Michael569

Oh absolutely ! If you can quit cold turkey, do that. If not, then slowly wean yourself of. Half the dosage you drink and start diluting those drinks with water. Sweeteners are a better alternative on your way of cutting these things out completely./ They are not ideal either tho so don't stay at sweeteners. You want to get to a place where you only drink water and herbal teas and adding sugar to any liquid will become completely unnecessary. It may be a struggle and it may give you some headaches and withdrawal symptoms but it will be worth it, that's for sure.

I never did call myself that lol. Heavy metal toxicity isn't my expertise nor an area I've done lot of research in besides some basic reading. You are failing to grasp the complexity of this topic and the amount of research it takes to understand it. Refuting your arguments would require hours of in-depth research which I'm not going to dedicate time to in order to try changing your mind Make sure you appreciate the limitations of your knowledge as well. That's all I have to say to this topic

Not really, your endless scepticism is a real pain in the backside

Not at all. I have recommended protein powders to clients before, not any protein powders just brands I trust. I have a bias about relying on powders while ignoring real foods. I will happily admit that. I have no issue with recommending a high quality, tested powder to someone who might benefit from it if they have already put their diet in order and are eating natural, mostly unprocessed foods. Whenever powders are concerned you are concentrating ingredients and that by definition can be tricky if the food is not clean. If 1 apple was contmainated, taking apple extract could be potentially much more harmful (gram for gram). That's what I said before you blamed me of fearmongering

@Yali I don't disagree with you. Some foods are contaminated more than other. But eating natural foods like fruits & vegetables is consistently associated with better health outcomes, meaning people who eat them have better health and less chronic disease which shows us that there is something in those foods that also protects us from those toxins. And then individual variations in genetic and health determine how much of that we absorb. Things like mercury and lead may tie to the fibre content of the meal and get excreted compared to animal food that has no fibre. Plants also have polyphenols many of which support natural detoxification. And finally, for those that are concerning either avoid them or buy them organic if budget allows it. If we start restricting everything that has ever ben shown to contain traces of metals and pesticides we are down to becoming breatharians. On the concentrated powders, well: don't eat them. Easy. Anything that is hyper concentrated can be an issue if the source is not clean. Powders are stripped of fibre and other components ion raw food that protect us. If worried, dump them all

do you really expect GOL to have anything on their website that could harm their reputation? Google Garden of Life heavy metals and you'll find a long list of articles about how their and Vega's products are just the worst of the rubbish pile

We can be quite efficient with the removal once we slow down the exposure. Plastic bottles,. plastic containers, plastic coffee cups and that sort of stuff are major contaminants (80-90% human exposure). Traces are found in everything but you want to cut off the few bits that cause 90% exposure. I may do a vid/blog at one point, thanks for recomms

With plants, the bigger issue are things like persistent organic pollutants, polychlorinated biphenyls, various forms of pesticides rather than heavy metals as they like to hang around animal tissue. And once you start going down this road, you'll very quickly realise that there remains very little you can eat if you want to avoid chemicals in your food altogether unless you can grow your own food. It is a better idea to avoid the major offenders (animal foods, contaminated water, living in polluted area etc.) and get at least some % of your plants from organic produce if the budget allows it.

Let's keep it a bit more serious

Is this still the case tho? Wasn't the use of Perfluorooctanoic acid banned in Teflon in like 2010? As far as I know, the other compounds used in Teflon today have not proven to be toxic but open to being wrong. Just wanna make sure we are not painting the scarecrow on everything now. If anything I'd be worried about hemochromatosis from using Cast Iron pans for people with genetically weakened iron clearance. This is a well-documented issue compared to Teflon toxicity which I could not find a single study on...please share if you have some relevant articles/studies.

Where do you live Half of Europe is either in lockdown or reaching towards lockdown. Cases keep skyrocketing, hospitals filled to burst. Not meaning to fearmonger or anything but this thing ain't going anywhere anytime soon. COvid will be here forever it's just a matter of mutating enough over years that it will become super infectious (like flu) but rarely lethal (like flu). The virus needs to mutate to learn to live with host without killing them

Look up a condition called costochondritis. Does it match your experience? Also it could very much be emotional as guys mentioned. I can get chest tightness from very troubling thoughts if they build up too much

Lack of libido can often be connected to testosterone deficiency or simply excess of other hormones like cortisol that are peripherally blunting it. Some potential culprits of decreased libido: Stress - high chronic stress will be lowering your testosterone levels in the body due to cortisol dominance Being overweight - I assume you're not but if so, excessive fat tissue can aromatase testosterone into oestrogen. Also particular foods can accelerate this process, I would need to look into research to tell which ones they are but there are a few I believe. Poor diet lacking essential nutrients like zinc, fatty acids , copper, chromium etc - your diet is a huge huge cofactor here especially I stuff is missing. Excessive masturbation or excessive porn consumption Spending too little time in company of women Sleep - you mentioned but let's not just mention it. How is your sleep? IS it deep enough? DO you wake up rested and refreshed? Do you get at least 7.5 hours regularly? Not exercising enough especially not enough weight-bearing exercise Particular medication especially those used against hair loss or DHT conversion blockers will massively mess up with your libido. Exercising way too much especially too much cardio can kill your testosterone Since we're on this topic lately I'll add a bonus - exposure to BPAs, microplastics, POPs, PCBs, VOCs and all those 3-letter toxins, basically anything can acts as xenoestrogens or endocrine disruptor and can occupy androgen receptors can mess up with your testosterone balance. In terms of some supplements, I've got a blog post on Maca & Aswagandha where I dug into the research, they both include research on sex health as well - follow my first link and click on Blog.

Yeah it has become a form of procrastination, escapism and a ego masturbatio. Not to a degree that it is toxic or anything like that but I could probably spend less time around here that's for sure

Yes it is a source and it is incredibly toxic for everyone around the smoker. You could consider buying a strong HEPA filter at least for your room, usually, these things are pretty efficient at trapping airborne particles. For me, this would be a significant motivation to get out of my parent's home at all cost even if it meant renting a one-room condo or flatsharing with other people.

@Ingit VivoLife are the only company I know of that test for heavy metals. They will send you the certificate upon request and I believe it can be found on their website as well. They have also recently changed their packaging to 100% decomposable and they support a wide area of reforestation projects as well as supporting many plant-based YouTubers who are trying to get the conscious message out there. Their products are also incredibly tasty, free from chemicals and preservatives (compared to shit like Myprotein) and have abundance of natural organic ingredients in there. I don't know if any other brand is doing that.

adding this to my anti-whey favourite argument.

Consider coming up with more nuanced and somewhat more educated posts. Present a solid counter-argument based on your own research rather than blowing a virtual raspberry. You're not being a critical thinker here. You're just being a kid

Reading, educating yourself in some way, taking a course, doing some interesting lectures etc. The sky is the limit these days. The important question is "what is meaningful for you?" It is better to channel that time & energy into a particular trajectory leading towards something rather than being all over the place and wanting to excel in many things. Once you know what you are passionate about, it gets easy to find what to do with that time

@undeather makes sense, thanks for clarifying that. I guess my thing against these 5AR blockers was that they can mess up with a person's libido and sex drive,is that not so? I recall seeing some of those adverse effects of Finasteride which seemed quite vicious. But yah, contamination is always a concern in natural products.

Do you also make breakfast during weekedays? What does it usually consist of? Eating a meal within 60 minutes post-waking up helps you shave off the cortisol peak in the body that has accumulated as a result of overnight fasting It has been found in some studies that skipping breakfast can induce depressive states in some people. This in itself may not fix it but could help. It would also help with the morning routine, which seems like a really good one already. I know this is probably easier said than done but that 1 hour when you remain in bad could be making if very hard to find the drive for the morning that you need. The signal the brain is receiving is that "there is no reason to wake up but it is not time to sleep either anymore" and so naturally what may happen is a bit of tug of war and some stress may start building up which will further increase the resistance towards waking up. Sometimes the most counterintuitive thing to do could be to force yourself to rise up regardless of how you feel about it and get on with the routine, get some mild cool water exposure on legs, belly and arms, splash a face and maybe add about 10-20 squats to wake up the muscles and get the circulation going. Also making the bed and letting it look neat give another signal to the mind which is that "time for bed is over and we are not going back" Another helpful tip is to make some stronger green tea in the morning, green tea is BDNF stimulant and helps with neuroplasticity which is essential when you try to retrain your mind to perceive things ina different way or to break old patterns. A few drops of Gotu Kola tincture in that tea may make this effect even stronger. May be helpful while you try to break the old routine of laying in bed. But maybe this does not resonate with you at all, that's also possible, in such case just ignore it. Best of luck

Would you say something like Saw Palmetto which appears to have (to a degree) similar function would be comparable in efficacy? I recall doing my thesis on BPH therapeutics and when I was comparing FInasteride and Dutasteride to SP, the differences weren't that huge in those meta analyses. At least in terms of BPH symptoms. Less side effects seemed to be a benefit as well.

@machinegun why do you think that you need to be broke in order to be enlightened or spiritual? Leo is a small business owner among other things, he created a course and products that have earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars while helping people. Myself, I've had just ridiculous benefits from taking his course and today I would have happily paid 5 grant for that course if I knew how much it would bring back. Does someone who creates something like that deserve to become rich? Fuck yeah. Don't make the mistake of thinking that just because somebody earns a lot of money, they are "in it for the buck". No, money was a sideproduct of his passion, commitment and creating a purple cow that people desire. Following one's passion and helping people is hard if one is stuck in a rot, earning little money and having no financial freedom. Doesn't mean they are money hungry, it just means they've played their cards well and can now reap the benefits. Seems like you have a huge stage orange shadow following you. Make sure you allow yourself to integrate it in a healthy way

Why no try to cut down on those powders and buy more nuts, seeds, nut butters and other more calorically dense foods? Huel are huge on marketing and they seem to be better than most other brands but nobody really knows if they are safe. Food is about more than just calories and protein and huel cannot give you things like phytochemicals, antioxidants. Their powders are also a poor source of fibre and Macrobiota Acessible Carbohydrates which we should eat in abundance from natural foods.

I would start with preparing your body for the detox first by eliminating junk, processed carbs, sugar, oils, meat, dairy and coffee and sticking to kinda semi-vegan wholefood diet for a month before you even think about detoxing. Get your gut, kidneys and liver prepared for what is to come. Just this will already help you start losing weight. Your gut needs to be prepared to take that shitstorm and liver & kidneys should not be burdened by alcohol, junk food or any unnecessary pharmaceuticals because there will be a lot coming down once you start the chelation. A problem I see with AC protocol is that so many people just start taking the products without putting an inch of effort into correcting their diet, this is actually what you see a lot on AC facebook group. And this is how one can end up with toxin redistribution, hepatic recirculation etc. If the microbiome isn't balanced well, that may have an impact as well. And then it takes tremendous amount of effort and nutrients by your liver (google Phase I & Phase II detox nutrients) to get rid of stuff so the body needs to be prepared and have a lot of micronutrients stored. AT least I'd do this if you care about long-term outcome as well as short-term. So to answer your question, give yourself at least 2 months of slow body cleansing and correcting of diet, more exercise etc and refeed the body with nourishment as it will require a lot of energy to do the detox. In those 3 months you will probably lose a lot of weight aleady. And then onc you are stronger, jump into that detox pool. Yes, losing weight releases a bit of toxicity but not as much as chelation will. Carrying extra body fat will be burdening your detoxification a lot so that should be taken care of first. Hope that helps.