Michael569

By "sugar" do you mean added table sugar (sucrose) or do you mean "all carbohydrates". Without the later, you will struggle with energy unless you can ace a perfectly structured keto diet. You can totally eliminate all sources of sucrose and you will actually benefit but there are few benefits of removing fruits and sources of complex carbohydrates, in fact, you may be doing yourself a disfavour especially on the level of the gut microbiome and intestinal mucosal lining Nothing wrong with good sources of carbs , ofcourse cut out all (added) sugar But hey, maybe keto will work great for you, some people seem to do really well on it.

Bulk shopping for legumes, wholegrains, nuts and seeds as well as herbs and spices in bulk in combination with batch cooking twice a week is gonna save you the most money by far in the long term. Animal products that are too cheap are better minimised in favour of plant protein sources but you can get decent quality meat for reasonable price too as well as eggs. For veggies look up any farmero markets around you, those places offer very good prices but generally fruits & veggies are mostly cheap as long as you avoid the overpriced fancy ones like dragonfruit, mangoes and stuff like that.

Congratulations France !!!! Live to fight another day

Get dr Greger's cookbooks. They are game changers when it comes to sustainable plant based cooking.

@soos_mite_ah thanks for the tag. I see really good responses and great value already provided by guys above. I sense the core question of the thread is: Why am I bulking up rather than toning down? How can I get more leaner & muscular figure without necessarily becoming too big? Is that about right? Let me start here and also comment on this You already know this but I'll say it anyway. It is absolutely essential (for your mental health, for your spiritual wellbeing and for your body image) to stop consuming this sort of content. Fitness magazines, Instagram posts, fitness influencers. I'd highly suggest unfollowing every single one of these people and throwing away all these magazines and any similar content. It harms our brains to such a significant proportion that many young women have actually committed suicide due to body image disorders. Same way young men get harmed by porn and cannot even achieve erection when in the bedroom with a woman who has normal un-enhanced body. Now let's talk about these two pictures anyway Picture 1 - there is a strong genetic makeup in the way how thin she is. She is probably also a bit fasted or in her top shape on the ohoto. This sort of figure is completely unachievable figure by women with more rounded body composition. She may even be competing Picture 2 - breast enlargement surgery and potential butt implant. She does have to work extremely hard in the gym, that's for sure judging by the legs and her arm development, she has been a regular gym-goer for a decade easily. But there is again a strong genetic component towards having large density musculature of the lower body but I can't imagine how hard she has to work and diet to keep her waist that thin. Again, I'd be curious how she looks without photo editing, pump and unfasted. Also the side posture while flexing the belly can hide a lot. Still, this lady is a fitness freak with extreme commitment to her body image. I'd try a new approach with working out simply for the pleasure of it and for the benefits of longevity and mental health rather than for a particular goal. Put some music on and Zone out. A gym time can easily be turned into a meditative experience. The reason for this would be that if there was already present some subcutaneous fat and now the muscle is growing, it is pushing the fat layer up, giving the limb appearance of being bulkier even tho you are getting more toned. I think the only way about it is to identify a strategy that works for you to start targeting that fat disposition. A combination of some cardio (which you mentioned) with dietary optimisation may do that for you. Some easy diet tips would be to make sure you are not skipping breakfast (and making sure that breakfast is made of mostly wholefoods) and to try to cram your food in a 12-hour eating window. If you can tolerate the discomfort you can reduce the size of your dinners, fast overnight and then have a huge breakfast. That may start accelerating that metabolism already. Of course caution with processed carbs (bakery products, toasts, white pasta and white rice) will help. Obtaining a pressure cooker and trying batch cooking in which you'll be using an abundance of vegetables, legumes and whole grains is another effective strategy to eat more but fewer calories. I've made a few videos on my YT channel on how to start batch cooking. Try looking at this and scroll to 6:50 for easy example. Now for that cardio, what worked well for me was finding a form of cardio I enjoyed. I really liked doing the sort of MMA -a type of cardio which is a combination of high-intensity bodyweight training with some weights. I like to combine that with callisthenics training these days. Now this may not be suited for women as much but you could experiment with some form of interval training, perhaps the gym offers classes. Some other great forms are swimming, cycling, rope skipping, rollerskating, hiking (brilliant for burning fat btw) or even finding a trainer for some light box padding. basically a good PT will be able to help a lot. Some products with some minor effects that may be useful are regular consumption of green tea, some people seem to benefit from MCT and theoretically even acetyl-L-carnitine but I believe the studies on that are kinda mixed so it may not help. Also, carnitine ha a few medicinal interactions (https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/levocarnitine,l-carnitine.html) so something to be mindful of. But on their own, these products won't do anything unless accompanied by a good diet, lifestyle and regular activity. Also, in my (how I lost 20kg video) I mentioned that the major profound effect for me to lose weight was changing my environment. Perhaps that would be an option as well? I recall we spoke about your mom before and I feel that maybe living with your parents is putting a lot of restrictions on you. Any chance you could maybe try some shared apartment with a friend (or student dormitory or somethign like that?) Anyway, hope anything in there is helpful Good luck and don't be so hard on yourself. remember, this is a life-long process not a sprint.

Do an experiment, go to Dan Bilzerian's Facebook page and look in the comments of any of his posts. This is what this forum would become in 12 months without moderation & sensible amount of censorship.

@Nivsch you won't know unless you try. Personal experience is the king. Why not try 1 month of active full-body exposure and then retest yourself to see how well it is working. I might be wrong on this and curious about your results. If you do this, would you mind updating us in a month or so?

Here is an easy one for you Mix it with some mustard, tahini, black pepper, herbal spices and tiny hit of soy sauce and bake for 20 mins. Make sure those tofu slicces are covered all round. Pretty easy and tasty!

This is the most stable solution there is without risking sun-burned induced melanoma from excessive sunshine exposure. The amount of daily exposure you would need to get from 30s into 80s may be several hours per day over several months which may tip you over the safe balance if you are more fair-skined. And doses of 1000-2000 just wouldn't be enough. I'd like @undeather to comment as well as he has an abundance of clinical experience. From my practice, people start responding to levels at about 5,000 is they are over 30 but for those under 30, I'd start much higher for a short term. The idea is to get into those higher levels and then keep there through regular sunshine exposure, dietary exposure or maintenance dose. Of course keep experimenting and testing but make sure not to get sun-burned, that is the priority number 1 here.

Ideally you want to get into the 80s. You could do initial loading doses of those 30ks for 2 weeks and then go down to 10k and then 5k. Vitamin D restocking is a delicate balance of testing and retesting on monthly basis and calibrating the dosages. It may be safer to do it across 3-6 months rather than few weeks. Also good to keep in touch with your doctor and have them involved to make sure you do it safely

It does make sense from a high-altitude perspective but it is not something I have been able to verify either through my own experience or through my client experience or through any studies although most dietary-comparative studies usually focus on outcomes such as cardiovascular health and inflammatory markers rather than libido. But were you to design a study where you would put 100 vegans against 100 omnivores and feed both diets that are clinically controlled for calories (means they eat same amount of calories and roughly similar split of carbs/protein/fat) I don't think you would see a major difference in sexual health and sexual performance, libido, erectile function etc. Usually people who lose libido and sex drive on vegan diets are undereating.... and so their body can go into a bit of maintenance mode. That can totally happen. But it is not the problem of the diet, it's a problem of caloric deficiency. Also, some people on vegan diets may experience depression, it has actually been found,I believe that vegans can be more predisposed to depression but frankly I think this is caused by simply becoming too empathetic and seeing other people not give a flying fuck about animal welfare makes people depressed. And so if that happened, I think you'd naturally lose libido too but it would be more psychosomatic than diet-induced. In terms of those amino acids. So you have a pool of 21 amino acids out of which 9 are called Essential Amino Acids. These 9 our body can't make. You are right that all 9 are found in all animal products and not in all plants. But once you combined foods (which most people do, nobody easts just one food) this issue disappears and as long as people are eating enough, they will get enough protein and enough essential aminos (hence why I earlier said "controlled for calories") Does that make sense? Zinc can be problematic in some people. But also in many omnivores. Typical chicken & egg diets isn't the best source of zinc. Most people actually don't eat the foods that are rich in zinc like seafood and legumes. Vegans can indeed be at increased risk of zinc deficiency but with a little bit attention, they would be fine. It all comes down to eating enough vs not eating enough. Properly planned wholefod vegan diet can sustain nearly all micronutrient needs except of the ones people need to supplement such as B12 & Vitamin D. I'm not defending particular diet here, I just think we need to be fair and objective in our criticism. Pretty large number of fit and jacked vegans out there to counter your point Just put "vegan bodybuilding " in youtube. People like Derek Simnet, Nimai Delgado, Brian Turner and Richard Burgees (Vegan Gains) have managed to get pretty jacked without eating animals. I know I apologise if my first response was a bit harsh. I might have got triggered but I don't think you were giving both parties equal validity so I felt like being a vegan diet advocate It is easy to wan things to be certain ways and then to find arguments online to support our hypothesis without giving the other side chance to present their arguments either. I definitely get sucked into this kinda of thinking all the time and it is not easy to be objective where we don't want to be.

It is a little bit complex to explain why that isn't so but basically testosterone levels (free testosterone) go up and down all the time in most males in relation to many factors including circadian rhythm, diet, sleep, physical activity, sexual activity etc. But the baseline level is usually pretty stable. Your body works hard to homeostatically balance testosterone and keep it at certain levels, especially the testosterone that is bound to SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin) which is like a bus for sex hormones because you don't want a lot of unbound androgens flying around the body unchecked. And so it is hard for a dietary component to enter that cycle between the hypothalamus-pituitary and gonads (HPG Axis) and disrupt it. Chronically low testosterone is usually caused by hypogonadism or other testicular deficiency or injury. Other causes may include pituitary tumours or a defect at the level of the hypothalamus. Other inborn errors of healthy development may play a role as well. In some cases, diabetes and obesity may potentially disrupt this mechanism due to increased aromatisation (at least mechanistically speaking) and so can medication which effect the HPG axis. and even chronic stress and starvation to a degree as shown in the Dutch Famine Study (I think this is what it was named). In normal healthy males, there is very little that impacts this delicate balance regardless of what you read on crappy bodybuilding forums and in marketing leaflets. SHort term deviations can happen but it is the long term balance that matters the most, same as with anything else. Now in terms of soy products, they do contain phytoestrogens that resemble the molecule of oestrogen, the primal female sex hormone but they do not act the same way biological hormones do. The affinity of phytoestrogens (such as daidzein and genistein and equol their product) on oestrogen receptors is extremely weak and they do not have sufficient holding power to really exert any profound effects there. If anything tho, soy products are protective from most homrone-driven cancers in men (especially prostate cancer) exactly because of this phenomenon because they also seem to downregulate attaching of DHT to androgen receptors and reduce testosterone to DHT conversion. I did a deep dive into the research and basically there is no evidence of regular consumption of soy products having negative effects on testosterone other than actually reducing DHT and increasing SHBG both of which are favourable effects and protective mechanisms. Whenever you read about cancer causing effects of soy products and their feminising effect, this is just mechanistic speculation that has not been proven in humans yet (and we have A LOT of human data on this topic, we are talking 100,000s of people) I did a whole 2 part blog series on this topic if you're interested to go deeper. https://www.andro-health.com/post/does-soy-feminise-men. PArt 1 is more mechanistical and part 2 goes deep into the research on cancer Hope that helps clear it out. In all honesty, where hormones and cancer risk comes in play you're actually at increased risk through regular consumption of processed meat, beef and dairy. Soy products are protective from those although I'd go for organic where possible due to possible pesticide and glyphosate use in the United States. But you want to apply that thinking with any animal products anyway, so that does not make any difference.

About 80-90% of the nutrition-related advice in this post is pure bodybuilding.com bro-science based on zero evidential basis. It's fine that t works for you but I don't think you've researched the nutritional epidemiology deeply enough to have as broad an understanding of the topic as you assume to have. The issue of low testosterone, infertility, libido and erectile dysfunction is infinitely more complex and way way more multifactorial yet you've chosen to numb it down to eating meat or not eating meat and fapping frequency. If it only were that simple. Ofcourse excessive masturbation will naturally cause decreased interest in sexual intercourse in a short period after (although not necessarily in all men) but the most common causes of erectile dysfunction in men are diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic stress, injuries to the penis as well as certain therapies such as chemo. You'd look hard to find evidence of plant-based diets actually causing infertility and loss of erectile function in men (where controlled for calories). In fact, plant-based diets would be the number one preferred diet for men who suffer from ED induced by clogging arteries (or Viagra) In terms of hormones, transient shifts in free testosterone, SHBG and DHT might be observed with lower meat diets (maybe, haven't looked into this) but those would not necessarily be associated with loss of erectile function. You actually don't want to keep your testosterone levels above the healthy baseline as it may overstimulate androgen receptor expression and increase DHT conversion and thus potentially lead to an increased risk of prostate cancer in older age (this is a speculation at this point but not a risk I'd take). The best strategy for testosterone optimisation should be based on prevention of unnecessary decline rather than forcing testosterone levels to be higher than they need to be. The last sentence however takes it one step further into a pure alpha-macho stage orange bs. I've seen decent quality posts from you before....you can do better. Have some tofu, allow yourself to cry during a movie and embrace the feminine side a little bit to find a healthier masculine balance within It's ok not to be the alpha all the time.

I would start with dropping the "fast" . A quality business takes years (a decade sometimes) to develop. Any overnight success is either based on exploitation, low-consciousness feeble entertainment (largest audience retention) or an influx of massive capital. Althou nowadays you may get lucky on social media but that sort of rapid hype usually has a very rapid downward curve of interest-over-time. You actually don't want overnight success on social media because it will destroy your ability to pay attention to anything. With the number of existing coaches on the market already pretty much for everything,, it is important to start thinking about who is your client and if the answer is "everyone" then you have already lost. What is their problem? What keeps them up at night? What do they believe that you don't believe? Profile your niche client to the tiniest amount of detail you can think of. If you can burn the money, I would highly recommend considering this https://akimbo.com/themarketingseminar to understand how to start building a nische busines in 21st century. I'm also undergoing this process as I want to change the direction of my business and niche it much further than it is right now. Also do not underestimate the value of degree or at least long term certification. Lot of people assume they can just start becoming experts with no training, preparation and background and then don't understand why they lost motivation and clients and get burned out. The idea of the training is not just to give you a framework on how to study, how to find the materials but also to start shaping the way you think about this, how you perceive your role as a coach, how you approach your clients and how to have empathy for your clients suffering. If you haven't done that prep, it will be easy to lose motivation when things go south for some time because you can "always just do something else". With that mindset it becomes difficult to build anything. The internet is filled with weekend-course coaches and 2-week course therapists. Don't become one of them. If you're gonna do this, do it right and go all in. If that means taking a 4 years course in in psychotherapy, then it will be worth it. Go all in and don't look back if things stop working for a while. Arm yourself with patience, passion and commitment and do something every day that will get you closer. Don't forget that this is a lifelong process. Take Care! A few book recommendations that may help Don Miller - Building a storybrand Seth Godin - This is Marketing & Purple Cow

Lol, nobody stole anything from you. You had a naive idea of how the world works and now that bubble got burst. Businesses have beenn investing trillions of dollars into advanced medical technologies for the past 20 years, tech that will advance the human body, cure blindness, cure paralysis, and deafness. This is the newest boom. I hope this won't sound harsh but with limited capital you will find it hard to compete with companies who can spend 100 billions on R&D and PR with a wave of a hand. But don't let that discourage you. You can still become part of that movement. Figure out what education you need and what specialisation to become a leading expert so that you can get hired by these businesses and chip in. Or become a specialist in development of more advanced technologies so that you can get hired as an R&D consultant. It certainly is easier than having to create that entire industry, entire supply chain and basically reinvent the wheel. Ideas can sell as much as anything else these days. Unless you can obtain a starting capital of 100 billion dollars an convince bunch of investors that your idea will be a return of their investiment withn 20 years and has enough of a competitive power, starting a medical technology company like that in the Northern America is going to be tough. Follow your dreams but at the same time keep your feet on the ground The ways you can become part of this movement are literally limitless even without becoming Elon Musk 2.0. There is an infinite amount of space for more people to come in within all those markets. It's now about changing the world. If you can help a 1000 people in any any way, throughout your lifespan and get paid for it....that's enough.

Moved to health section

Hire a PT

Wv Golf 1.4 Fsi. A second-hand (or more like 4th hand). Manufactured in 2009 and works well. I had to replace a few things that were just worn out and change a water pump after leakage but haven't had any other issue. The car cost me 2600 British Pounds. If you don't know anything about cars, it is a good idea either to buy from an authorised reselling dealer or go with someone who knows more about this stuff to help you review the state of the car if buying from previous user. Things to keep in mind: diesel cars are being pushed out of the market in Europe & UK, I wouldn't buy one consider cost of fuel if you are going for bigger engine especially if you're gonna be driving in cities a lot (costs of fuels are skyrocketing across the world and are only gonna go up from now on) consider how common that car is (spare parts & repairs cost) consider utility - no point buying pickup if you're gonna be commuting. Unless you want an exceptional performance something with 1.4-1.6 engine volume should do the trick. Go for the best fuel consumption you can get while not completely sacrificing for performance (Golf, Polo etc). Also, I think 6th gear is a nice thing to have if you do a lot of long-distance travel but I don't know enough about cars to really be sure this makes that much difference check if you'll have to pay emission tx where you live check the annual cost of car tax beforehand check the annual cost of car insurance beforehand make sure the car you bought is not reported as stolen or previously crahsed (authorised dealers will know this) Generally second hand car purchase is probably a better idea if you are on a budget just make sure to buy from reliable seller. You can't usually go wrong with German cars, Toyota, Honda or Ford (ppl who know more about cars may disagree) The more complex the engine (e.g. turbo and that sort of stuff) the higher the likelihood of issues (from what I've been told)

Derek Simnet has tons on his YouTube channel

@RendHeaven ah, always nice to get to know the face behind the profile

do you think you could post the full results of those blood tests here? (without name or any sensitive info ofcourse)

As long as you can sufficiently stimulate your muscles to repair and remodel and stimulate all the growth pathway through progressive overload and micro damage week by week it does not really matter where the protein comes from. Eggs aren't even that great of a source unless you do like 8-10 per day at which point you may cross the threshold above which eggs can actually become harmful to some degree.

Love his content. Absolute goldmine of amazing information

Not true actually Replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturates actually improved people's A1C score and reduces things like triglycerides and even LDL and ApoB. Diabetes type 2 is an energy status disease where the body has exceeded its adipose tissue stores and triglycerides are backing up through liver and pancreas. The maximum tissue store availability for fat deposition is genetic which is why some people can get ridiculously fat and not get diabetes and some get it while not even being chubby. The body becomes so saturated with calories, glucose and triglycerides that all receptors are shut down because it does not know what to do with all that anymore and so it stays in lumen of arteries gradually damaging glycocalyx, red blood cells and causing a havoc Weight loss is one of the most efficient strategy for diabetes treatment and eating less saturated fats and more pufas helps that goal Most people do not consume enough vegetables oils (even at the quantiles with the highest consumption) for them to be a significant factor in their overal calorie intake. This is a typical argument in low carb anti-seed oil communities that rarely stands to a scrutiny of good evidence basis. Ofcourse processed foods and junk are a problem but the issue is not the oils, it is the consumption of hyperpalatable foods that are abundant in calories but low on dietary fibre so it takes more time to reach a satiation point

There is nothing to heal because there is nothing wrong with you. Being a human means you are hardwired to crave calorically dense food. All of us are hardwired this way which is why caloric fools are so tempting to us. It is like a monk punishing himself for having sexual thoughts, you can't remove biology from your existence. From what you say it seems like 90% of the time you are on top of your diet and then if you slide those 10% who cares. It won't kill you, it won't harm your progress. Have a cake once a week and be ok with it. Allow yourself to have a treat every now and then. Your brain will receive a signal that it is not evil to eat these foods otherwise you are just punishing yourself for something you have no control over and then being miserable. As long as you eat well most of the time, you can pretty much eat anything those 10% of the time time and it won't make you sick or unhealthy in any way. It's just about finding that healthy balance in things.