of mine

of course a food can make you feel better temporarily but that could be down to numerous factors. Eating a food that you like and that tastes good causes a release of dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Sure you can translate this as "wave of masculinity" but that's probably just a natural response to something you enjoy. It makes you feel good. That's why we pursue the things we do because they make us feel good. Foods can have all sorts of secondary effects but it doesn't;t mean they cause permanent alterations (with the exceptions of some that do such as red meat possibly causing irreversible changes to the vascular system)_ Some herbs, like astragalus or Rhodiola can cause adrenals to release epinephrine short-term, which make you feel better, for a short time and then the levels get rebalanced and you are back on ground zero Coffee causes some dopamine release and blocks adenosine receptors - that makes you feel better. Doesn't mean it is making you stronger, just triggers some release of a few molecules for a short time. After couple hours, that feeling goes away. Some plants may cause a short-term vasodilation through nitric oxide buildup but it doesn't mean they somehow suddenly increase athletic performance by 30% It's just all this mechanistic translation into long-term outcomes that I have issues with. the word "boosting" indicates that you can just take a shot of something like drinking a potion in MMORPG and just get +20% buff in a given biomarker. It doesn't work that way. Androgenic hormones are tightly controlled by the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis. If you inject yourself with hormones, the natural production will go down to rebalance itself. If it gets too low, the pituitary will send a signal into your testicles to make more. This is happening thousands of times per day without your input. It's not a system you can affect as easily without taking synthetic hormones. Again, we are talking long-term, not short term variations. Sure, if you get deficient in these it may have negative effects. But what we mean is once you have healthy levels, taking more of any of these doesn't do anything. If your optimal testosterone levels are 650 nanograms per deciliter then this is where you will be most of the time and eating more oysters is not going to make you permanently go to 750. Whenever someone says "has been shown" ask them "where, can you show me?" I would discourage you from seeking superfoods - like the one thing that is the best , the greatest the most masculine & dick-hardening food and just focus on eating a variety of all sorts of foods. Making sure you are not hypocaloric is going to provide more benefit than macrodosing a single food nutrient. By the way, this is a bit off-topic but in the epidemiology, when long-term data is accounted for, omnivores, vegetarians and vegans have mostly the same levels of testosterone regardless of their diets. People who eat the most soy have the same levels as those who eat the most steak, on average, statistically speaking. Or if there are variations, they are tiny and statistically non-significant. But this reality is boring, so quacks will say stuff like "eat eggs to boost your hormones" because that's what insecure gym bros love and that's what sells. You can sell books, seminars and supplements by convincing people that what you say is true even if it isn't. The final topic I'll make is - always look out for the long-term effects of something that is claimed to cause rapid improvement. Heroine causes rapid dopamine increase but in the long term can give you dementia and cardiac arrest. Anything that rapidly changes the homeostatic balance of biological biomarkers is either toxic or a pharmaceutical grade stuff. I'll leave it at that

You might benefit from small, risk-free experiments where you give yourself the opportunity to have more exposure to all those things. Spend some time making music or speak to someone who already does what you are passionate about. Invite them for a coffee and ask them to share their story. How did they start? What were their challenges? If you have a bit of experience in the therapy already, offer someone a free support. That's how I started in the health therapy when I was still in school. I reached out toa few people and offered a free help and this way I got the opportunity to test the waters and see if I liked it.