0:00 Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction, how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart & Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours. I'm noticing that and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose. No, I don't. I didn't. And I am not happy with it. Are we on? Are we live? Oh, man. We've been live. Oh, bro. Okay. That's why I made the joke. I won't tell anybody about it. Well, so it's been a while since we've talked about like fitness and wellness and health and that kind of stuff.

0:41 And it's, you know, it's part of, part of what you and I focus on, priority for you and I. Yep. And we ebb and flow. Both of us do. Oh yeah. We're humans. Um, Why do I think it's relevant? I mean, I think you and I are just like every other person in the restoration industry in that we travel a crap ton. And for us, being on the West Coast, and some of the listeners will relate to this, we routinely fly over the East Coast and back. Like last week, I had... I had a turnaround. I came back from Austin, so Texas time, to Oregon for about 30 hours. And then I left to go back to Kent, Ohio, East Coast time. And I was literally on the ground for like 26 hours. And then I popped back to Oregon time.

1:23 This is brutal. And... You know, so I imagine a lot of people relate to that, you know, whether you're a cat person, you're some corporate, you know, restoration company executive, regional, this or that, whatever you can relate to. Like, we're all, I think in this industry, subject perhaps to a little more stress than other industry verticals and just the variability, the chaos of the industry, whatever. And so health, it's important. You know, you can address that with Red Bulls and cigarettes or... Or, or you can do some other things. And so anyway, I just thought it'd be fun and perhaps helpful or useful for us just to give kind of an update. Like, what are we doing right now? And what, is there anything that either one of us just discovered that is helping in a material way or whatever?

2:05 I mean, you, you just had a, you had a rando back injury here. What about six weeks ago? Eight weeks ago, it was about? Yeah. It's just like, I've got this Achilles heel in my S5L1 or whatever, down low, right? and people have heard me whine about it before, but basically I have a disc degenerate. You jumped out of a plane one too many times. Too many times, kind of jacked up my back, and so the discs suck. So it's just kind of a weak spot. So anyways, yeah, I had a resurgence. So I blew a disc out, excuse me, I had a bulging disc in... February. Yeah. That was on the back of like getting sick for some ungod awful amount of time, which was just silly weird. Yeah.

2:45 And then started to get back on the horse after that. And then, yeah, like eight, no, it's, it's only been. Yeah. I guess it's only been two or three weeks. Yeah. When we moved at the beginning of the month. Yeah. I just heard that, that dumb thing again, which got me super infuriated. But one of the things that happened is that I decided that. for some other non-related reasons to go back to the gym versus a home gym. Yeah. And so home gym is all free weights. So it's all dumbbells, barbells. Yep. Which is my preferred resistance training method because you get all the other auxiliary muscles that help support that. And so it's just a more robust workout. Sure. But.

3:26 The downside is, is when you hurt yourself, it's the not being able to isolate the exercise. Your muscles are unsupported. Yeah. It's like you run into a lot of problems. You can't, you know, you really have to reduce weight load and all the things. And so, thankfully, because I had moved to a formal gym, and I'm going now to one that's like they heavily emphasize gear. I mean, it's a great gym, dude. Yeah. Is that I had all this equipment that I could isolate the muscles that I wanted to continue to make progress on while I was still protecting my back. Specifically, what I can get in trouble with is lifting and moving the weights into position, not the actual exercise itself.

4:10 Sure. Hefting the dumbbells up for incline dumbbell press or whatever. Yeah. So it's not my favorite kind of workout, but it's been so effective that it's helped my mind a lot. So I've stayed, remained way more optimistic. Normally when I get a serious injury, it's hard for me to remain optimistic. Yeah. So I'm remaining super optimistic and I've made gains. So I'm able to have... really what's been the equivalent of a really strong resistance training session. Yeah. But I've been really well protected. So I'm going slow, adding plates, I'm doing all the things, but I've had really great workouts. Yeah. The other thing that I did too is I used to be non-committal on when in the day I would work out.

4:52 In fact, I kind of leaned towards an afternoon and I just realized how much more times I was coming up with a reason why I can't work out that evening. Yeah. And then I switched to morning. So my alarm goes off at 4.15, which I know for some people, it's just nutty. It goes off at 4.15 and by 4.35 or so, I'm in the truck headed to the gym. And I don't know what has happened, dude, but for the last, I'm going on week three. Week four, I love getting up and going to the gym. It sounds nutty, but for whatever reason, when I was afternoon, I would get some anxiety around it the day prior.

5:32 Oh, yeah. I got to make sure. I got to remember. Yeah. But dude, now like the alarm goes off and my system knows you're going to grab your cup of coffee. You're going to jump in the truck, put your running shoes on, put your AirPods in and like get busy. And then now I think I was telling you this yesterday, like there's four or five guys that are in the gym at 445 with me. They're for real, bro. Anybody who's showing up to the gym at 445 is for real, bro. It's for real. And there's a couple young bucks in there, but there's one dude that's probably got me by 10 years. Wow. He's a pure specimen. Yeah. I was telling you, his working set is 310 on a bench press. No one near him.

6:13 Bonkers. No grunting. He's just... fucking thrown up 310s smooth as ice, dude. Anyways, well now, and I laugh about it because none of them give two shits, but now in my mind I have this perception of the dudes are going to be there at 445 and if I'm not in there, they're going to be like, yeah, I knew he was a punk. So... So between shifting the morning and going back to a gym where there's other people, and again, nobody cares. They're doing the same shit I am where they only care about themselves. But there's just some layer of accountability. And honestly, my favorite part of the day is when my alarm goes off at 4.15 because I know I'm about to go in and do something that majority of the population won't do.

6:57 And most people aren't awake yet. I'm already achieving everything. Yeah. And in a small percent of people and I haven't even made it to the office yet. Yeah. It's pretty fun. The way I've, I sort of feel it is I'm, I'm starting the day by controlling myself. That's it. Like I'm really getting, I'm getting past the bullshit and I'm getting into something that I know I need and I know I want. Yep. But I am trying to avoid. Yep. Yeah. And so like overcoming that avoidance, like I did that this morning. After our conversation, you and I hung out yesterday and went on a hike. Yeah. That was rad. That was one of the things you mentioned was just that morning routine. And I was like, man, I know what you're talking about.

7:37 I felt that. I liked that. And it worked so awesome. I stopped doing it. Yeah. You know, and so I, I said, part of my, part of my issue is it's, it's this dance, right? Because if I'm going to get up at 4.30, I got to get to bed at a certain time. Yeah. And sometimes it's hard for me to get to sleep, you know? Yeah. Just naturally, like for me to get to sleep at say 9.30, it's just, I have, especially I have teenagers in my home and it's still summer. It'll probably be a little easier when the kids are back to school because they start heading towards bed around 9.30, 10 o'clock. Yeah. So it's not as much activity in the house, but. gosh, you know, the kids are up till 11 o'clock during the summers. And so, so anyway, but I did it this morning. I managed to do it and taking a little gummy before bed helps a little bit to be honest.

8:21 But yeah, so I, I got up and I just, I felt awesome. Yeah. You know, another thing too, that I changed recently is I've always been pretty disciplined with, with the training in the gym and stuff, but yeah. I've just, lately I've been feeling overwhelmed. You know, we have so much in motion at Floodlight and just all, it's all the things we're working on and I just felt like my workouts were taking forever. You know, I had that RP hypertrophy app that I've been following and I loved that for a season, but a lot of my workouts were going like an hour 10. Oh yeah, easy. An hour 15. Mm-hmm. And I just like, I get it. And some of you hardcore people out there, you're like, oh, you only do an hour 15. It's like, well. I'm in here three hours. Yeah.

9:02 And I just felt overwhelmed by it, especially because like I'd go 4.30, 5 o'clock whenever we wrap up at the office. And now all of a sudden it's 6.15. It's 6.30 before I'm getting home. Yeah. Then we're doing dinner by seven. Oh, yeah. And then it's like the night's gone. Yep. Right? Yep. Yep. And so if I want to go with my wife to like walk the dog in the evening, it's like all that stuff just gets kind of thrown off the plate. Yeah. And then if I want to like hang out in the sauna with one of my buddies, they happen to be there. Hey, you want a sauna? I don't have time for any of that. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And so I just switched, dude. I totally like simplified. Yeah. I basically do push.

9:43 Yeah. I have this AB schedule and I do it four times a week. I just do push, then I do a pull, then I do a take Wednesday off and then I do push pull on Thursday, Friday. Because you incorporate legs in your push pull. I do full body But so I'll just do like on Mondays, I'll do squat push movements. And then on my pull movements, I'll really focus on the hamstrings and glutes. And so I show up and I do what I want to. Yeah. And I just do it as hard as I can. Yeah. You know, so it's like I'll go into like two reps in reserve. Sometimes I'll go to failure, you know, on my final set. And I know I'd probably be better off having this progressive overload program and stuff like that.

10:28 It's good I'm in here four days a week. 100%. And maybe I'm in maintenance mode. I don't know. But it has felt so freeing to just show up and be like, all right, I'm really tired. I didn't sleep well last night. So I'm not going to go hard into the paint. Yeah. I'm going to go hard. And then I'm going to leave. And a lot of times my workouts have been like 45 minutes. Yeah. And then every once in a while I'll run into my buddy, you know, Jared or Tim or whatever. Hey, let's do Fasana. And then I have time. Yeah. Then I can take 20 minutes and still be home within an hour or so. Yeah. So that's been really, I like the freedom of that. Yeah. I do too. I'm push pull legs and I'm currently going six days.

11:08 And I had to bump up creatine, which I want to talk about. Oh, sure. Yeah. Because I've had a really interesting experience. Yeah. What do you think you've noticed about that? There's like this whole thing lately. Yeah. Rhonda Patrick, Andrew Huberman, Peter Attia, Joe Rogan's brought it up. Everybody's talking about creatine. I swear, I swear to you, I have no less than five creatine gummy companies advertising my Facebook feed, my Instagram feed. So clearly you're a user. Yeah, that's right. Oh, bro. I need to do gummies for travel. Dude, I am a big fan of gummies. Yeah. But you got to make sure you get stuff that doesn't have a ton of bullshit, like a ton of sugar. Yep. And of course, there was a big report that came out that a lot of these gummies that people are putting out don't actually have, like the standard dosage is five grams.

11:51 Yeah. That the four gummies or whatever you got to eat for that, like there's a lot of brands out there that they've tested that don't have that. Oh, wow. You think you're getting five grams and you might get two. Oh, wow. So you got to get the good stuff. But anyways. That is kind of... I have threatened to be consistent with creatine for off and on pretty much my whole life. I know I've been bugging you about it for a while. Yeah, you've obviously been religious about it. I was really into it for a short period. So most of my muscle I put on during a one-year stint while I was deployed. So in between movement, in and out of theater, we had several runs where it was like, you just are spending a god-awful amount of time waiting.

12:35 And when we would do that, we just lifted our faces off. And we were supplementing everywhere we could. And we were in our late 20s. And we're lifting like three hours a day, heavily isolated movements. You're doing like... You know, biceps would be like five, six different X. I mean, it was obnoxious. But I was on creatine that whole time because you had to because there was no way to lift for three hours a day and be recovered by the next day. But all our gains were like in 45-day sprints. So we would just go in and go nuts all out for 45 days. And then we'd go into, you know, we'd move north or move into an operational space or whatever. Anyways. I know that there's value in it, but I just have been inconsistent.

13:16 Just a couple weeks ago, I started taking the minimum, the five grams, because I need it. The way creatine works, you got to obviously build it up into your muscles. Then you just keep those reserves topped off, essentially, and that's how your body's using. That's a really shitty exam, but it's good enough. Sure. Sure. Well, all this research that's coming out has moved because it's always been about what happens in muscle with creatine. And it's probably the most tested, supported, scientifically sound supplement there is. One of the few that actually has been proven to work. That's proven. It's just like you just do it. If you want recovery... from consistent workouts, take creatine.

13:58 It just does what you need it to. And that's where the five grams comes from. And because your muscle just can't use more than that. And so you're just wasting your money, essentially. When they're looking at muscle, interaction of muscle and creatine. And what's happened, and I don't know for certain, but essentially neuroscientists Yeah. Somehow, they started talking and thinking about creatine from the perspective of, well, wait a minute. And I don't remember the science, but essentially there's something that happens from creatine that's good for a process that happens inside the brain. And so the idea is that they've decided and determined that, okay, yeah, it's great for muscle up to that five gram mark.

14:45 But then everything after five grams is actually being used by your brain. And it's immediate. So whereas you have to load for muscles to use it and build up that reserve, your brain can use it that day the moment it gets access to it essentially. Yeah. And again, I'm not like, watch Huberman or Diary of the CEO just did one with her and she's rad. So anyways, I decided to do it. So I've been running 15 grams a day. And so I go do my workout first thing in the morning. And then when I get back to the house, I take my supplements and I do a big thing of water. Yeah. Yeah. and my 15 grams. And I told you, hey, if it's placebo, I'm cool with it.

15:28 But there is a noticeable difference in my brain energy since I've been taking the 15 grams a day. In my experience, I think it's true. I think that the brain is able to use it effectively as an energizer source is essentially what it is. And it's way better than caffeine or anything else. Not that I don't drink too much caffeine because I do. But it just has, I'm having a more consistent energy throughout the day. Now, let me be clear because I was just whining about it before we started recording. I'm not running around at 11 in energy all the time. Sure. But my experience so far is consistently, I am much better off than I was prior to not taking the 15 grams a day.

16:20 Yeah, something you might try is taking your 5 or 10 in the morning and then doing an afternoon dose. Like an afternoon. Like a lunch dose. That might, yeah, that might be good. I have found... Like almost like you're burning it up. Yeah, because I started hyperdosing it 15 to 20 grams a day. Mm-hmm. Probably four weeks ago. Okay. I think I started four or five weeks ago. And I bought some gummies. I've been traveling with the gummies. I find too the gummies, they're way more expensive than powder, obviously. Yeah. But I'm just so more likely. You got to take a lot. Well, I like them. And so what I'll do is I'll take three or four gummies, which is five grams. Yeah. Yeah. And I might do that three or four times during the day. Oh, I see. And I'll just take them intermittently.

17:01 Because I heard one of those guys, Huberman or somebody else, Rogan, I think, just talking about just kind of snacking on them. Yeah. And so I've been doing that. And I find it reliably is giving me another hour to two hours of clear thinking in my day. Productivity. Yeah. Productivity. Whereas I start to maybe slump in the eye. I was telling you yesterday, like I'm so much more a morning guy. Yeah. Yeah. Like by two or three o'clock, I'm like really starting to fade in terms of just my, just with hammer down. Right. Yeah. And I've been finding consistently, the day starts pretty early as we have East Coast clients. Right. Yeah. But I'm consistently finding, I can go five, six o'clock and I still got some in the tank when I go home.

17:43 Yeah. Yeah. And so that's been good. Well, I think the benefit of that just holistically is it sucks when you're basically juiced by two or three. Yeah. You go into the reserve tank for another couple hours because by the time then you go home to your family, there's no tank to tap into. Yeah. So they literally just kind of get the leftover bullshit scraps at best. Yeah. And I do feel like this has helped that quite a bit. I have a little bit more juice when I go home. I can be a little bit more engaged and more effective. Okay, here's the front, dude, that I am almost ashamed to say this out loud because of how much money it's going to cost me.

18:26 But I'm about to do the pod bed thing, dude. I don't know. Have you heard about this? Oh, bro, I've been thinking about it the same. It's like a, what, four or five grand or something? Yeah. Yeah, all in. So those of you that don't know, I was exposed to this through Huberman, probably like most people. He's now, I don't think he founded, but he's a substantial backer. Yeah. So the idea is that part of what makes it, you sleep crappy is a lot of it has to do with temperature. And basically your body going through these shifts of getting a little too cold or getting too warm. And then you're basically your systems kind of waking itself up for you to like do what you need to to get back into that right space.

19:09 So that that is a thing is is temperature has a major impact. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing, and I'm going to try to begin layering all of these things consecutively because I've literally struggled and tried. So I'm just going to share what I've tried and what hasn't worked for me yet and where I'm going next. And if anybody gives a shit, they'll know. So the other thing is eating too near your bedtime. So optimally, they say about three hours. And because your body does things to process the food that basically keeps you awake. You're actively needing to participate in a process, which prevents you from going to sleep or getting into REM.

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20:34 Also let them know, hey, you might, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're going to have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well. How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep and it's only $2,500 a month? If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out. Let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over $250 million in revenue. Supported by, advised by, an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you. So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment. And let's unlock the next chapter of your success story.

21:17 The other thing that I know most people have heard is screen time. Oh, yeah. And having a screen on right until you go to sleep. Another thing is the how you wake up. So like if you're an individual that actually makes it to an alarm, which I rarely ever do. that jarring kind of sound like, bah, like get up, get going instead of a awakening process. Yeah. From the sun coming through the window or something like that. That too creates like this bad cycle where the combination of doing that and then taking in caffeine immediately, you're basically preventing your body from chemically doing what it would normally do to wake you up.

21:59 Yeah. The problem with that over time is that it basically creates a bad pattern that's not supporting your sleep. So then you get stuck in this loop where I need the caffeine and the thing to wake me up because I have trouble, right? The cycle. So the bed solves for a lot of that. This bed thing is interesting. I used to have one, by the way. You did? I had a full-blown pop. I had an Uller. So Uller was the original... It's a mattress cover, a full mattress cover, both sides, that has little tubes of water that circulate, like temperature-controlled water through the bed. And you can cool it all the way down. Like the lowest I ever got, it was like 57 degrees.

22:42 And it can go all the way up to, I think, 105. Yeah. And you can set alarms. So you can set basically to wake up. It slowly warms up your bed to wake you up in the morning, this kind of thing. Oh, yeah. So similar feature set. Very simple. It broke. It stopped working. This was about three years ago. And this other company had a terrible warranty, whatever. And so I've just been waiting to maybe get the pod eight or whatever it is. Yeah. It's pod five, I think, is the release. The newest one. So it's the same thing. So it's a cover that goes over the mattress. Oh. So there's several parts that you can kind of buy whatever mix and match. So the main thing, though, is this pod thing. And it is, you add water. Yeah.

23:22 And it essentially, through an app, the bed monitors your temperature. You set what you want it to be. Yeah. It monitors it, and then it's adjusting all night long to keep you in this very specific range of temperature. And each side is its own. So my wife can have her setting that makes sense for her sleep. I can have my side. So there's that. Then what they did is they added a comforter with the actual cover. So it looks like a normal comforter. So now the same principle. It's got the same water circulation temperature. Yeah, so now it's 360 degrees is in this controlled environment.

24:03 And then the wake up, and then it's got a sound machine built into it. So I need white noise. I'm so bougie. This is so ridiculous. So then there's this alarm function. But what it does is it the same, like you talked about, it changes the temperature up. Yep. it begins to vibrate. Yeah, I was going to say there's vibration. There's a vibration that begins to send through you. And it's just like this idea of, it starts, like if your idea is, I got to get out of bed by X, this thing starts to do its thing. 20, 30 minutes ahead. Bring you back to life, kind of start getting you aware of your surroundings instead of this, you know, or whatever, jarring sound.

24:43 So anyways, that's a lot of what's happening. And I'm so desperate. Yeah. that I'm going to try it. I get it. They have a rad return policy. It's a stupid amount of money. Also, they have a frame. If you get the frame, then it'll do the raising and lowering of your mattress and all that shit, which I don't... The temperature is the main thing. Anyway, so we're going to try it. And I am so hopeful, bro, that I will break the five-hour-a-night sleep pattern that I've been on probably for two decades. Well, I can't wait to hear your review of it. And if you love it, I'm probably next in line. I'm probably next in line. You know, I remember when we had that mattress cover and it was working. It was effective when it was. It was just the best thing ever.

25:26 And it's awesome. It's unlike, I mean, you just, there's no other way to sleep that comfortably. Yeah. Yeah. Personally, I prefer having a nice warm comforter over the top and then having it cool on my back. Yeah. That is the best feeling. And of course, there's no other way to do it except to use a system like this. Yeah. Dude, how are you doing? Where are you at food-wise? Like diet? Yeah. You know, I was starting to get a little burnt out on the carnivore front. And I think mainly it's because what I accidentally slipped into was a diet that was pretty heavy and fat. And I didn't really, I just wasn't super paying attention to that. Because I just don't want to eat chicken like a million times a day, you know?

26:08 Bacon, sausage. Yeah. It was like, you know, it's all the good carnivore meat that I love. And so you end up finding out that most of it's full of fat. So I ended up kind of moving away from that a little bit and more into, I would just call it more of a whole food focus. Like I'm just trying to make sure that we're meal prepping and cooking so that I know the meat's coming from a good place. Yeah. I'm not a huge vegetable person. I never, I don't, I just think most of them taste gross when they're cooked. And the cooking process also takes out a lot of the shit that makes a vegetable worth eating. And so I think what I'm going to ultimately do, this is kind of a newer thing, I think I'm going to lean a little bit more in like an AG1 situation.

26:50 or something where I'm taking in a more dense- Greens and minerals and stuff. Yeah, because really at the end of the day, if you want your vegetables to be giving you a lot of the vitamins and minerals that you need, they need to be dark leafy, which is like kale and broccoli. And to be honest, I am only interested in eating broccoli so many times a week, and kale can fuck off. Like I don't- So for me, I'm like, in order for this to be, you know, I think I'm going to have to supplement. So I'm basically meat and fruit with some greens that get sprinkled in from time to time. But if I'm using like an AG1, I probably won't even bother much on the vegetables. Yeah. Yeah. I've been simplifying.

27:31 Yeah. I was on the carnivore front with you and I'm trying to allow myself to have fun. Yeah. Yeah. We were recently at the coast. Yeah. I swear. Okay. Those of you who've been to the Oregon coast, Newport has this bay front and there is no less than like six taffy shops within a three block radius of the bay front. It's, it's unbelievable. And then they all, I think they're all owned by the same conglomerate. I think. Because they all have basically the same selection. They've got, you know, hand-scooped ice cream, right? They've got all the caramels, the chocolate-covered seafoam, and a whole grip of taffy. And anyway, so my family and I were there, and everybody wants to get ice cream.

28:11 And historically, I've been that guy. It's like, eh, I'm good. No sugar for me. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, you know, is life about the number of years that we have of it? Or is it about the quality of it? And like, do I want to have a treat? I do want to have a treat every now and then. So I've kind of just adopted this principle of when in Rome. Yeah. So when I'm out with people and if everybody else is ordering a dessert or whatever, I'm going to get a dessert. Okay. I'm going to participate. Okay. Every other time when it's up to me, I'm going to choose to have. And what I've been orienting myself around really is just trying to get that whole gram per pound of body weight of protein. Yeah.

28:51 It's hard. And do it with whole foods. Yeah, it's hella hard. Although I do some protein shakes. I was telling you yesterday, I try not to do more than one protein shake. Yeah. But it's really gosh dang convenient. I get these slate shakes. Drinks also in my Facebook feed. I freaking get so much of this stuff. Facebook's probably listening to me right now. Oh, yeah. And now I'm going to get served up some new protein snacks. I've had protein Rice Krispie treats. Yeah, anyway, I've done all that. I'm trying to get rid of a lot of that processed protein junk. Yeah, yeah. And just eat. So I eat a lot of ground beef. Yeah. A lot of eggs. A lot of the Costco salmon filets. They have these individually wrapped salmon filets.

29:32 Super awesome. Yeah. Costco also has these individually wrapped line-caught cod filets. They're just like the perfect size. They're like 26 grams of protein each. So anyway, so I've been doing a lot of that and then fruit. And I'll just usually have like a bowl of blueberries and an apple. It's probably the most common thing I do right now. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, it's been working pretty good. I feel pretty good when I'm stick to that diet. See, I'm with you on the kind of win and roam mentality. What was it? Two nights ago, I think. Yeah, two nights ago. My daughter and my wife and I, we went out. And first off, we went to a place that's full of food carts. And then they serve beer on tap.

30:12 Oh, boy. So I got a really great IPA. You drank your dinner? Oh, yeah. And then I had some Hawaiian vegetables and meat, basically. Yeah. I'm like, okay, it's not too bad. Yeah. I'm a beer in. It was really great. And there's a great thing when you're trying to maintain some kind of body shape, when you don't drink IPAs every day, they're really delicious when you have one. You're like, oh, yeah, I fucking love that. So, and then as we're sitting there, my daughter's like, you know what? You really need some frozen yogurt. So then we went and got some, whatever the newest version of fro-yo is basically. And it was amazing. And you know what? The reality of it is, is I currently work out six gosh damn days a week.

30:55 Yeah. Yeah. And the reality of it is, is I'm doing that so that for my, more so than anything, my mental health. Now, granted, the better shape you're in, the better you feel about yourself, it fuels your mental health, okay? Oh, yeah. End of story. So mainly the reason I'm doing it is for, I want to have a good life with the years that I have left. And I want to mentally, I like the benefit of working out on a consistent basis. It helps everything from my soul to my chest. You know what I mean? And I want to do that forever. And so if I treat eating as if I'm constantly battling some kind of monster, it's super unmotivating.

31:36 Yeah, like humans, we need some amount of pleasure. It's fun. Like there's a balance, right? Yeah. It's like too much pleasure and it creates problems. Yeah. Too little pleasure creates problems, you know? I think that way. Like I really do. And like I didn't feel guilty. Now, I think when I feel guilty is when I'm supposed to work out four or five, six days a week. I've worked out two and then I have two nights like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's when you're in trouble. Yeah, yeah. But if you're consistent, you know the whole freedom and discipline? Oh, yeah. That's an example. It's totally it, man. When you're dialed in and you have one night, I mean, there's a reason The Rock has a feed day on Sunday. No, it doesn't make you go backwards. Dude, I have three.

32:19 My mom is in town. Oh, boy. And there are this pancake mix at Trader Joe's. Yes. Have I made these for you? No, but we've bought the mix. The mochi. Oh, yeah. The purple box. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So I have three boxes of that. We're doing a family pancake feed this weekend. Oh, you are? I'm freaking saving up, dude. Oh yeah. I'm going to have eggs and beef all day today. These are the protein ones though, right? The protein cakes? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. The ones I'm talking about are the best protein pancakes I've ever had, which is a false sense of security. Yeah. It's because they've also got like 50 grams of carbs with it too, right?

32:59 Okay. So, all right. All right. So we have like two people listening, right? Yeah. No, no, no. I'm sure everybody's listening. It's my wife and Steve. I just can't get enough of this. Can we talk about the TRT? Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I've been on Enclomiphene. And I think I maybe mentioned that in a previous episode a few months ago when I started that. I still haven't done my blood work. I need to go in and get some blood work. You do. They renewed my prescription. Right now, I do every other day. I'm doing 25 milligrams every other day of enclomiphene citrate, which is important for those of you listening. Is that an injection? No, it's a pill. Oh, okay. It's a form of Clomid, but Clomid has some... secondary effects that some men experience where it, if I understand this correctly, it raises the female hormone along with the testosterone too much.

33:47 Estrogen. Yeah, it has an estrogenic effect that can be negative and create the man boobs and that kind of stuff apparently. Yeah, okay. Okay. But enclomiphene citrate has some kind of blocker built into that to where it doesn't elevate the estrogen in the same way. And so anyway, enclomiphene citrate is like this new discovery and... Basically what it does is it signals to the pituitary gland to increase your own testosterone production. So anyways, I've been on that. And honestly... So just to be clear, you had your levels tested and they were lower than you. Yeah, like 390 or so. Yeah, which is the bottom end of the health spectrum. Bottom end of the spectrum. Not like...

34:28 Scary problematic. No. But the low end. Like, I think they say like 300 to 900 is kind of the range for somebody my age. And I was definitely on the low end. Yeah. And to be honest, I wasn't necessarily feeling it in any particular way. Mm-hmm. I just had this feeling of, I don't feel like I have quite as much fire. And honestly, like I was just feeling like I don't feel the fiery ambition. Yeah. Just that get out of bed and get after it kind of thing. Like I would, I'm accustomed to kind of feeling. And so I thought, well, maybe this would help. And I do feel like I've seen, I've felt a little bit of bump, but the only thing that I've really noticed for certain is I've gained a bunch of weight. Oh yeah. Yeah.

35:08 I've been told you just yesterday. But a good weight. Yeah, it's not fat weight, but I've always been between 195 and 205 pounds almost my entire life, except for when I trained at State Farm where I was getting daily per diem for like two months straight. living in a hotel across the street from Red Lobster. Some of our cat friends can relate to this, right? When you're on the road, right? You eat just where the food is. Anyway, so I ballooned up to 220 actually at that time for a period of months. But anyway, I'm sitting at like 215 right now. Yeah. And I have been for the last like two months. So within that month, I'm sitting I started stacking on some weight and I can see some of it in the mirror.

35:52 Like my shoulders got broader. Oh man. Like I put weight on. Oh yeah. But I'm not necessarily a lot stronger. Like it had, so I've just had kind of this, really interesting, neutral to positive kind of experience with it. But I also haven't started the TRT. Like I have a couple of friends besides you that are on TRT. And so I'm just curious kind of what the latest is because you're going on what? A year and a half, two years? No, I think I'm about to get into my third year. Are you? Okay. Yeah. What's that been like? So when I got tested, what drove me to get tested was what I was experiencing. Because again, there's everything from mental fogginess, energy level, libido, optimism, energy to physically do things, your ability to recover from workouts.

36:44 All of that all falls under our testosterone levels, free testosterone in our body. Yeah. And what I was struggling with was borderline depression, both a lack of physical and mental energy, and my optimism. Like, I just, like, just normal life challenges were beginning to feel a bit overwhelming. to me. So mine was all about more the mental health state. Well, I just was mentioning it and passing to an acquaintance of mine who had just, he's a little bit older than me, probably about 10 years, 8 years. And he had recently found out that he was extremely low, blah, blah, blah. And he was just telling me about his experience and what he had learned.

37:25 Because I've always... made the dumb connection of TRT treatment is the same as steroids or somehow they're even in the same atmosphere and they're not at all. Like the way they work and function and what's happening here, but they're not even the same sport. So anyways, long story short, I went in and had tests done. I go to a doctor that that's what they specialize is men's hormones, basically treating men. And it was low. I think I was like 320-ish, 325, which was low enough that insurance will cover it. Yeah. Yeah. So basically at that point, like it's low enough that it could be having a negative effect on your health. Yeah.

38:05 And I would say it took, so mine's an injection. I do it once per week. And it probably took 30 days, maybe six weeks to... to really realize this is changing. This is helping me. And now it's so clear and obvious I wouldn't, I can't come off of it. That's the thing is like for stage setting, the idea is that let's say your body has a thermostat in it. And because of what you're doing, you say to the thermostat, hey, I need you to be at 70 degrees. Yep. Well, what happens when your system is failing, and this happens with age, it's totally normal, and it's going to happen to every man, is your body start that thermostat breaks to where you're saying that it needs to be 70, and it's telling you it is 70.

39:00 It's 70 in here, and you're like, nope, it's not 70 degrees. Let's go to 75, and your body just keeps telling you I can't because we're already at the temperature you want it to be. Yeah. If that makes sense. Sure, sure. So it's my ability to produce it is broken, essentially. Yeah. And that's a permanent thing. So once that happens and you get on to true TRT treatment, your body is now taking a supplement to replace what your body would normally have done on its own. Yeah. Because it's just broken thermostat. Right. So I have to be on it now until I decide I don't care to have the appropriate levels of testosterone. Yeah. Yeah. But then, in order to not make your body then become even worse at it than it already is, I do a cycle every six months of basically a, this is so crazy sounding, it's basically a cycle of a fertility drug.

39:54 Oh, yeah. And so that's a reminder because now, okay, now my body says, oh, it's 70 degrees and I'm pumping in a something that's telling it it's now 85. Yeah. And so your body like rattles down and down and down because it's like, oh, what the fuck? Why can't we? All this stuff is coming in. All this thing's happening. I'm told you it should only be 70. So anyways, you have to counter that with a fertility drug. And I do a cycle of it once every six months. And it just reminds my system, hey, you need to pre-making your own still as much as you can. And the combination of the two allows me to not be on like a vial of it a week. Basically, I only take like one mil, whatever the measure. Okay. It's changed my life.

40:35 Yeah. That simple. I'm unapologetic about it. It's not a joke. Yeah. The anxiety that I am naturally equipped with is substantially lower when my TRT levels are appropriate. Yeah. Mental fatigue, same. Like, yeah, I get tired because I'm working my ass off. but I'm not depressed and lacking hope and the ability to adapt and overcome. Like all of that has done 180 degree turn because I normally sit north now of 700. Like a low test, I'll be 690, 700. I tend to want to be in the 900 range is where I want to sit. Recovery from a workout, like listen, I know there's older men than me that are in way better shape, but I'm going to be 49 years old in November and, And when I'm in a gym working out with other men that are younger than me, I can absolutely keep my own and I can show up the next day and do it again because I have the ability to recover from a good workout.

41:32 I was losing traction so fast, dude. And I didn't understand what was happening. But almost overnight, I would just get caved in from a good workout. Yeah. And then it would take me days before I even had near enough energy to go act like I was going to do it again. Yeah. Totally different. Now it's like, as long as I'm taking a good supplement and I've got the things on deck that my body needs, i.e. creatine and protein for muscle, synthesization or synthesis. Anyways, as long as I do that, my testosterone level gives me everything I need to to still show up and do what I need to do. Just in transparency, I wasn't having a libido problem with it, and I definitely don't have...

42:18 You have even less of a problem. Yeah, there wasn't one before and now there's no sign of getting close to a problem with that. I think people misunderstand what you get from it and most people think if they have like an ED problem, then they're going to go in for this. Listen, that might be a thing, but the reality of it is, this is designed to support mental health inside a man. Men need, just like women need the right hormone balance, men need to have the appropriate levels of testosterone in their system to be equipped to do what men are meant to be doing. That is our energy drug. Like that's what we need inside. And it's, if you at all feel like you're in your late thirties, maybe mid forties, and you're starting to have some struggle with your outlook on life, your mental energy, mental clarity, your ability to show up and work hard on a day in and day out basis, do yourself a favor and have your free testosterone and your TRT levels tested by a lab.

43:19 Yeah. And based on that information, I would tell anybody if they're less than 400, yeah, they should seriously consider doing treatment. I would just offer, because this in Clomiphene Citrate, I'm not a doctor, but there's options. Like you don't necessarily, your doctor is not necessarily going to throw you on TRT right away. Yeah. There's these other things like in Clomiphene Citrate that, can potentially stimulate your levels back up as an interim with just a pill. But I agree with you, man. I have seen countless examples. Like, it's becoming popular, right? But at the same time, like, I just see the net impact of it in people, and it's consistent.

44:03 It's like people get... leaner, people get happier, and they get a boost in their confidence. Yeah. And they just tend to look more youthful. Yeah. So it's just, it's very clear to me that this is almost universally a positive thing. So I don't know when eventually I'll go on the TRT. It'll be really interesting to see what my levels are on the dosage I've been on. The next step is for me to go 25 milligrams a day. Just daily taking Sundays off, take one day off a week. Yep. And so I'm curious. I'm like, I don't want to gain any more weight, muscle or otherwise. But it'll be interesting to see what effect that has when I eventually do that. It'll balance out, though. Like your body's not, it's not just putting on weight to put on weight.

44:44 It's working towards an equilibrium based on how much you work out and all the things. Our friend Jason. Yeah. I just want to look like him. That guy pulls his shirt off and man, there's just no shred of fat on there. Yeah. And he's our age. Yeah. He's not a young buck either. I know. I know. Yeah. Good times. Anyway. Well, for two of you that hung in the pocket on that one, I don't know. Some of you guys care about this stuff. I think again, the way I think about this is this matters. I can only run companies so well if I'm an internal disaster in terms of my mental, physical well-being. Yeah. Like this is part of the juice. This is part of the equation.

45:25 I can't outsmart my body. Yeah. It needs to come along for the ride. You know? You know, one thing I'll say that I've been experimenting with is new. It's early days, but exogenous ketones. Yeah. I've heard some stuff on this. By the way, we got to get close to wrapping up. I got an attorney. Yeah. Okay. So this is a little tip. I'm on my second batch of ketone IQ. Yeah. By the way, it looks like a five-hour energy kind of, and you slam it. It tastes a little bit like cough syrup and a little bit like pickle juice. What a combo. But somehow it's not salty. I really don't know how to explain it. It's a weird taste. It's horrible. It doesn't make you want to puke. It's weird. It's got a weird taste to it. But it's exogenous ketones, so your body produces ketones inside you, but you have to be in ketosis.

46:10 It's very difficult, most people find, to actually get in ketosis, even if they're eating low-carb. Yeah. Because protein gets converted. You have a bunch of protein gets converted into glucose and it throws you out of ketosis. So anyway, exogenous ketones, you can take it and the ketones provide your body energy in the same way as if you were in ketosis. And so I've been experimenting with bringing one or two of those to work. Sometimes I'll take it in lieu of lunch if I'm trying to just kind of… do a little deficit, you know, or if I just can't eat, I don't have time. And there's something to this, man. And they don't have caffeine. Yeah. So I can have it. Now, some of you drink caffeine until eight o'clock at night. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do coffee after one o'clock period, but I can have one of these ketone things right before I go home and it, it gives me a pop and a pretty good, long, sustainable lift from it.

47:02 So if anybody's been kind of looking for an energy hack beyond just like the energy drinks, because this doesn't have all that other bullshit in it. Ketone IQ, it's not cheap, but we consider like what's a couple, three hours worth of energy worth to you as a professional? It's worth it to me. I think they end up being about 350 or so each. Okay. But it's like, that's no different. I'd spend that on a coffee. Yeah, or a coffee, right? So it's the same thing. Anyway. All right. Well, I hope this was incredibly helpful to all of you. That's going to change your life. And we'll see you next time on the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast. All right, everybody. Thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.

47:44 And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.