Transcript of Episode #137 Featuring Dr. Mike Israetel! The Aesthetic Revolution: Embracing Vanity and the Future of Fitness to Unlock your Healthiest Self!

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Look, Muscle Magazines and software companies, people have to make money, but at least don't lie to people about it.

Well, there's no accountability, bro. Like, there's a built-in excuse for every single scenario or situation.

I have the crew. This is a disgusting story. Sorry, viewers. This is just who I am.

All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. So when I started podcasting, it's been about a year and a half now. I made a shortlist and it was the top 5 people that I, there was no way in hell I was not gonna get them on. I was gonna do anything I possibly could to get these 5 people on. And I've had 4 and I just got my 5th right now, right here. So this is literally, I have been so stoked for this interview and I've been trying to get it for a long time, but God's timing because My man here has an amazing book coming out that we are going to dissect and get into, but he is the only person that I really follow on YouTube at all, cuz I just don't have time and I'm just not entertained anymore at all. But he is a sports physiologist. He's a former professor of exercise and sports science. He's a competitive bodybuilder, jiu-jitsu black belt, author of multiple books, soon to be another bestseller. And like I said, He is literally the most entertaining and honestly one of the most well-rounded individuals I've watched.

He's the content officer at RP Strength. My friends, Dr. Mike Israetel.

Doing huge pleasure to be on your show.

Well, I, like I said, man, I don't have enough accolades or things to give you. I just want you to know that you have made a major impact on me. I've never been able to tell you that because we never talked. And, you know, it's hard to know when you have that many followers, but you really have had an impact on someone that's been in this line of work for 20 years, to have somebody that's similar to my age that conveys the messaging in a science way and not a bro way, you have been the biggest breath of fresh air and highly impactful. So I just want to say thank you before we get into everything.

Dude, thank you so much. I never really know how to process compliments like that. I was raised in a Russian Jewish family where if you were doing great, no one said anything, but if you're doing bad, everyone said stuff. So thank you, man. That means a fuckload.

I, I mean every word of it. Now, when I got approached about your book, I was like, okay, this is different. I, I don't know where it's going. And then I talked to you about where the book was actually headed and your messaging. And so what I'd like you to do is kind of give like a little small synopsis before we really break this down fundamentally, because there's a lot here to unpack. So give me the premise of the new book.

So it would be my honor. The The book is called The Aesthetic Revolution, and it is about how we need to rise up, topple the American government, and install only sex and people to— no, I'm sorry, wrong book. That's another book I'm working on. So the book is basically composed of a few parts. The first part of the book talks about how, you know, vanity can be really toxic and just a really bad thing in a really bad way. And I can get into, if you want, like, there are two specific ways in which vanity can be really, really nasty. But then also vanity is just like, if you repackage what it is, it's just like the desire to look your best, which like probably is not a sin and everyone kind of actually wants, maybe not everyone, but like most people care about how they look. Then I talk about how I do like a brief history of like how ever since recorded history, like, you know what I'm saying? Like the Egyptians were putting lead paint under their eyes to make the mascara look, you know, I was killing that. I didn't know that.

Um, and all the way through history, people cared more and more. Sorry, they always cared a lot about how they looked, but they were empowered more and more by civilization expanding to like do something about it. And one of the big breaking points came between kind of 1890 and 1920 after the Second Industrial Revolution. An entire— there was a birth of an entire class called the leisure class of people that actually finally had some free time, like before, for the first time ever or something. Because like, you know, before that in history, people were just largely like trying not to die was like the only thing you did almost the entire day. And then, you know, people started exercising during this time. Time they started be concerned about diet, you know, and then science started catching up. And then through the '60s and '70s, like breast implants started to be a thing and more advanced makeup, more fashion. Then towards like the '90s, 2000s, 2010s, the internet revolution hit and muscle magazines were everywhere. And so like today it's, it's possible to be like, you know, for free, literally for free from ChatGPT or Google's Gemini model, you could just like get amazing advice on how to eat, how to train, beauty tips, the whole nine yards.

And so like where this is going is kind of another part of the book where, so, so actually after I talk about kind of the history of it, I say, look, okay, here's what we know now and here's how you can apply it. So I talk about how to diet for a better appearance. I talk about how to train for better appearance, talk about how to do physical activity for better appearance, sleep, et cetera. And then I get into the next little mini revolution, this kind of long arc of history that has a direction. And the next mini revolution is the drug revolution where just at the beginning of it. But when I was first hypothesizing the book, the drug revolution was something I was just predicting. By the time I knew I was going to write the book, it had already started with the Ozempic revolution, right? Like Maltrezepatide and then Protaglutide. It's a completely different world today than 5 years ago before these drugs were mass marketed. Totally different world. Like now if you're overweight, people are just like, oh, there's just like pill and shot that you can take. It just like goes away.

And, and, and people are like, This is cuz back in the day you used to have to suffer for the shit. And if you had just genetically really high hunger levels, like you were kind of screwed to a large extent. I was like, you need to be miserable and skinny or fat and happy. And you know, fat and happy don't go together super well cuz eventually it kills you and you hate how you look. And then in the book I end up talking about the advances in cosmetic surgery that are happening already and the future of cosmetic surgery, the future of drugs. And then I get into really wacky stuff like genetic engineering and age reversal. Which in my view is almost inevitable. And here's one of my big sort of take-home messages from the book. By around the year 2040, 15-ish years from now, I believe that outside of really crazy changes in society, like we all rewire our brains into the cloud and no one cares about how they look anymore, totally possible. I think we're going to have the technology, especially with age reversal and genetic engineering, advanced drugs, that's going to allow anyone and everyone to look almost or exactly how they want.

And that's a huge thing that's going to just totally alter society in a bunch of different ways. 'Cause like, Dylan, imagine going to, you're out in Arizona. Yeah. Like you go to, you know, the Phoenix airport, you just walk through the airport to your flight. How many people do you see in bodies that if someone came up to you and be like, hey, you can't read minds, right? You're like, nah, I'm not a telepath. Be like, that woman over there that weighs £360, do you think she likes her body or doesn't like her body? You'd be like, what's involved? You're like, $1,000 bet either way. You're like, give me the $1,000. You nuts? Of course she fucking hates her body. And so, and then you could be wrong, let it in for $1,000, right? But you're probably not gonna be wrong. And so That woman, literally, if she makes it to 2040, which, you know, look at Jesus, if you wait 360, maybe, maybe not. She's going to be able to occupy almost the exact body that she wants. It is possible. And I describe how in the book, and she already is empowered through weight loss drugs, through resistance training, through good nutrition, good physical activity, and cosmetic surgery to remove excess skin to already look, if she took like 3 years of just grinding it out to look like 90% of how she would wanna look already.

So the book is like, here's what you could do about your your appearance now if you care. And in the future, you're just gonna get it all sorted. And the last part of the book is that chapter, last chapter was called Healing and Change. And I get a little, I'm saying your boy gets a little emotional with saying how basically like the hot people, the pretty people, the good-looking people, you know, people like in elementary school, they were adorable kids. In middle school, like, okay, everyone's awkward middle school, but in high school they were super cute. And then in college they were super fucking hot. And then they're adults, they're just, and then, and you know, they're in their 50s and they got, you know, the salt kept her hair and the women are just like, oh my God, I wish she was my boss. Those people and the female equivalents of that, right? You know what I'm saying? When the woman is 55, we go like, absolutely, she could still get it, right? Those people basked in the glorious sunshine of having bodies and faces they loved being in 99 times out of 100.

Right. It changed their brains in a very generally beneficial way. Other people, vast quantities of other people have spent their lives sometimes on the opposite end of that spectrum where You know what I'm saying? Like if you're really bad looking in middle school and high school, Dylan, children are unkind to you.

Oh yeah.

Putting that very mildly. What I say at the end of that book is if, as, and when you start to get the body and face and hair or whatever you want— I'm actually a hair care expert— as you get all of that stuff of your dreams, as you start looking your best, it is incredibly important for you to accept everyone's compliments. Accept your own compliments in the mirror and bask in that sea of positivity because you have to rewire 15, 20, 25 years of I look like shit and everyone knows it and I hate it. That doesn't rewire the day after you get into shape because here's the real problem. I've been on a fucking tear about this on podcast. The day after you finally look jacked and lean or shredded, you're a woman, you got fake titties, everything looks great. That day after that, where all the days before you looked kind of like Maybe at best Shrek or something. You don't feel in your heart of hearts any different other than the ugly that you felt before. And it's gonna take not days, not weeks, and not months for you to feel better.

And last thing, if you do the thing, which a lot of people do, cuz they're decent people, when they receive compliments or they look at themselves in the mirror and they feel the swag, there's a tendency to downplay it. Just be like, oh, well, oh, they're like, hey dude, like, hey, like, so I've seen you at the gym last couple months. You look amazing. What are you doing? Your transformation's awesome. Like, oh, well, look, just, I'm just, you know, I'm just doing my best like everyone else. Don't fucking do that. You can say that if you want, but in your heart of hearts, you better be, you better be absorbing. Someone compliments you, you sit in their fucking car after they compliment you and you just go, yes, yes. Because the people who have normal psychology, who are okay with their appearance, they've had generations of that shit of everyone telling them they look great. Of course they feel great. But if you didn't come up feeling great, it's gonna take a lot of you accepting positivity to feel great. Don't you dare deny it. It is now your right to feel that shit. Yep.

I'm gonna give you a reverse psychology on this and, and I want your opinion on it. But first, I, I do want to ask you a question. So the mentality that you're talking about right now, that's like a nervous system trauma, right? So somebody suffers a trauma, then their nervous system's off and they're in this like fight or flight mode where they're always on guard that somebody's saying something that they really don't even mean to them. So if someone's telling them they look pretty or nice, they don't know how to accept it because they're stuck in that mode. And it's almost like they need to reset their nervous system to accept any sort of compliment whatsoever. So how do, how do they get past that? Like, what does it take? Do you have any sort of recommendation or something you cover in the book? Because I know exactly what you're talking about. I see it. I've seen it. I was a fashion model. Like, I've seen it my whole life, both sides of the equation. So How does one like get past that and start accepting compliments?

The number one recommendation I have— great question, by the way, Joe. Thank you. The number one recommendation I have is to at least cognitively understand that deriding yourself, putting yourself down, saying you're not worth a compliment and believing it is not the correct answer. Like, it's the difference between like your wife does something you fucking can't stand. And you feel pissed. It's the difference between telling yourself in your head, I should be pissed. She shouldn't be doing this. Versus telling yourself like, anger is a completely outdated, absurd emotion. I'm an adult man. I'm feeling it, but I know it's not the right thing. At the very least, you should be thinking that when you get super angry at your wife, you know, unless you start throwing shit or whatever, that's not a good idea. So exactly to that point, if someone's complimenting you, maybe for the first time in 20 years, maybe for the first time ever, you are totally allowed to feel, no, no, no, no, there's, there's a trick. There's like hidden cameras or some shit. Like they're mocking me. That's cool to feel, but at least tell yourself in your head, like, I should be accepting this compliment in my heart of heart.

And if you have that little kind of little parrot on your shoulder all the time reminding you like you should be accepting compliments, every now and again, you're absolutely, you're actually going to listen to that motherfucker. And then you're going to actually accept a compliment one of these days and it's going to feel goddamn good. And then slowly but surely you're going to accept more compliments. There's gonna be thoughts that bubble up in your head. Some of the thoughts will be like, you look at yourself in the mirror and you're looking swagged out. Like you've never looked this good. One, one bubble in your thought, in your thought process might be like, yeah, but don't be one of these vain idiots. Like you're more than just your look. But another thought might come up and be like, you look great. Just say to yourself, you look great. Bass, bass, motherfucker. Your overarching cognitive process after those two thoughts are both kind of competing for attention should be like, yeah. No. Yeah, I'm gonna bask. I'm gonna bask. 'Cause it's totally valid to not be like a, just a total lunatic that only sees their appearance as a great thing.

But it, I'll tell you this, Dylan, it's really easy to see your appearance is not the main part about you when you've healed the low-key mini trauma of being like, looking like shit and hating yourself your entire life. Once you've drank enough from the sea of like, I look good, you just, you're fine. And then you're totally normal about compliments, but it's gonna take a lot of drinking to get there. Like I remember for a while in, in my personal life, I felt very weak and underpowered. I felt maybe like small or something like metaphorically. I got really big. I got really strong. I was powerlifting. I did bodybuilding. I did Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I worked all the way up to black belt. I was an okay competitor. And after, you know, getting beat up enough and beating up enough people and walking like around at £250, I just like don't feel small anymore. I don't feel weak. And, but, but it took all of that for me not to feel small and weak. And so if you are looking in the mirror or you're looking in your own mind or you're talking to other people and your negative, negative thoughts of, look, oh, well, no, they don't mean it.

That bubbles up. And also positive thoughts like, hey, take a compliment. Just try more often than not to, with your overarching cognition, just choose to promote the good stuff. You know what I mean? Like back in the old days when they used to test two different responses of ChatGPT, they'd be like, do you like this response or that one? They'd be like, read both. I'm like, click on the one that makes the most sense. That's a big deal. That kind of thing is going to take you far. Because I would love to have an answer for you, Dylan, that was like a hack. Look, actually it's easy. You just do this. There's no fucking hack in the brain. It's just time and, and reasserting the positive and looking at the negative and be like, nah, I'm, I'm good. I'm good with the negative.

I'm glad you said that. 'Cause you know, I, I work in the biohacking sphere, so to speak, which is really just taking control of your own health. But we gotta have fancy terms for shit. Yeah. And it's like the, the, the hacks are not hacks. It's like normal everyday shit.

That you get 8 hours of sleep. Yeah. Take fit supplements.

But yeah, people ask me all the time, Dylan, what's, what's the greatest hacks? And I'm like, uh, get out in the morning and walk. Uh, do some breathwork, walk, you know, like sleep, don't be so stressed. I mean, it's not this craziness. So I love what you said there because if people like slowed down and stopped making things so complicated and just did basic shit, you can't believe how good you actually feel and how everything else kind of lines up for you. So I, I, I love that. Here's what I wanted to ask you, cuz I wanna go reverse here. So we got the people that never knew how to take a compliment. Okay. And so we, we see their side of the equation. Now let's take it to the other side. So I'm gonna let you psychoanalyze me. I, I, I wanted to do this. Cool.

I'm not qualified, but I love it.

You are very qualified for this. So when I was, you know, in middle school and elementary, I was always like in that popular group, but overweight. So it was, to me it was like, okay, if you wanna take a shot at me, it's you're fat. It's a very simple shot. And if there's nothing you can say to defend yourself, it was like, you're fucking fat. Okay, you're fat. But I was still in that group, good athlete, but never where I should have been because of that. And then all of a sudden, growth spurt, 6'1" from 5'8", like really lean. And I mean, no problem with anything with girls or anything like straight stud all through high school and everything. But that's when I developed this like eating disorder and this fight with food and this mentality of I'm terrified. To ever go back to this. I never want this again. And then I'm like, 4-sport athlete, college basketball player, fashion model, working with bodybuilders then. So you see this whole time, it's this fight of, man, I gotta look good, YouTube, this. And it's even walking around thinking I'm the shit everywhere I go and knowing it still in the back of my mind, telling myself, man, you gained a pound today, man.

Like you, you ate this or you did this. And it was this constant fight that it took me till 2 years ago to say, you know what, if I wake I wake up in the morning and I'm worried about what some dude thinks about how I look. I got my own issues, but it took me this whole time. And so do you find that to be a big problem vanity-wise where people that get the attention that, and they still look at themselves a certain way, that that's a big problem too? I mean, cause I feel like that's something that a lot of guys especially don't want to talk about. And I'm fine to talk about it cause it's, it's, it happens, you know, and I want people to not go through it.

100%. So I said earlier that there were two specific kind of toxic ways to do vanity. One toxic way to do vanity is to compare yourself to others. Another toxic way to do vanity is perfectionism for yourself.

Yep.

And that, like, I can't gain a pound, or I'm a bad person and I look like shit and everyone knows I look like shit. That's perfectionism. And perfectionism is tempting to those of us who are like prone to be like pretty industrious and prone to try to like better ourselves. So all of your viewers pretty much, cuz I don't think anyone's gonna be listening to your podcast unless they wanna improve themselves to some extent. Or they just think you're really fucking handsome and they're just literally jerking off right now. And they're really pissed that like every time I talk, my face pops up and they're like, goddammit, can you talk less and just look at Dylan's gorgeous face? So if you're the kind of person that wants to improve, let's say you're an engineer and you design nuclear reactor and you're like looking at a schematic of a reactor, you're just like basically like just designing. Your goal was always the perfect nuclear reactor, always. And it never ends. And so you get to 75% efficiency, you get to 85%, you get to 95, and you come home to your wife and she's like, how's the actor design honey?

You're like, bitch, you're not supposed to talk about this shit. It's fucking top secret. Just kidding. You shake her a little bit, you know, you're not hating on her. And so after you're done reprimanding her for saying it, you're like, you know what? It's 95% efficient. And she's like, amazing mission accomplished. You're going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we mean 100% efficiency or whatever—where does mathematically feasible 99%. That's when I'll retire. So that same mindset that's so helpful to training, to diet, to lifestyle, to everything, if you misunderstand it, is gonna be toxic as fuck. And the way that I think about it best is there is a time to push on the pedal to be better, and there is a time to coast and jam and just be. Do not get those times twisted. So when I'm in the gym or when I'm planning my meal plan for fat loss phase, or it's time for me to set up my sleep routine, I am an optimalist perfectionist psycho because my shit's serious. I'm in the gym to fucking go to a, you know, systematized war and it's going to be like every rep's got to be perfect or whatever, all that shit.

Great. But when you're chilling out, when you're walking around, when you're like in your evening threads or whatever, and family's over and you're just vibing and you're not exclusively having a goal right then and there of like maintaining the perfect pristine physique for who, your uncle? Then you got to switch that mindset 180. And look, if you want your body to impress your uncle or your real deep shit serious childhood problems. But sorry, it's just me talking about my many uncles that have done unspeakable things to me. Dylan, I just start crying. You're like, holy shit, he's just coming out right now on my podcast. That's weird. But basically you have to flip the script and just be like, you know what, man, I'm vibing. And tomorrow when I wake up and it's time to train and it's time to eat good meals, I'm going to go back to psycho-optimal mode. But that perfectionism is just inadmissible in most of life. Here's the good news. Like I could say that and, and people could be like, okay, I could believe you, but how do I do this? What are the cognitive techniques I can use in daily life to chill me out?

And here's the reality. If you think that even a week of off the rails, total nonsense, like raccoons raid your pantry style of eating, like you just show up to Walmart and they're like, can we help you? And you're like, Cheetos, all of them. I'm going to buy them all. I don't care. I'm not going to go on the aisle. I want the pallets in the back. I know you motherfuckers at Cheeto Pallets, nerd. Well, we do. It's $1,000. There you have it. That's it. Here's a $1,000 bill. It's your face painted on a piece of paper, and then you leave with the fucking pallet. If you do that for a week and then you eat clean for 2 weeks after, you will completely reverse every single effect on your body, right? Okay. So that if you do that for a day, 3 days will reverse the effect almost certainly.. And if you do that for a meal, it just doesn't fucking register. So how many times have people eaten, like, instead of 2 slices of pizza, they ate 12 and then they wake up the next day and they're kind of more full and more salty and more shredded and more veiny and they're like, holy shit, is pizza the next steroid?

Be like, it's the fat. Because we always think at high stakes, we think like, dude, if I have this apple slices, I'm gonna be God. If I have a Snickers bar, I'm gonna like literally like the next day, the, the cast and crew and production team from My 600-lb Life is gonna show up to my house I gotta start filming a fucking episode. One Snickers bar later, your boy's gonna be £800. It does not work like that ever at all. And so if you ever have yourself thinking like, cause dude, I'll go to restaurants and like with my friends, I'll be high on marijuana and I'm looking at the menu and I'm like, what's the, what's the good choice to make? Shut up. Shut up. You're in a restaurant. Order something with protein and then whatever the fuck else you want. And you're going to wake up the next day looking amazing. No, like If you think, okay, but if I do this every day, I'm gonna be outta shape. Yeah, no shit. But that's not really the temptation, is it? The, the real temptation and toxicity thinking is thinking I have to be flawless every single day.

And that's bullshit. Yep. I love that, dude. You know, here, here's something for you. So, and, and I always say this when I go back and I say, oh, I looked my best. I felt my worst, like the absolute worst that I was like 4 or 5% body fat, Winstrol, Anabar cycle, little bit of Tren, barely ate shit. And I felt like hell, you know, like, yeah, you know what I'm saying? Just all over the place. And I swear to you, for the— and I'm a nutritionist for almost 20 years now, and I literally starved myself, Mike, where like 90, 100 minutes of cardio a day in the gym, taking cycles, and I'm eating like 1,500 calories a day. You already know how much I'm burning hardcore. I should be eating 4,000 or 5,000 calories, right? Maybe. Maybe 10 to 15 grams of fat. And I mean just terrified. And I mean scared like I saw a fucking ghost. And seriously, 2 years ago, I walk in the kitchen, I tell my wife, like, I literally am so miserable. I can't do this anymore. And I said, we're just going to flip the switch. And now I—

sorry, sorry, Dylan. What was your goal?

I don't know. My goal was to just, you know, not be miserable. Like, yeah. And you know, you know how it is when you eat like that and you're training that hard, you're just your mind is gone. So every 20 minutes I was getting up and eating vegetables or walking around the house or like any, you know, so I, I went from 10 grams of fat a day to 130 and 1,500 calories to 3,000. And I'm telling you, man, I haven't been that shredded now. And, and since, since the steroid side, and it's just the way that the food works and the fears and, and what you just said, if I could wrap my head around than like going and doing that one time and just not giving a shit and, and then waking up and like, whoa, answer me this. Why are you able, because a lot of people question this, you go have a, the pizza meal you said, or the carb loading or whatever. Why do you wake up so jacked and veiny and everything?

What causes that? Few things. Number one is you will get really thirsty eating that much carbohydrate and that much salt, and it'll bring more water into your body and some of that water will fill up your bloodstream. And so you'll be more vascular. Another thing is your carbohydrates that you eat in excess will get loaded into muscle glycogen and then it'll literally make your muscles poof up bigger. And so you like jacked because you are more jacked. And then another thing is, this is a real trippy one. If you're dieting and restricting and you're hypocaloric, you are in a chronic stress condition. You basically, your body, like our bodies are built by evolution long-ass time ago and they're like, okay, so if you're not getting any food, basically the hunger period has started. Like the harvest has failed or the fucking mammoth herd didn't show up. And it's time to restrict and it's time to have your head on a swivel to look for like, I don't know, rocks to eat or whatever the fuck, like a bunny rabbit with a broken leg and you pounce on it. Crazy shit like that, right? Super stress, fight or flight.

That stress hormone environment is going to store water under your skin. It's going to make you puffy and bloated. If you've ever seen anyone who's been on longer-term corticosteroid therapy, like they get like the moon bloat face and there's just not a good look. So, If you have a giant cheat meal and you go to sleep for fucking 12 hours after or whatever, first of all, your sleep quality will be phenomenal cuz you're not star— your body's not physically starving for the first time in forever. And second of all, it'll drop into a parasympathetic state from the sympathetic state. It goes from fight or flight to relaxation and recovery, and that reduces your under the skin subcutaneous water so much that you wake up dry as a fucking bone. Full and with big ass veins, and then you look your best ever. Now, if you keep eating like that, you're just gonna slowly get fatter and fatter and fatter and fatter. You look amazing for weeks and weeks and weeks, and then less amazing, and then you look like whatever again. But a one meal like that is— that's most of the mechanisms of how it makes you look awesome.

Okay, I gotta slip in one of those every now and then. I got— I'm still wrapping my head around the diet changes, so I gotta slip a pizza night in, dude. Like, I have to. So, so, so throughout the studies of this book and the understandings of the vanity, I would like to take a quick look because I have some questions on the food side, but I want to look at the, the, like the bodybuilder side of things. How prevalent of a problem is it for bodybuilders? And when I say eating disorder or battle with food, it's not just anorexia. I see people don't understand eating disorders. There's multitudes of fights with food. How big of a problem do you find that in the vanity side? Do you find that people struggle in like bodybuilding with their way that they eat in terms of the fears that I was talking about, or having eating disorders and battles with food?

It's very common, but it's common in a way that tends to be in, in my experience, pretty individual specific. So it's less like, well, everyone has it to some extent and more like some people have real serious, like When they get into contest prep, especially towards the end of it, they're exhibiting like patterns of disorder eating for sure. And they feel it. Other people will have like a nuisance factor and some doubt, but nothing crazy. Other people have almost nothing going on. And still another large group of people are just totally hunky-dory. Like I know guys that will do crazy diets. I know guys that will get really heavy in the off-season and you're like, You would think they'd get attached to their abs. They just don't give a fuck. And then other people, you get them into the shape of their lives and you have trouble at getting them to regain weight to start gaining muscle again because they never want to be anything other than their most shredded ever. And that's a thing, man. A lot of people are like that. I can't lie and say it's everyone. It's not some kind of epidemic in the bodybuilding community or, or in the aesthetics community, Lots of people have those kinds of thoughts and it's a real big problem when you're that person having those kinds of relationships with food.

And, and, and sometimes you find solace in other members of the fitness community because a lot of other people are talking about it nowadays. It used to be you didn't talk about it, but nowadays everyone's, uh, not everyone nowadays, a lot of people are talking about it and you could be like, oh, I'm not the only person feeling like, so if you basically say your bodybuilder, if you have a good bodybuilder coach and you're like 2 weeks after your show, you're on a muscle gain plan. And you're like, hey coach, like I'm really worried I'm just gonna like lose my abs and I love my abs. It's the first time I've seen them with you in this last prep. I just want to see them forever. Your coach, if it's a good coach, is going to do, don't you worry about it. Everyone says the same thing. And here's two, two pieces of good news. When we're going to muscle gain you for the next 6 months, you're never going to get really fat ever again. You're just going to get like a little, a little puffier, a little softer, but you're going to be huge, going to be fucking strong.

And here's the second thing, When you diet down again, you'll get even more shredded than ever. And by the time you're 6 weeks into your next diet, you'll look like you did at the end of the last diet. And that happens almost every time. So it's, it's really, it is a pro— now that's the good side. The bad side is you're doing the shit alone or you have a toxic coach and then you're like, hey, I'm like really starting to struggle with food. I fantasize about food a lot. And your coach is like, just fuck what it is, brother. Just gotta swallow it. And you're like, thanks, I guess. That's than I could have given myself. And so people, some people quit the entire sport, quit all of aesthetics. They just can't fucking handle it anymore.

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Um, and it's definitely a problem.

I see so much of that still to this day, like the, the bro diets. And it's not even just bro, it's just the whole mentality of this chicken and rice bullshit or this starving stuff. And it's just— I'm lost as to how there's no, like, true grasp on the actual foods that will cut you up. And I— one of the things that I've learned is with the fat especially, and if you balance it right and use it, man, it shreds your ass up, especially if you're doing heavier cardio or, or working out like the extent we're talking. I'm assuming, and, and you correct me if I'm wrong, a lot of the vanity stuff that we see, most of the problem is kind of diet related. Now, of course, there's facial things and things that we were talking about, but do you think that most of the vanity vanity stuff is more on like the diet food relation side in terms of where the problems are coming from, or what's your observance?

Two problems that I see as the biggest in like the objective side of, of, of not so great feelings in relation to, to this pursuit of fitness and vanity. One side of it is the physical existence of not great looking fatty tissue on your body. Like if you have big ass love handles and when you diet down, They just like look like saggy skin love handles instead, which you can't tell if that's worse or better or the same. I used to have this problem because I got super fat on purpose. And then I actually just had like a year ago, I got surgery to get rid of my love handles because every time I get lean, I would just have like saggy love handles. And then every time I get big, I just have enormous love handles. And so if you have like a big, big gut or huge fucking love handles, something that like can't really contextually be like interpreted by anyone as like an attractive thing or great thing is sure as shit not about you. The visible, the visibility of this tissue that doesn't look great causes a lot of people a lot of consternation.

Like some people will gain £30 in their off-season in bodybuilding. It's just none of it goes to their waist. It just goes to their ass and their hips and their arms somehow. And they just look bigger but healthier. And you're like, fuck you. And they're like, oh, weight gain's easy. Like, yeah, no shit. Okay. You look somehow better when you gain weight, you asshole. If you look worse when you gain weight, then it is a serious concern that people just like, so for example, there are two spectra of how your fat is stored, especially in women. There's the gynoid and then the android. The gynoid is when women have a small waist, they store a lot of fat in their arms, they store a lot of fat in their thighs and their ass. So when women like that gain weight out of contest prep, they just look like sexy as fuck. And they're like, goddamn, you should seriously consider being in adult films. I'm not a videographer, I'm just saying, like, there's people, there's the LA Valley, there's a whole industry And so, you know, like, that's great. But then there are other women that have more androgen deposition, and when they're lean, they look great.

But when they gain weight, it goes to their gut and their sides. What the fuck? And their legs are still skinny and lean. What the fuck are you supposed to do about that, Dylan? No, we're going to pretend that, like, that's the look. That's not the look. And people know it's not the look, and they struggle like crazy. Some people tell you, like, oh, you just have to accept gaining fat. You can't be lean forever. Those women who, to whom it goes to their gut and their love handles, they're like, you No, no, I don't fucking want to look like this. And I'm not saying they're right. I'm saying they have a valid point somewhere in there. The other problem that people run into is hunger. Yes. Hunger is a big deal. Cravings are a big deal. And when you're getting lean, you can drive yourself insane with hunger. And the hunger can be scary because you can find yourself when you're very lean, especially if you diet sort of irresponsibly, like I've done like 100 times in my life. And you've clearly done a few times based on your last story. If you do that, that not even crash diet, like people say every time I have a feeling about crash diet, I have this like the visual image of a plane just like hitting the ground.

You and I did a thing where we like landed the plane with no landing gear, but we turned the engines on afterburner and we're just grinding the plane on the infinite runway. Like, I don't know, that's not crash really. That's just like, why are they still doing this? This is, there's like fuel on fire and shit. You're still throttle forward. So if you diet like that, which a bunch of people have and do, you're gonna realize at some point you're so hunger hungry and so crazy that you're not so sure you could stop yourself from eating until you choke to death. Have you ever had that sensation where like you finally eat some tasty food and you're like, I don't have a full setting anymore?

When I got outta prison, dude, yeah, that was like a month. Month straight of just, I remember when I got out, I went, my mom took me to the store. I ate a thing of blueberries like this big, threw up, got something else, ate it again. Cause I hadn't eaten anything for 2 years, you know, like that was worth a shit. So it was like a month of that where it was anything I could get my hands on, you know, cause I had been like starving. So I totally, and you know, you looking back on it, just eating all of this stuff that made you miserable for years. And every time we'd go to events or anything in my head, I told my wife recently, a couple years ago, I said, you know how miserable I was at everything that we did? Sammy, she's like, what the hell? Yeah. 'Cause you would never know. 'Cause I was carrying a protein bar in my pocket and that's all I'd eat for a day, you know? And if you're not taking cocaine, you're pretty hungry. You know what I mean? Like the satiation of having like an avocado or whole eggs or things that I wouldn't touch.

And I'm like not hungry for 4 or 5 hours.

You know, and it's, yeah, the no, the no fat thing is exact. It, it dates us still. And it, it's, it's basically we grew up in the '90s for sure. 'Cause like, yeah, that's like a '90s thing. And in the bodybuilding community, it's largely still, it's less a thing now, but it's still a thing in many, in many cases. You just little fat as possible. And so you can actually get nutrient-specific cravings. Like you're probably not under eating protein. There's a thing called protein hunger. If you don't eat enough protein, they actually just like start like becoming damn near cannibalistic. But there's, you know, if you like really low-carb it, like I remember being on like keto diet. I've done keto like 100 fucking times. I remember being like, you know, contest prepping on basically keto. And I remember like watching somebody eat one of those golden brown, really full-looking bagels. And I was like, paradise. They are in paradise. There's nothing better in this world. And then I was doing a low-fat diet at one point, ultra low fat for months.. And I remember realizing that the store next to me and where I was living had one of those machines that grinds peanut butter right in front of you from raw peanuts.

And it comes out a little chunky, Dylan. And I let you hear it right now.

I lick those when I make them at Whole Foods. My wife will die cuz I'll, I'll do it and then I take a big lick out of it and put it back. Yes.

And so I remember after one of my shows, I got a pound of peanut butter and ate it with a a fucking spoon. It was sublime. It's the greatest thing I've ever done. My word. Yes. Yes. There's something lost in translation when you get it from a factory 200 miles away. And I love industrial food. I'm just like, this is magical. So basically it's nuts, right? So the amount of psychological consternation that people have absolutely can come from pure social relations, people talking shit about you being fat and you getting a whole big head about it. It can come from social media influences, basically deluding you into thinking that you don't look good unless you're 6% body fat. It can come from your genetics, just your proclivity to have more disordered eating and all the way down the line. But I'll say this, this is not a politically correct opinion. A lot of people hate me for saying shit like this, but it's fucking true. I love it. If you take a woman who hates her body because she stores her fat in her abdominal area and she gets lean and likes herself lean. 'Cause there, there's, when there's no fat, it's not really stored anywhere really visually.

And you're like, ah, it looks great. And she gets a, when she's lean, she gets hungry as fuck. And it, it just, it screws with her. If you give that woman terzapotide, which makes her not hungry anymore, dose-dependently, and she does a good diet, she makes sure not to do anything stupid like eating a bunch of pizza and throwing up and go to the hospital for gastroparesis. And she manages the medication well through doctor supervision. She saves up her money and gets a fat transfer surgery where they lipo the shit out of your love handles and all around your periphery, and they put it into your ass and your hips. That's a real thing. And then whatever, a year later when she's fully healed, now she's cruising. She doesn't want to be at 10% body fat anymore. She's living her life at 19%. Her hunger is completely controlled. Her fat is where she wants. She's living her fucking best life. I know we're not supposed to say, oh, just take drugs and have surgery and you'll feel better. But guess what? The number one reason you feel like shit is purely psychological, but sometimes it's not purely psychological.

Can you imagine being Dylan yourself? You're, you're transplanted into a body that weighs £400 of pure fucking fat, and you're in this alternate universe where you're like a rock star. You're a billionaire, you're famous. People are on your jock all the time. And you're like, a woman's like laying in bed with you and she's like, she's like touching up on your giant, your giant titty, you know, cuz you're gonna have big titties bounce, right? And she's like, I love your fucking titties, Dylan. And you're like, I don't really like them. And she's like, why can't you just learn to love yourself? You're like, huh? Because you can't just do that. And why can't you do that? Because we all have the same, roughly the same software in our heads that tells us what's attractive and what's not. And it works the exact same way in a mirror of reflection of you as it does in other people. Like, take an example I have to bring up all the time. Take like Miss India, like whoever wins the Miss India pageant, and drop her off in Norway at a mall. And be like, hey, go get a few guys' numbers.

Do you really think like she's just not going to be successful? Because they're all, but they're just not into that look. What the fuck? Like every other Norwegian guy's gonna be like, yes. Wait, is this a trick? Like, wait. Oh yeah, of course you could have. Well, what do you, aren't you Miss Universe or some shit? Like, it's, it's like, if you're African, if you're Indian, if you're Arabic, if you're white, if you're whatever, if you're Mexican, hot doesn't look identical, but there's a formula. You know what I'm saying? Like Sofia Vergara is like Venezuelan or Colombian or some shit, and I bet you the world's most hardcore white supremacist, like, oh, you what, bruh? We don't need immigrants in our fuck country. Respect. That's a fine view. You show him peak Sofia Vergara, he's not gonna be like, I'm not poisoning my white blood with that. He's gonna be like, when? Now, please, I'll beg. And so when you wake up in a 400-pound body with man titties, like there's only so much psychology you can use to be okay. And listen, if you're that person that has such a powerful mind or such a low giving a fuck factor that you're totally Gucci in a 400-pound body, As far as aesthetics are concerned, dude, you're the man.

You have the ultimate unlock. Don't dare change a thing. I'm never telling people you should be ashamed of how you look. You should never be ashamed of how you look. Take shame and throw it outta your head altogether. But if you happen to be in a body that you don't like, if you happen to be that woman that stores fat all only around her waist and is only theoretically, to your point, happy when she's leaner, cuz she's not actually happy cuz she's fucking miserable. She's hungry all the time. You get her some fucking trisepatide, you get her some surgery. When all of a sudden she seems to be like, I'm living a life that I can't imagine in any other way would be this fucking amazing. I know it's toxic to say that shit, but it's real. Should she be doing inner work? Yes. But should she be completely saying, well, I'm just going to do this with inner work. I'm going to learn to love myself, even though I don't, I'm going to learn to accept it. Like, that's cool if you can pull it off, but maybe you don't have to.

This is why I love you because you, you have the same kind of motto that I do. And it's, I'm going to tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. Because what you're saying is true. And people just don't want to hear reality of what happens and what goes on. And well, the thing that sucks about it is, is that then you live in this alternate universe that doesn't really exist while me and you and others that think like we do are sitting in the real world. So we're able to actually accomplish shit because we're not creating this fucking facade that doesn't exist. And it's so, it's one of those things. I'll leave that alone for now. We'll talk about that later, but it drives me freaking crazy because it's, it's this lack of, well, there's no accountability, bro. There's no accountability. So there's a built-in excuse for every single scenario or situation instead of just going, you know what? Because I had to do this. I had to have looks in the mirror and say, Dylan, what the fuck? Like, dude, are you happy with what's going on here?

Is this right? And when I looked at myself in the mirror, it's like, you can lie to yourself, like on the side or to other people. But when you have a back and forth with yourself, it's very— if you can lie to yourself, then man, you're You're completely screwed. I couldn't do it, you know.

Like, so you've got it all. I don't know, you just look in the mirror, you're like, I'm a millionaire. I believe.

Um, here's what one that I think that is a big problem I want you to touch on. So let's, let's say we're talking about this kind of thing. How big is overtraining going on for people that are like unhappy with their look? Because I gotta think that's a big problem. And trust me, I know firsthand. So do you see that as a big issue?

Huge. Here's the logic of that issue. People don't like their physique. They push their diet into pure hell. It gets them results, but it tires them out like crazy. And it's only so low you can push a diet until hunger pushes back and you just can't push any lower. Yeah. And then they still don't like their look. And so they're like, okay, okay, okay, what else can I do? I'm gonna train double because that's gonna make me look better. The problem with that is once you overreach your body's ability to recover, You actually live worse when you train more. So it's like worse than spinning your wheels. It's like spinning them backwards. Like you're working twice as hard for now less results. And it's a total compulsion thing. You're just trying to do like as much. It's like people's computer won't work or whatever. Like the processor, like ChatGPT is taking a long time to think and you're like, hit your phone on the desk. Like it's not going to help for you to hit your phone. It's going to hurt your phone. But people do that. Because out of a frustration of they want the shit to happen faster, they want that end product.

And it's also supernatural as a human to think like, oh, just like I get certain results training like 3 times a week for an hour, I'm gonna get double the results training 6 times a week for an hour. And I'll just be fucking Superman if I train 9 sessions a week for 3 hours each. Like, holy shit. Like that'll really get me going. And so that's not true. You could only train up to the point of how much you can recover from. And you can only train or should only train the amount that is sustainable for weeks and weeks and weeks is that's how you make progress. You don't make progress on a daily basis. That's a measurable way. It's like people who, it's the difference between getting ready for a test in school by like binge studying and like missing a shitload of sleep versus like every, you know, 5 days a week you spend like an hour on that subject. One of those people is gonna do fine on the test, the binge person, but they're not gonna remember shit like a day later. And when they get a job in that relevant field, they're gonna be like, did you learn anything in school?

What the hell is wrong with you? The person that studied for a little bit here and there consistently, they're gonna know the shit front to back and they're never gonna forget it. And so in just the same way, it's all about setting up a training plan for yourself that you can— is good. It's plenty of work, but it's sustainable. And it's easy to say. But when you're in that mindset where you need to change your body no matter what, that desperation mindset, it's so easy to go overboard on diet, on training, on drugs. People be like, well, if this many steroids got me jacked, this many steroids times 2 is going to get me 4 times jacked. And that does not work that way. One thing I wanted to say earlier was the actual best way to get the leanest. This is supported in naturals with direct science. And is supported in people using drugs by like almost every bodybuilding coach at this point, is to coax your way into it. So if you have a, like, let's say your maintenance is 4,000 calories, like you're a giant bodybuilder, the diet that has you going a bit longer but is 3,500 calories is going to bring you in full and shredded as fuck.

The diet that's 3,000 calories is going to bring you dry and stringy and kind of meh and maybe not as lean. Because when your body is like hoarding resources, when you're starving it to death, it's pretty good at hoarding resources. And that resource includes body fat. But when you just get like a 500-calorie deficit, you run it for a long time, your body's kind of like, eh, I don't, I don't think anything's really happening. Imagine having a party and your guests are stealing shit, but like one guest out of 20 at a time will walk away with an appliance, like a small appliance. You don't notice probably, and they'll steal a lot of shit doing that. But imagine if all the guests at the same time, or like 10 of them grabbed everything they could and just started running. You would call the police immediately cuz you'd be like, motherfuckers, why did you take the man's microwave? I need that. Is there like a resale market for these things I don't know about? And so just the same way your body kind of like, if you coax the fat off with a small deficit over the long term, it's kind of like, eh, I'm not gonna miss this fat.

And then you get the the best results. Same thing is true for training. If you train 5 days a week for an hour and a half, dude, you're gonna do great. You train 8 days a week for 3 hours each time, you're gonna train like that for 3 weeks, you're gonna hate the process, you're gonna burn out, you're gonna have a ton of sore joints, and your body's not gonna get as bigger and strong, and it's gonna backfire. The same thing's also true for physical activity. People are like, man, 10,000 steps a day is great and it keeps me burning fat and everything. I'm gonna do 20,000 steps a day. And their shins start to hurt, their feet start to hurt, and they start to get really low on energy cuz your body's smart. It thinks you're starving. It thinks you're doing activity, it will compensate by reducing how many calories you burn at rest. And that makes you miserable at rest because your brain's like, hey, I need calories to think. And your body's like, shut up, we're dying. Just think less. And then so you end up sitting— you've been, Dylan, you've been in a diet fog before.

Yeah. Where you're just like staring at a screen and you're like, fuck, was I doing here? And you're— yeah, exactly. Yeah. Same. So if you, if you, the real trick to getting super fucking lean is is to coax your body into it real gentle. And then it works great. It takes longer, but not that much longer. And it works great. But it's easy to say when you don't look how we want, the temptation to take every dial of like, you got the training dial, diet dial, and cardio dial and just go break, break, break. It's just like full steam ahead.

That is a huge temptation. Well, 'cause it's the problem is everybody wants it now. And I've been there, you've been there, but this is like, it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And this stuff takes time. Nothing happens overnight, but everybody wants it to happen overnight. And it's, it's a problem. Like you said, some of the times where I've gotten real hardcore and I go back and look and I'm like, man, you look like shit. You— the scale may have said what you think you wanted it to say, but I look bad. Like, face sunken in and just like, how did I not see this? But you don't. It's, it's right here mentality-wise where you see something that's actually not there. That's why it's kind of important to look at video or picture, because when you look in a mirror daily, you can't see You just, you, you see, you know, one thing, but you're not seeing actuality. And I, I know from firsthand experience and I've seen so many people that go through that and it's terrible. And I, I think what I'd like to talk to you about is this kind of reliance now on drugs, supplements, everything to do the work, to like lose the weight, make you look good.

How big of a problem do you think that's progressed into now? Because it's certainly gotten progressive with more drugs that have come out and everything. Like, do you feel like that that's kind of as rampant as it's ever been right now?

So in my view, there are two— so we'll talk about, we're talking about fat loss drugs, right? Like the Tides, Semaglutide, Tirzepatide, Retatrutide. There are two ways to do these drugs in my— one of them is categorically superior to the other. The right way to do these drugs is to do the drug at the lowest dose, start at a very, very low dose and re-architect your nutrition to do two things. One, do the actual caloric deficit for you and the weight loss. And two, to irritate your gut the least so that these drugs Don't push you over the hill and give you a real bad time with nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and occasionally gastroparesis where your stomach just throws up too many fingers and you need to go to the hospital. The way you do that is to consume multiple meals throughout the day that are high in nutrients, relatively low in fat, not zero fat, but high in healthy fat. And none of them could be massive calorie meals, moderate calorie meals that are well-balanced, plenty of protein. Lean and the healthiest food you could possibly eat because you're eating so few calories. All the calories coming in, most of 'em need to be really damn healthy.

So you're eating veggies, fruits, whole grains, healthy fats 4 times a day. You're exercising, you're lifting weights to keep the muscle on your body, and you're getting plenty of physical activity, 10,000 steps a day or so. And then as your hunger rises, as you get leaner, you take a bit more drug and the hunger goes away again. That's how you do it right. Here's how to do it wrong. And the number of people doing it wrong are like, I don't know, in the tens of millions or something. You take the drug, 'Cause you, you like, you never really struggle with hunger a ton, but you're a spineless asshole with no willpower and you can't be bothered to eat well because you just want to eat junk food all the fucking time. Yep. You take a fuckload of this drug, like you take like fucking 10 mgs of trisapotide right outta the gate. You're supposed to start at like 2.5 or 1.2 and you just eat fuck all still. And the only thing stopping you from eating more is like literal nausea that you get after 3 slices of pizza instead of 6. You don't train with weights, you don't increase your physical activity.

You eat only dog shit. Like, So instead of eating like a good meal with broccoli and ground beef and olive oil and brown rice, you're eating like half a Snickers bar. 'Cause like after half a Snickers bar, you don't feel like eating anymore. And so instead of modifying and uplifting your willpower into an integrated diet and training program, this drug ends up just kind of doing the work. Let me give you a really good analogy. Really good. I don't know. Complimenting my own analogy ahead of time. Fucking egotistical asshole. It's like putting a fucking awesome, efficient jet engine onto the most aerodynamic plane you've ever seen. The jet engine is the terzapatide. The aerodynamic plane is your amazing lifestyle, diet, sleep, everything, weight training. It just scoots through the air at Mach 2 fucking seamlessly. The other way to do it, the way where you just take a shitload of terzapatide and you just eat fuck all and hope to God you don't throw up in the middle of the night. That's like taking a semi-truck, you know, the old school ones with just the front was just complete up and down. Yeah. And I'm strapping a rocket to that motherfucker and putting on like World War II airplane wings and being like, go Mach 2, baby.

That is what a lot of people are doing. And then this is where you get most of the Reddit comments. Someone's praising Trisapretide, it changed my life. And there'll be a thousand people in there like, this drug is poison. Big Pharma is killing us all. I took it, it made me throw up blood for 2 days. Oh yeah. And you look in there like, how was your diet? Like, wow, I was eating less. Like, oh, 'cause you were throwing up blood, right? Like, well yeah, but like I was eating chicken nuggets one time. You're like, oh my God, why? 'Cause we know these drugs slow your gastric emptying and they keep food in your stomach longer. And if it's healthy food and it's easy to digest for your body, it's just gonna be totally fine. But if it's like a shitload of saturated fat and a crapload of carbs all at the same time, like a gut bomb. Bomb, it's just gonna sit there and then your body's like, holy shit, that's not good. And it's gonna try to get it out the one of two ways, either diarrhea or vomiting. If you're really lucky, both, which is a pretty good time.

I had the cruise— this is a disgusting story. Sorry viewers, this is just who I am. I had the cruise ship virus once when I was in college. I, uh, and I was on the john in the public, the, the, in the dorm rooms. And I would just blow just total chunks out of my rear end and The smell would make me wanna throw up. So I'm turn around and start throwing up. And then the turbulence of the vomit, cuz you know, it does crazy shit to your gut, would make me wanna have diarrhea again. I was super sick, vomiting and crapping. You can have that time right now. You don't even have to get sick. You just get trisapratide, you take 50mg on your first dose. It's gonna be great. Go to McDonald's, have 20-piece nuggets. You're gonna have a fine time. But dude, that's how some people do it. And then they're baffled. They're like, oh, these drugs don't work. They're terrible. These drugs used properly. To buttress your willpower that you're already using to try to do your best, you're gonna have a great time. If you give me a person who's already eating well, who's already training, who's already doing a lot of steps and they're really struggling with hunger, these are miracle drugs.

You gimme a person that's like, eh, I wanna lose weight, I don't wanna do anything. Can I just take a drug? I'm like, oh my fucking God, good luck. Hopefully in a few years these drugs will like have no side effects and then that'll work, I guess. But for the time being, that's not gonna Fuck work.

No, I, you know, my whole life, and I've always said this, is anything that's used for weight loss generally has a pretty dark side to it. Somehow, some way, there's always something pretty, pretty bad that happens, especially as you start tearing it up and going higher. And, and so I, I discovered peptides with, you know, underground research markets in 2012, because I always really talked about SARMs a lot back in the day when, when I found them, and I started talking about peptides. So I've watched how they progressed over the years. And I, I've been blessed to speak to like the real brilliant actual doctors that aren't full of shit that actually know them and implement them. And one of the things that we get to on GLP-1s is the long-term benefit cognitively when they're used right. And then with the heart cellular health, but like you said, generally speaking, there are people that know how to do it, like the, the microdosing, but most people, they go all in. In and they have all of these problems, and then it's like this big campaign of this is the worst thing that ever existed, and it's just, it's from hell.

And it's like anything else, man. You can, you can drink too much water. I mean, it doesn't matter if, you know, you abuse shit. What do you think is going to happen? And that's what kills me. It's like, what exactly do you think will occur when you abuse and misuse things? I just, I, I'm at a loss.

Some folks, person, these are otherwise great But they're really looking for as many drugs as possible to take so that they don't have to work out or diet at all and still somehow get results. There's a very big difference between I work out, I diet, and I want to take drugs to help me along versus like, I just want to replace the shit. In The Aesthetic Revolution, I do cover something, and it is that, that with sufficiently advanced drugs in the next 5 to 10 years, probably, and definitely with genetic engineering in the next 10 to 15, we will absolutely get to a time where all you have to do is take drugs or get your genes edited and you will never have to work out ever again. Be shredded and jacked to your heart's content and healthy as fuck forever. But we're just not there yet, man. And that's really a fucking— it's really different. It's like having like a Ford Escort or something and going to like a mod shop and being like, what can you guys do to this thing to get it to do like Lambo level, like, like track? Like, I want track times of a Lamborghini.

They're going to be like, dude, like, it's— we just— there's nothing we could do here for you that's going to fucking do that. Knowing that is a big deal. And so if there's nothing wrong with like shortcuts are awesome, right? Like biohacking, it's fucking great. We don't have to just like not take drugs and whatever, but you gotta know what, what, what you're getting. And it's just, just not any fucking magic yet. It's like being a person who likes to shoot guns and, and, and getting a scope that like makes it so you don't even have to aim anymore. Like, bro, there's just no, there's no scope like that yet. I'm sorry. Maybe eventually, but, but not quite.

I want your thoughts on this cuz I used to give out percentages, because I trained bodybuilders for a long time and coached their, their cycles for them. And, and I would always try to explain, because you know this, you've been around it, everybody wants to start stacking 5, 6, 7, 8 different fucking things because this does this, this does this, this does this, and they have no concept of tomorrow or what the thrashing they're doing internally. And I would tell everybody, look, first of all, the genetics play a massive role here in general, no matter what you take. But, but my percentages would be based diet, training, and then the amount that said steroid peptide supplement, whatever, actually did for you. So I would always tell people, really, when you're going for physique, like ultimate physique, diet is like 65-70%, training is 20-25%, and then that 5 to maybe 10% comes down to the shit you're using. Do you agree or disagree with that?

I think that's very close to spot on. You could quibble with the details for sure. But what I like to do is look at it not from the perspective of do you diet, do you train, do you or don't you take drugs? Because then it gets wacky. Like, yeah, of course you diet, motherfucker. You're human. You have to eat. Everyone diets somehow. And obviously if you don't train at all, like that's clearly the most important thing about getting jacked or not jacked. Bodybuilders aren't talking about training or not training. And if you don't take drugs versus you take a shit ton of drugs, of course the results are going to be way bigger than 5 to 10%. Right. But the differences in realistic ways to diet, train, and take drugs account for roughly the percentages that you were talking about. So for example, if you have a really good diet versus a pretty not so good diet, that is 65% change right there. Right. If you have really good training versus you still train hard, but it's not ideal, it, it definitely matters less. Like if a bodybuilder shows up on stage and they're out of shape and someone on the crowd's like, must not been training hard.

Enough, most of the guys who know shit are gonna be like, what the fuck are you talking about? It's almost certainly his diet. Like, what do you mean? That's like, you know, you never look at a fucking guy on stage. You're like, clearly doing hack squats, man. Fucking sets of 10. I can tell it's not sets of 8, leg press. What? But if someone's like, you know, not in a calorie deficit for a while, you're going to be able to tell really goddamn quick. And then the drugs thing is really, really especially apt because especially if you get within like reasonable milligrams per week ranges, like even for the, for most people, anything between 500 1,500 mg a week total between injectables and orals. The kinds of drugs you take for that and the amounts, they don't really matter nearly as much as the diet and the training because, you know, I've actually had this revelation myself recently. For a while I was going up to a gram and a half or so, sometimes 2 grams of total gear per week during contest prep. I was just mostly miserable and not much more jacked and more lean.

And recently I capped myself at like a maximum of 500 mg total total for the whole, per week, for the whole cycle. And absolutely the biggest and leanest I've ever been. Oops. And it's like, oh, goddammit, why was I poisoning myself so much with that shit? Different guys will have different ratios of where it stops to really matter for them. But for most people, anything north of a gram, it starts to become like a real interesting trade-off. Like, you had better know that that's working for you. The problem, Dylan, is something we were talking about earlier, that you have brought up. It's that obsessive nature of people to want that extra bit. And you say to yourself, okay, I look amazing on 750 mgs total, but what if I took fucking 1,500? Then I would look like God. And the reality is like, you look just as amazing but more tired and more red, and your midsection's bigger because your liver's dying. And you're like, oh, goddamn it, that's not really the thing I wanted to look for. So drugs have a thing where Like, they work. But after you take the drugs that work the best and you take a decent amount of them, harsher drugs and much more harsh drugs can make you bigger, but it doesn't make a better overall look.

So like, you take some test and some Primo and you cap off the cycle with some low-dose VAR, dude, you're gonna look so fucking great and so fucking healthy. You take a shitload of tren, a shitload of MPP, a fuckload of God knows what stacked on a gram of test, you're gonna look like you're on drugs. All right? You're gonna look like Liver King or some shit where people are like, is it okay? You know, are you healthy?

The answer is no. Love that. The test primo anavar stack, when I realized after time, was by far the best. And it— the problem is that I argue is you, when you start running these heavy cycles, you feel so shitty that you can't actually train how you want because you're miserable the whole time that you're on there. One of the cycles I gained the most size on was Superdrol, and I have never been so miserable in my life to where I I hated the gym. I hated everybody around me. I hated waking up. And it was like, what's the point in this? It's just, it's horrible. And then to your point, you can't outwork a shit diet. You can train your ass off and I don't care how hard you train. If your diet sucks, you cannot outwork that outside and inside. I see panels of people that think they're getting away with stuff and I see, let me see your blood panel. And it's like, brother, do you understand what your cholesterol looks like here? Your, your liver and your kidneys, and they just don't, you know, they don't get it.

There's a certain mystique that's really tough, and it's the mystique of a mid to late 20s, even early to mid-20s, up-and-coming successful bodybuilder or powerlifter. And they have friends, they have a lot of people at the gym that know them, they have younger people looking up to them, contemporaries looking up to them, older people, and they've got the look. But in private conversation, you'll find out that their blood pressure is like 170 over 120, and their HDL and LDL are flipped completely upside down and their total cholesterol is like 400, but they're eating amazing food. They're ripped, they're big, they're making PRs, they're having a great time. They get female attention or male attention. If you take enough trend, it's all the same for me, right? Human body will do. It doesn't even have to be human. Dylan doesn't even have to be a body. But at some point, at some point, you know, you're, cause I remember like watching these people and they just look like they're having the greatest fucking time. And you think like, dude, Dude, all this fucking blood work shit is overblown. My friend's got crazy blood pressure and they make jokes about it too.

It's like in the culture, like, look, blood pressure's like, I hit a PR, I had a nosebleed under a squat, it's great. And 'cause he's 28, whatever, he's right, Kai just broke like, you know, national record on the squat or whatever, or he's like just like 1G USA's bodybuilding. This is kind of like, it's like reality looking back at you and being like, you're just scared. Of drugs for no reason. You're just taking your little bullshit Primo and Var and test cycle. And maybe they like, usually they have amazing genetics. Maybe you don't have amazing genetics and you're like, dude, why don't I just fucking throw 3 sheets to the wind and gas up like this guy and have the time of my life? And it's made worse with social media because now, oh, this is my jam. Ready? Okay. One of my least, I don't wanna say least favorite, one of the most culturally dense pictures in the fitness industry is a type of photograph people take. I guarantee you've seen this about a trillion times immediately post-contest after after winning some show in like Dubai or something. It's always fucking Dubai. I don't know why.

And they're at like some kind of Super McDonald's or some kind of fucking Whataburger or some shit. And they've got like 3 cheeseburgers and 2 fries and a shake right in front of them. Right, right. Dylan. And they're sitting there and they're pulling up their shirt and they got this six-pack. Yeah. And they're like, and the, the message is like, you can have it all. Yeah. I hate that. I hate that. And it's like that person, first of all, cuz you and I both been that person, that person's not having a good time. They are on trend. And so it just paranoid. Away 100% of the time. And they're like, oh, are these fries gonna kill me? Do I even want to live anymore? Who the fuck knows what's going on in their heads? Nothing good. But the picture sells you that fucking lifestyle. And that guy who's doing a shitload of D-ball but doesn't care about his health, you almost seem like, but he's in his prime or whatever, he's doing great. The thing is, is years later you see that guy at the gym and you look at his arm and you're like, oh, he had triceps repair surgery because he tore shit off the bone.

And he's looking kind of Purple, and he's like going through like a fucking revelation. He's a bit more of a hippie. He's been doing a lot of ayahuasca. He's kind of trying to find himself. He's like, girlfriend who's dated for years, she's a great person. She broke up with him 'cause he was a toxic fuck. And then he's like went to the doctor and the doctor's like, you don't technically have what we would call kidneys anymore. Somehow you're not dead, but you're probably gonna die really soon. And then you're like, oh shit, he is paying for all that stuff. Yeah. And so as a person in the fitness industry, as anyone listening to this podcast, if you're seeing this shit on social media or you see it in real life where people seem to be able to take tons of drugs and get away with everything, they usually don't get away with it. You're just not seeing that time delay.

No. And that's the thing. I used to say this, and I had these battles because you get these guys always that because they would tell me, and I'd get these comments about, oh, you're fearmongering. Oh, you don't know because you're not £500. You don't know what you're talking about. And I say, you think that these guys are getting up and announcing to you all the shit they're going through and the problems they have? You think they're standing up and making videos about how bad their livers are and their heart and everything else. Like, the things that you and I are saying are like real trenchant stuff that we've seen and done and been through. I've, you know, I'm sure you've done this. I have seen thousands of blood panels of steroid users, and the most people that come to me are the guys that regret using steroids in their 20s because they're completely and utterly fucked in their 40s. I have every problem known to man, you know, and I did like a little 4 or 5 year run. And I told my wife, I was like, what the hell am I doing here?

I, this isn't even who I am. What, what's the point here? You know, and it's like, now I have some things that still I have to deal with because of steroid use. And it's like, you know, putting yourself on TRT, not understanding, they don't understand. So I'm glad you brought that up because these pictures and things you see and people parroting information, that's a facade, man. Like these people die young or they're miserable in their 50s, 60s if they make it to 70.

Yeah, 100%. It's a trippy thing in social media. Media, I'm really thankful for the phenomenon of, in, in some very hardcore bodybuilding circles, it's actually like looked not down, it's looked up upon to post pictures from your hospital room when you get like fucked up. It's, it's funny, right? But it's also good because then other like young kids who are looking at you, they're like, oh, oh shit, it's not all fucking rainbows, is it? But that's very minority. The thing is, is that what you get with social media is this, uh, there's this cognitive bias that arises from what is called the availability heuristic. It's the reason that people think the world's always getting worse because the news only reports bad stuff. It's like, for example, every day, like 100,000 people permanently leave on Earth, permanently leave behind grinding poverty and we'll never see it again. Like, literally every day, 100,000 people escape grinding poverty. But that's not really like a news headline you're ever going to see because how many days of the news can you be like, today, again, another 100,000? You already see it. You're like, plane crashed in Malaysia. There's a virus in Brazil.

Brazil. And just the same way, the availability heuristic could work the opposite way to give you a rosy view. Because like, when do people make their socials posts? When they're in their fucking prime doing their fucking thing and they look amazing. And then when do people end up not posting? When they're right back and the doctor's like, hey, you're circling the drain. They're gonna post about that 99 times out of 100. And the way socials works is we keep track of individuals on your socials feed. You used to follow someone, you might not even have known his name. Like you just know his handle. You know, people, I got tons of people on Instagram like, oh, You're huge. 596. I know you. What's your name? Mark. I'll never fucking remember that. And so you have these guys and these girls come up in your feed and you follow them for a few months and they're just doing great. They're eating cheeseburgers and they're on trend. They're going to do amazing. They do an MMA fight for, for shits and giggles. They win. They're awesome. And then you don't see them again, but there's another new cool person on your socials.

There's 10 Dylan on your socials to replace them. And you don't ever follow up with these people, and it's kind of like shooting stars. They're like, I'm here, I'm the man, oh, kidney disease, and they fuck off. But you don't see the kidney disease part. And so it's real tough because as an onlooker, you could totally— it's totally not logical, it's totally understandable how you get the illusion that like, dude, people are doing drugs recklessly and they never pay the price. This is all illusion. Like, nah, man, you just didn't follow up with those fucking people. A shitload of them are paying the fucking price.

So I want to ask you this. It's not really off topic, but I think it's very pertinent to things that are going on now. So I got an email, I don't know, man, maybe a month or two ago, and it was this invite to Enhanced Games, and I blew it off because I didn't know what the fuck. I get so many emails of offers and stuff. Yeah, I will. So they wanted to fly me out, pay for all my shit, give you a condo, do all this. And I was just like, you know, I got all these traveling, I'm going to podcasts. So Anyway, I was at a show that I was speaking at, uh, a biohacking show, and I was talking to one of my boys and he was running me down his list of stuff he had this month. And he said, oh, and Enhanced Games. I said, yeah, what the hell is that? So he told me, you gotta be there. You gotta be there. So I, and this will just tell you how shady these people are before I explain how much it sucked. So I get this contract. Well, they send me the, the layout and it's like, well, we want you to put 3 posts up on social.

Official. We're going to fly you out. We're going to give you credit for the hotel. We're going to give you a room. We're going to give you all this shit. And I thought, okay, all these people are going, it's invite only. So they send me this contract. Well, within the contract, there's a thing in there and it says at the very bottom, oh, and by the way, we got a new supplement line out. You're going to promote this. And I wrote them back. I said, the fuck I am. I said, if you want me to come there, that's removed because I'm not promoting shit and put my name on it. So they removed that fly me out. This was the most underwhelming palming, ridiculously put-on event. And this is what I want to ask you about. So first of all, if you break any world record of any kind, no one's going to recognize it. To— yeah, I don't know who the fuck half these people are. And 3, watching this stuff in person in 120-degree weather in Las Vegas outdoors made no sense to me. But I guess the point is, is we're, we're telling people it's okay to use steroids or any PED because they're being monitored by a doctor for the next couple years, as if that's okay, which is what we're talking about.

And two, what's exactly the point of this? So then when I get home, they said, well, Dylan, you haven't posted your third post. I wrote them back and I said, are you sure that you want me to post this post? Because the last one got 6 million views and I'm, my contract doesn't say I have to say anything favorable here. Are you really sure you want me to do that? Two days later, I get a response. You're excused from your final post. Like, because it was literally, brother, the most underwhelming bullshit thing I've ever seen. And there was just a bunch of people there that honestly had no clue why they were even there. But I want your thoughts on the premise of it, because I just don't see a point in this that's, that's good in any way, shape, or form.

I think the best way, the most charitable way to view the enhanced games is to go, look, a shitload of people in the Olympics already use a drug, except right, completely off table and no one knows about it. It's totally dark. So if we get a games going, we let people use approved FDA approved and we moderate their blood work. We keep 'em healthy, which by the way, the Olympia, the Olympic athletes don't get monitored for health. Like you just, if you croak, that's your fucking problem. Then we're going to have a way to show people that enhancements are awesome, which they are in context of using them smartly. But they, you know, it'll be a responsible way to do it and it'll be really cool. And maybe it'll be an alternative the Olympics. In the best model of this, it's like 10 years from now we have the drug-free Olympics and we have the enhanced Olympics where it's enhanced, but it's safe, safer. Athletes are adults. They can sign a contract. This isn't taking a risk, but at least they get monitored. That's the idea. That's a great— I think it's a great— yeah.

Problem is twofold of why the enhanced games ended up being really under— well, threefold. Problem number one is that the number one way to get people to do excellent at sport is to use like the law of large numbers to your advantage and have thousands of competitors. Because only if there's thousands of competitors, competitors, will you get enough representative samples of actually people that are the best, best, right? Expecting people to break records when there's like 50 people at the competition versus like the 12,000 that go to the Olympics. Fuck, bro. I mean, can you imagine like, like getting a soccer team together and you could recruit from a group of 50 versus 12,000? Like, which one's gonna be the better fucking soccer team? It's that thing. So because it was such a small event, it was, it's really hard to compete with the Olympics on just sheer straight performance. Problem number 2 is that the number 1 predictor of performance is fucking talent. And if the best people in the world aren't there, you can use all the drugs till you're blue in the face, it won't fucking matter. As far as I know, Usain Bolt is drug-free.

Okay, maybe he's on some drugs, but he's not on as many drugs as I am. Dylan, you gonna bet on me in a race? My legs are fucking— my whole leg is as long as his fucking shin. He's Jamaican and I'm Jewish. English. Jesus Christ. And so if you don't have the most talented people, you're not gonna be breaking a whole lot of records. So they didn't have the, they have some talented people, but it's like, well, they got like 5 really talented people and then 45 just super talented people, but not the best, best. And so instead of 12,000 combination of really talented and exceptionally talented people, they have like 50 to 100 same slice of those people. And so like how many records get broken at the Olympics? Like, well, How many records got broken at the fucking Enhanced Games? Well, like one. Like literally it's what you would statistically predict. Here's the last part though. Point number 3, I saw an amazing meme. I don't know if you know this meme. It's like some, I don't know, some cartoon character or something. And he's, he's like looking like this at the camera in one picture and the other is just like that.

And it's such an awkward meme. And it was like Olympic athletes when the Enhanced Games guys don't break any of their records. 'Cause it's like they're also enhanced. Like, oh, can you imagine like sitting Next to an Olympian and go like, these enhanced guys and their drugs, right? He's like, yeah, those crazy drug users. Not like me. Never use drugs. I'm an Olympian. The thing is like fucking a giant fraction, not all, but a giant fraction of the best Olympians, they're already on drugs. And this thing is they don't get health monitored and they're not taking only FDA-approved substances like the fucking enhanced games people were. And so they're arguably on even fucking crazier stacks. Even the guys in the Chinese weightlifting team of their government cooks up drugs for them are on less gear than the people in the fucking enhanced. Get outta here, bro. Then the kitchen sink. They did one time, they popped the Iranian national weightlifting team for drugs. They have 13 people on their roster, 12 failed drug tests. Okay? And so, and they're not taking baby doses here. And so that last part is like the, the Olympics are the enhanced games more or less.

And so it's like same enhanced games. Games on average. Because if you take, okay, let's say pretend numbers, roughly half of the Olympians are not on drugs, half are, but the half that are on drugs are on the hardcore maximum effort shit. Whereas all the Enhanced Games athletes are on like really like tepid doses of just FDA-approved shit. So it pretty much averages out. Like it's like, like it's like this versus like that. And so it's the same shit, right? So this essentially the Olympics are the Enhanced Games except not with the most talented people and also with like 1/50th of the fucking people. Of course it's gonna be a dud. And so if we reviewed this on, on, on YouTube, on our RP Strength channel, and it was just, I had to explain like, this is why you should have never thought that. 'Cause some people thought, fuck, really thought that like they were just gonna break fucking dozens of world records. And yeah, sorry, another quick thing. This is actually a, an interesting thing I learned quite recently. The average age of the Enhanced Games athletes was like, like something like in their mid, mid, early mid-30s.

Let's see, 33 or so. Or so. Yeah. The average age of the Olympian is like 27 or so. Exactly. And so, man, that fucking matters in real sports. Like bodybuilding, powerlifting, you peak way late. But in sprinting and swimming and shit, man, you peak pretty fucking early. And so you factor that in. And that's point number 4 of like, we should have never expected the Enhanced Games to break a ton of records. My big curiosity is the, I think the folks that put on the Enhanced Games had all the best intention. My curiosity with them is, did they really think that there was just gonna be dozens of smashed records? Or were they like, well, even if no one breaks a record, it's still gonna be a good show. Like, I just wonder, cuz, um, it, it really, and, and what one of the things I think it did super well is there is a lot of people, maybe the majority of people that look into this, and you'll see this in internet comments all the time, they think, and it's, this is this is a pure copium. This is like the biggest cope of all time.

They think that steroids make you a superior athlete. Yeah. And like, you and I have been around sports long enough to be like, you see that Nigerian dude that's never taken a drug? He's gonna beat you at bodybuilding no matter what fucking drugs he was born with. That's right. And you're just a regular person. And so same thing with weightlifting, especially shit like, like tennis. Gentlemen, who, how, how are you gonna beat this fucking Serbian dude that's 6'6" that has been playing tennis since he was age 2? There's no drug for that shit. But so I think the enhanced games actually did a public service to people by showing them that like drugs aren't everything, man. You can't just drug, 'cause people get cynical, right? And then the comments will be like, she's fucking drugs, man. It's all drugs. You see a picture of bodybuilder, like don't even care if they're natural or drugs. One of my friends, Steve Hall, he's a natural pro bodybuilder and like he just, he's an excellent physique, but like his arms are just enormous. Like for his, for his size, just fucking radical. He's a lifetime drug-free. And it's obvious when you see him in person, he's not gigantic.

He puts on a shirt and he, you know, he looks like, you know, a jack normal dude. He doesn't look like Superman. But dude, every time in the comments you're like, Steve stop lying to people, you're on fucking drugs. It's like, dude, you're delusional. Drugs do not give you free shit. And especially bodybuilding is where they work the best. Real sports, dude, they don't do that much. In the enhanced games, you really drove that whole way.

It's just like in, uh, the supplement world, everybody's competition is a scammer. So you know what I mean? It's the same thing that goes to get— and gets put around, and it's just, you can't win. And I hate that. Well, you know, that enhanced games. This is how crazy it was. It was an open bar all the way around. So it was free drinks. Oh, very, very, very 110-degree weather outside. I was in the, I was actually inside shopping in the hotel casino within an hour. That's what I did. And then I got my ass on a flight the next day and went home. That's how great it was. And I don't, I don't have a problem with the use at all, like none. But what you you said, I go back and talk about baseball because baseball is what made me start studying steroids so I could really comprehend the steroids weren't the thing that was actually the most beneficial. It was that growth hormone that was healing everybody quicker. Cause the steroids aren't giving you hand-eye coordination. You know what I mean? To hit a baseball and it, the growth hormone healing people rapidly.

But here, Mike, what about the kids that grow up like with tennis that are getting, they have the money, they get all the private training. Don't they have the advantage over the kids that don't— there's always something somebody has over somebody else, no matter how you fucking play it. But the, the drugs don't make people great. It's the effort and the dedication, the diet, the training. They just give you the edge, just like 100%.

I'll tell you one thing, a dark side that you and I both know is true that you didn't mention just now. It all starts with talent. Talent is the most important ingredient other than diligent years of hard work. That's right. If you mix talent and diligent years of hard work, man, you are damn near there. And if you sprinkle some drugs on top of that, or not, you're a champ. That's— if you don't put in diligent years of hard work, you could have all the fucking talent in the world, nobody gives a shit. Like, if you, if you bring me like somebody who's unbelievably talented at like fighting, just like has hand-eye coordination, aggressive killer instinct, but like you put him up against a D2 wrestler and put him in the ring, he's never trained, he's just gonna get his ass taken down. You can't— you don't know how to sprawl. Nobody has a— you could like, even if you know how to sprawl, just Literally, like, he's gonna scoop you up, man. He's gonna pound you. That's it. You're fucked. And only fucking years of training is gonna get you that good at MMA.

And so drugs is even way, way lower down that totem pole. Like, you know, people that think drugs— there's lots and lots of, you know, cynical commentating, be like, man, those— all these UFC guys are on drugs. That's what really makes the difference. Like, okay, dude, you take all the drugs you want for 6 months, and then you go up against fucking TJ Dillashaw or some shit like that. Oh, he weighs £130. You'll fuckin' month, right? Oh wait, shit, he's been wrestling since he was like fuckin' 3 or some shit, and he's been doing MMA since he was 19 or whatever. That talent plus that work is almost the whole equation. Drugs can round out the equation. Specific types of coaching can round out the equation. To be honest, bro, one of my— I don't know about frustrations, but— and you're fuckin' awesome to talk to about this because you're like, again, like awake to the real world. It's really fucked when athletes who accomplished everything they've accomplished with diligence, time, genetics, drug end up being like, it's this new phosphocreatine formula for, from DHF Labs that really like, shut the fuck. I know you got bills to pay.

Just do gay for pay or muscle worship, motherfucker. At least it's honest work. I'm kidding, sort of, you know, like stop lying to little kids. You feel me? When it's just you and 5 45-year-old Wall Street gay dudes in a room, it's honest fucking work. Nobody's being lied to. They touch your muscles or whatever, goes on in there, you get $10 grand, that's all your food for the month, you're golden. Shit. Because otherwise, man, you're like, yeah, it's the fucking beta alanine that did it. Like, dude, stop. Fake. That's the wrong error. Yeah.

Oh, I just despise that too, dude.

One of my favorite questions, Dylan, that I get every now and again— I get this less, thank God, nowadays— but you know when young people— God bless them, if you're young, God bless you, this is all love and respect— young people will ask you questions because they know you're successful or whatever, you're just like some guy at the airport that's way more jacked than anyone they ever see, and they ask questions sometimes They put these, these, these big open eyes to the world, you know, like you can smell the fucking innocence, right? Yeah. Because they think what you're gonna tell them is like, they're gonna remember it forever. And one of my favorite all-time questions is not what supplements are effective. No, no, that's a mature question. Not do you, do you use creatine and should I use creatine? No, that's a lot. Here, here's what brand of creatine. And they're not asking because they're savvy and they wanna like compare prices. They're asking because they literally think that the brand of creatine you use is what's gonna make you jacked. And how do they find that out? From fucking Instagram ads and Muscle Magazine.

That's that toxic shit. And look, Muscle Magazine and fucking supplement companies, people have to make money, but at least don't lie to people about it. Like, if you're a bodybuilder and you've got creatine sponsor or supplement sponsors, be like, this is a creatine I use, it's a company I trust. And when kids ask you like, hey, does that make a difference? Like, no Doesn't make a fucking, yeah, creatine's great. It makes a teeny difference. The only reason I use this company's creatine is 'cause they know they're not fucking liars and they put real creatine in it. But do they have some kind of magic formula? No. Fuck. It's monohydrate like everyone else is using. That's it.

That's it. You know, I, and, and that's a good point because the, the advertising now, 'cause I get hired for, and I'm so selective with who I'll work with 'cause everything I do is based on credibility. So I am like stringent on who I work with. Work with. And these marketing teams come in and I walk right— I tell them, just fucking forget, because they, they come in and try to give me these scripts and control me.

Oh shit. Yeah. No, no.

And that's what they do to everybody. I'm just of the ilk where I go, forget it. I can't, because I don't need your money to go and make a fool of myself and start reading a bunch of bullshit. When I get up there and I hold a paper up and say, here's my blood work, I use this shit and it made a difference. Then I'll go promote it because I got the proof in my hand.

Yeah.

But you know, structurally a lot of these are the same. I look for ones that have different components in it. You know, there's some creatines that'll add some, well, it's got extra this and that, and I'll say, hey, I like this cuz it's got something extra in it. So I, I use it so I don't have to buy it somewhere else. You know, it's all in sugar. Yeah. Then I'll— yeah. Then you got a point. But this other bullshit, like you're saying, it's like, come on, bro. Like you're, you're just spewing off at the mouth and making people have this like built-in idea that something's so superior and it's gonna make 'em £10 heavier or something, you know?

And I think all of us, we, yeah, man, all of us when we started taking supplements, we all thought they were gonna work like the best version of steroids imaginable. Yeah. And like there's a mystique to it. I don't wanna rob anyone of that mystique. Like when you're 16, you start taking protein that your mom bought you from Walmart. Like that's fucking fucking great. You can pretend it's magic. It's awesome. Then you grow up and you realize like, oh, I could have just eaten more chicken or done fucking the same thing. There's great supplements out there. Use them. They do great things. They just like, they're not going to turn a fucking old Volvo into a fucking Starlink satellite. This is not going to do that. And if you believe they're going to do that, you're in for disappointment. And that just is how it is. It's like that discordance between expectation and reality. You know, people ask like, is a common question people have, common thought they have is like, you know, what is like, what is wisdom and what is wisdom with age? What is innocence? And I think one of the biggest answers there is like the window between expectation and reality just narrows so that you're just like, kind of know probably what's going to work and what's not going to work.

And also, you know, what kind of shit is going to have a big effect and what kind of shit's not going to have a big effect. I love it. And if, and if people out there who should know or probably do know, but they're making a quick buck promoting some dumbass supplement saying this is going to fucking change your life. I mean, there's people promoting supplements that have like science has confirmed are fucking fake, which is don't do it. And they're just selling them hand over fist. And like, there's real young kids buying them. And it's really fucked up. These people go to bed at night somehow with no conscience or some shit like that.

I ain't right. Love that point. And that's— I talk about this a lot. There's a big significant difference between knowledge and wisdom that people don't grasp. You can— me and you can sit here and rap about shit we know about all day. But if we don't know how to it wisely, then it does. It's, it doesn't mean shit. So everything we talk about is really for nothing if we don't know how to implement it properly. And that's the point you just brought up there is, yeah, we can give you facts about creatine or anything else, but if you don't grasp and understand how to use it and what you're going to actually get, you're screwed. You're just screwed because you're going to live a life of disappointment and expectation that never gets hit. And you're going to waste a lot of money.

You know, I've sucked known grown adults that were excited about a new brand to fucking supplements they got.

You know, supplement-wise, my main goal with supplements is to find things that actually benefit your health. So I look for something that's gonna improve mitochondrial health or gut health that really has valid ingredient makeup that will improve my quality of life. I'm not looking at something to make me jacked or to like make me so lean, maybe help a A little. Yeah. But, uh, I'm looking more cognitive, long-term health. And I think if people had that kind of grasp, supplements would work better because they'd use the right shit, you know? Fuck that.

I don't wanna get cognitive, Dylan. I wanna get jacked. I wanna die early like my heroes.

Goddamn it, dude. I swear this. So, you know, when I, when I prefaced the whole conversation, I said you were at the top of my list. I knew this was gonna be amazing. I said that prior to this, Man, this was like some of the most fun I've had in I don't know how long. You are so far past wonderful, man. I love this shit. This has been—

no, Joe, I didn't know who the fuck you were, man. We're vibing like 1,000%. Uh, this is fucking great. I'll come on your show anytime you want to have me.

I would love to have you on multiple times, man. You have— you— the, the world— you— I mean, because you have a massive following, and I just want to share you with people that maybe don't know you because the, the way that convey it is what is so brilliant because you make it fun and you don't make it like a lecture. And I love Chevy Chase dry humor. And so you kill me.

Let me know. You're getting, you're my worst quality. You're taking, you're getting it out of me more dumb jokes.

But you have the humor that you have to really kind of be intellectual to grasp a lot of it. And I just love it. I just freaking love it, dude. So thank you so much, man. Your book is releasing on what date? So everybody knows.

June 23rd, I think. Okay. It's available for pre-order now on Amazon and all the other places you find books. Awesome.

Well, this absolutely, I, all jokes aside, I appreciate the topic because I think this topic is, is not touched upon enough by people in our position. It's more people that you don't want to hear from that, that have some sort of, oh, it's toxic masculinity or this or that, that don't give a real firsthand breakdown. So I, I really want to stress how grateful that I am, and I think so many people will be, that someone like you took this topic and made it understandable, palatable, and relatable. And that's what I want people to understand. You're actually making a very big difference for, for people struggling, because people— I think this applies to freaking everybody. So thank you for, for tackling this in the way that you did.

Thank you enough for all these fucking kind words, man. And, uh, if you ever need any kind of repayment, I do great muscle muscle worship. So you just let me know.

How about a signed copy of the book and a guarantee you'll be back on the show?

That I can't do, but muscle worship for sure. Anytime. You got it. You got it on both counts. I appreciate it.

Well, everybody, I'll link all of Dr. Mike's links in the description, where to buy his book. And brother, like I said, this has been beyond amazing. I appreciate you. I love everything that you do, and I will do everything I can to help you.

You are a new fan. Thank you. I love it.

All right, everybody, that wraps up another one. I hope this was enlightening and beneficial and that you take as much from this as I believe you will to change your quality of life. So that being said, stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and Dr. Mike Isratel signing off.