What’s up Noah, I am getting blood work done tomorrow and know nothing about these levels. Do you charge a fee for people to send you the results and you help them?
Any updated cosmetics haul? Wondering what you use for moisturizer - I find tallow alone (even w/ added honey and jojoba oil) to be not hydrating enough as it's just an occlusive. Are you still using Aleppo soap as your face cleanser? Thanks!
All my life I have struggled to feel any effects of stimulants & supplements (caffeine, mushrooms, any supplements e.g. taurine, alpha-gpc, the list goes on). Should I slowly take larger doses to find my required dose or is there something else that could be the issue?
Bio-individuality is real; some people simply don't feel the effects from stimulants.
There are a few things you can look at under the hood:
1. Reverse engineering what you actually want from the stimulants
2. Find new methods and pathways to get those results
Are you looking for more energy? Consider methylated B vitamins or mitochondrial agents. Are you looking for more cognitive function? Consider cerebral blood flow agents like Nicobaloba. Find what works for you. Ultimately, some people just don't have a very responsive nervous system.
Is the randle cycle much of a concern when bulking? Or should I focus on getting enough calories in regardless? Stuggling to get enough calories in currently. Vice versa, is it as much of a concern when in a deficit in regards to fat gain since your in a deficit already?
When trying to put on mass, you should actually disrespect the Randall cycle a little bit. You essentially want to put the breakers on your overactive metabolism so you start putting on mass. There is a transition period, but you will reach a breakthrough where you start putting on mass easy, almost too easily.
Once you get to that point where you start getting a little bit puffy, you can recalibrate by then reincorporating the Randall cycle respect cycle and then do that for the extent of your bulking cycle. I like to bulk in phases. So I'll bulk up. I'll stay at maintenance a little bit to let my metabolism re-regulate and recalibrate. And then I will bulk again.
Do you offer any personal coaching, where you recommend and review lab tests and make suggestions from there? May be gut focused, but overall wellbeing would be great too. Two of us, married couple.
Hey Noah, I’ve had ADHD my whole life and got professionally diagnosed 3 years ago. However, I didn’t and don’t want to go on medication as I just hate the thought of depending on something like that. I know you have ADHD and manage it without it, so I know it can be done.
I’ve noticed I go through the same cycle over and over.
I get really excited about a new hobby/interest/side hustle
I go ALL IN. Read everything I can, watch videos, and spend money on courses/equipment. Think about this shit 24/7
After a week or so (sometimes less, sometimes longer), I start to lose interest, or dopamine, and I get bored and depressed.
I have a day or two of being down, and then I find something else.
Examples of things I get really obsessed with are:
fitness & health
building a business
learning more about SEO (my work)
If I’m feeling in a rut, I start playing video games
No matter which cycle I’m in, I go all in. The issue is I’m 28 now, and I feel like a failure. I always imagined myself having my own business by now and not relying on a 9-5. I don’t want or need to be rich, but I do want to work for myself. If I had just stuck to the things I was working on 1,2,5 years ago - I’d probably have reached those goals by now.
How do I stop myself from getting into the same cycle over and over? Every time I start something again (right now I’m trying to get out of my 9-5) I say to myself that ‘this time is different, i’m going to stick with it’ etc - but then I just stop.
Sorry, this is a bit of a rant, but I’d love to know what advice you have for me coming from someone who also had ADHD.
Hey man, welcome to the club. It's an absolute rollercoaster and one that you personally need to get off of. This is just how the ADHD brain works - it's driven by novel stimuli. You find a new thing to you that is your entire identity, that is your entire purpose until it wears off. And that's exhausting.
So you need to know yourself and say, "I am the type of guy to become extremely interested in new things. I'm going to do things for a few weeks and then move on and accept that. Except that hey, this is actually a really good tool if I use it correctly because I can learn a lot about something and talk months' worth of research in a few days and then move on to the next thing, but I still have that in my back pocket.
Additionally, you need to learn how to make consistency novel. What is figure out the one thing that you were obsessed with as a child - the one thing where it came easy to you but hard to everybody else - and dedicate yourself to consistency gamify the process because this is the only way that you're going to be able to get ahead and live a proactive life (not a reactive one). You cannot trust yourself with distractions. If you were an alcoholic, you would not let yourself bring alcohol into the house. So if you have distractions like video games, you cannot let yourself have exposure to video games. This is just the way that the ADHD brain works. You will gravitate towards the most interesting thing. So make sure the most interesting thing in front of you is productive. You have a lot of emotional attachment to your behaviors right now. And I don't blame you. But the only way that you're going to make tangible progress is if you detach yourself and treat yourself like an observation. Like a science experiment where you're gathering data and creating hypotheses. This is how you treat the ADHD brain. You will never outwork it. You can only out-study it and out-smart it.
Hey man, it's been a revelatory year for context. I grew up between two religions, getting pulled either way, but being a part of neither. It really jaded me because all I wanted to do was to belong. Combined with going to an extremely hostile Catholic school, it tainted my perspective on religion for a very long time. But this year, thanks to good friends, my girlfriend, and struggles, I finally understood what it meant to welcome God into your heart and to live in accordance with the Bible and to follow Jesus. I believe that every man has a God-sized hole in their heart. For me personally, it's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, a weight that's been there my entire life. It gives me a moral scaffolding that I deeply needed and I believe to be true. I came across God this year from first principles, which I believe is the best way to build a strong faith.
What are your thoughts on cycling calories? High calories on lifting days (3x) a week and maintenance/ slight deficit (100-200 calories) on non lifting days? More fats and less carbs on non lifting days and higher carbs lower fat on lifting days?
Cycling calories is sensible. The more I train, and the more I want to gain, the more I eat.
On non-lifting days I do tend to lower my carbs to make room for fat refeeds. I prioritize starchy carbohydrates on lifting days, especially around my workout. Get a feel for your recovery as well. If you're redlining training, up your food, regardless of days.
Adaptation and recovery happens over multiple days, so even if you're not training on a given day, eat well to up recovery.
Focus on what is within your locus of control. Do not expose yourself to things you have no control over. If you are exposed to the modern doom (and there is a lot), find any way to take action on it. Ask yourself "what can I do about this?" and do something about it. If you can't do anything about it, accept that and move on.
Avoid the ragebait, but stay up to date with whats happening in the world. Come up with a plan to position you and your family in the best position possible based on your abilities. Be creative, be determined, and be practical.
Hi Noah, I’m living in North Europe, and I’m aiming to go from 15% bodyfat to around 10%. Ideally, I would want to bulk just after.
Now that the winter is coming, how would you reach this target ? Should I still follow the shredmaxxing protocol with some changes ?
I was thinking of just eating fruits til noon 2x/week, with a more classic breakfast the other days. And maybe increasing my amount of fats through dairies every days.
If I can just ask a quick 2nd question : do you have a target for the quantity of fats you consume overall ? (Ex : 1g/kg of body weight ?)
Anyway, maybe another part of the shredmaxxing protocol / or another protocol focusing on winter diet could interest other people too ? Just giving an idea, I like a lot your work by the way, thanks for that !
Your intuition is correct here. Cut down on fruits in the winter. Focus on training hard and staying active and most importantly eating clean. Do this until early spring and then incorporate the fruit till noon model more religiously.
Lots of stewed meats, some dairy for sure but don't overdo it if body composition is your goal. Focus on starchy carbs as primary carb source with as much locational accuracy as you can with fruits (apples, berries).
As for fat targets, I do not have one. Aim for around 50g a day and feel free to up this in the winter. Fat soluble vitamins stay around for a while so if you start low and feel you need more, you can up them. If you eat fats for an extended period of time that can "carry over" to low fat periods
Wintermaxxing protocol is a great idea, I will start working on that.
Hey Noah, I’m a 27 yo guy and I look very young, people can easily say I’m 18 yo.
It annoys me, and would like to just look my age. Do you have any tips or advises ? Is it related to T levels ? Last time I tested it, I had normal T levels but low free T and relatively high prolactin. Also, I think not having a lot of beard plays a role here..
Yo! Not an awful problem to have. But in this case I would recommend chadramming harder. A lot of age perception is demeanor. Are you assertive enough? Confident enough? Competent enough? Focus on behavioral changes.
Train your neck, Look into lowering prolactin, consider boron for SHBG to raise free T, Up your minerals in general and incorporate more oysters. Get a tan. Train martial arts to grizzle up your face. This may sound cliche but doing high T things makes you look high t and subsequently more mature
Hey Noah, even though I get 6–8 hours on SSRI/SNRI, my sleep feels like a coma—no recovery, energy, or focus—and I never get naturally tired, just stuck in a zombie-like numb state. This has been going on for a long time, and I need strategies to make my sleep truly restorative again. Thanks in advance :)
Hey, so this zombification is the most common side effect of SSRIs. It may stop you from feeling bad, but it stops your ability to feel at all. I was on SSRI for a long time. I would highly recommend speaking with your medical doctor on how to get off as it does cause damage and we don't know the effects long-term. But I personally know the effects are not great.
When it comes to the energy portion here, until you re-balance your brain chemistry, it's going to be hard to make progress. But there are some things that we can do in the meantime:
1. Make sure that you are staying on top of the basics like sunlight, exercise (particularly high-intensity interval training), micronutrient-rich diet from animal implant sources, as well as a non-overstimulating and desensitizing environment.
When it comes to tactical targeting, we want to focus on the mitochondria because SSRIs do damage your mitochondria which produce energy. So a lot of those lifestyle interventions will help there. When it comes to actual tactical use, I really enjoy CoQ10 and PQQ for mitochondrial biogenesis, taurine is an amino acid you can look into here and potentially consider saffron as an adjunct therapy to your SSRI use. I highly recommend speaking with your medical doctor about this. As I am not a medical doctor and this is just from personal experience.
Hey again Noah, thanks a lot for your reply. I’ll definitely take a look at it. I agree with you on antidepressants—I’ve had a hard time quitting a few times because of withdrawal, but I’m planning to do a hyperbolic taper once I feel ready.
After both successful cuts I ve had (8-10%bf), I noticed that for first 3 months of surplus all new fat goes directly to my lower abs, nowhere else. I have veins on arms/legs even shins when I am 15%+
What can cause it or what can I do about it - is it any hormonal imbalance?
Last year I thought it was too big of a surplus (500) so now I do only 200, gaining fat slower obviously but all is in lower abs and was already very visible after 1 month of the bulk.
Thats very good reply man, thanks for that. Even I see its kind of liferime thing, I am glad I finally understand that and can navigate it at least to the certain extent. Thanks.
Hey man, just like muscle cells, fat cells have memory. When you gain fat, you generate new fat cells. But when you lose fat, you don't lose fat cells, but rather deplete them of their adipose tissue storage. So when you regain said fat, you're gonna have a strong preference for where that fat is stored. For a lot of men, they get Android Fat Deposition which is primarily around that midsection. It is unfortunate, there are some lifestyle interventions that cause that and a lot of it is genetic as well. So when it comes down to this, "lean is law". That's really what it comes down to. Optimizing your hormones will help with this, but it will not solve that problem. It is a give and take though. You may have more fat there, but you have less fat on your extremities. You are more vascular. This is just the reality. Grass is always greener, learn to love your body and treat it the way that it needs to be treated to get the results that you want. God speed.
What’s up Noah, I am getting blood work done tomorrow and know nothing about these levels. Do you charge a fee for people to send you the results and you help them?
What would be your protocol for someone with anemia?
Any updated cosmetics haul? Wondering what you use for moisturizer - I find tallow alone (even w/ added honey and jojoba oil) to be not hydrating enough as it's just an occlusive. Are you still using Aleppo soap as your face cleanser? Thanks!
Yesssirirrrr I'm gonna cook that up. Rose hip oil has been elite for me.
Aleppo soap for face cleanser, Miracle skin GHK-CU and recently skinfood by Anabology
Loxstar for hair growth and Meraki Moo for body moisturizer
Hi, Noah.
All my life I have struggled to feel any effects of stimulants & supplements (caffeine, mushrooms, any supplements e.g. taurine, alpha-gpc, the list goes on). Should I slowly take larger doses to find my required dose or is there something else that could be the issue?
Understand this is not medical advice 👍🏻
Thank you and God bless.
Bio-individuality is real; some people simply don't feel the effects from stimulants.
There are a few things you can look at under the hood:
1. Reverse engineering what you actually want from the stimulants
2. Find new methods and pathways to get those results
Are you looking for more energy? Consider methylated B vitamins or mitochondrial agents. Are you looking for more cognitive function? Consider cerebral blood flow agents like Nicobaloba. Find what works for you. Ultimately, some people just don't have a very responsive nervous system.
Ginkgo biloba *
Cohort 100%
Is the randle cycle much of a concern when bulking? Or should I focus on getting enough calories in regardless? Stuggling to get enough calories in currently. Vice versa, is it as much of a concern when in a deficit in regards to fat gain since your in a deficit already?
When trying to put on mass, you should actually disrespect the Randall cycle a little bit. You essentially want to put the breakers on your overactive metabolism so you start putting on mass. There is a transition period, but you will reach a breakthrough where you start putting on mass easy, almost too easily.
Once you get to that point where you start getting a little bit puffy, you can recalibrate by then reincorporating the Randall cycle respect cycle and then do that for the extent of your bulking cycle. I like to bulk in phases. So I'll bulk up. I'll stay at maintenance a little bit to let my metabolism re-regulate and recalibrate. And then I will bulk again.
Go to randle cycle disrespecting meals?
Do you offer any personal coaching, where you recommend and review lab tests and make suggestions from there? May be gut focused, but overall wellbeing would be great too. Two of us, married couple.
DM Me!
Hey Noah, I’ve had ADHD my whole life and got professionally diagnosed 3 years ago. However, I didn’t and don’t want to go on medication as I just hate the thought of depending on something like that. I know you have ADHD and manage it without it, so I know it can be done.
I’ve noticed I go through the same cycle over and over.
I get really excited about a new hobby/interest/side hustle
I go ALL IN. Read everything I can, watch videos, and spend money on courses/equipment. Think about this shit 24/7
After a week or so (sometimes less, sometimes longer), I start to lose interest, or dopamine, and I get bored and depressed.
I have a day or two of being down, and then I find something else.
Examples of things I get really obsessed with are:
fitness & health
building a business
learning more about SEO (my work)
If I’m feeling in a rut, I start playing video games
No matter which cycle I’m in, I go all in. The issue is I’m 28 now, and I feel like a failure. I always imagined myself having my own business by now and not relying on a 9-5. I don’t want or need to be rich, but I do want to work for myself. If I had just stuck to the things I was working on 1,2,5 years ago - I’d probably have reached those goals by now.
How do I stop myself from getting into the same cycle over and over? Every time I start something again (right now I’m trying to get out of my 9-5) I say to myself that ‘this time is different, i’m going to stick with it’ etc - but then I just stop.
Sorry, this is a bit of a rant, but I’d love to know what advice you have for me coming from someone who also had ADHD.
Hey man, welcome to the club. It's an absolute rollercoaster and one that you personally need to get off of. This is just how the ADHD brain works - it's driven by novel stimuli. You find a new thing to you that is your entire identity, that is your entire purpose until it wears off. And that's exhausting.
So you need to know yourself and say, "I am the type of guy to become extremely interested in new things. I'm going to do things for a few weeks and then move on and accept that. Except that hey, this is actually a really good tool if I use it correctly because I can learn a lot about something and talk months' worth of research in a few days and then move on to the next thing, but I still have that in my back pocket.
Additionally, you need to learn how to make consistency novel. What is figure out the one thing that you were obsessed with as a child - the one thing where it came easy to you but hard to everybody else - and dedicate yourself to consistency gamify the process because this is the only way that you're going to be able to get ahead and live a proactive life (not a reactive one). You cannot trust yourself with distractions. If you were an alcoholic, you would not let yourself bring alcohol into the house. So if you have distractions like video games, you cannot let yourself have exposure to video games. This is just the way that the ADHD brain works. You will gravitate towards the most interesting thing. So make sure the most interesting thing in front of you is productive. You have a lot of emotional attachment to your behaviors right now. And I don't blame you. But the only way that you're going to make tangible progress is if you detach yourself and treat yourself like an observation. Like a science experiment where you're gathering data and creating hypotheses. This is how you treat the ADHD brain. You will never outwork it. You can only out-study it and out-smart it.
You seem to be more religious lately. I would love to hear more. Also, will you ever switch Geekbot over to Grok?
Hey man, it's been a revelatory year for context. I grew up between two religions, getting pulled either way, but being a part of neither. It really jaded me because all I wanted to do was to belong. Combined with going to an extremely hostile Catholic school, it tainted my perspective on religion for a very long time. But this year, thanks to good friends, my girlfriend, and struggles, I finally understood what it meant to welcome God into your heart and to live in accordance with the Bible and to follow Jesus. I believe that every man has a God-sized hole in their heart. For me personally, it's like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, a weight that's been there my entire life. It gives me a moral scaffolding that I deeply needed and I believe to be true. I came across God this year from first principles, which I believe is the best way to build a strong faith.
That is great to hear. I appreciate the insight and testimony and am glad to have another brother advancing the Kingdom.
What are your thoughts on cycling calories? High calories on lifting days (3x) a week and maintenance/ slight deficit (100-200 calories) on non lifting days? More fats and less carbs on non lifting days and higher carbs lower fat on lifting days?
Cycling calories is sensible. The more I train, and the more I want to gain, the more I eat.
On non-lifting days I do tend to lower my carbs to make room for fat refeeds. I prioritize starchy carbohydrates on lifting days, especially around my workout. Get a feel for your recovery as well. If you're redlining training, up your food, regardless of days.
Adaptation and recovery happens over multiple days, so even if you're not training on a given day, eat well to up recovery.
How to stay focused and hopeful in todays day and age? I try not to doom but sometimes its overwhelming.
Focus on what is within your locus of control. Do not expose yourself to things you have no control over. If you are exposed to the modern doom (and there is a lot), find any way to take action on it. Ask yourself "what can I do about this?" and do something about it. If you can't do anything about it, accept that and move on.
Avoid the ragebait, but stay up to date with whats happening in the world. Come up with a plan to position you and your family in the best position possible based on your abilities. Be creative, be determined, and be practical.
💯 good stuff
Cohort
Hi Noah, I’m living in North Europe, and I’m aiming to go from 15% bodyfat to around 10%. Ideally, I would want to bulk just after.
Now that the winter is coming, how would you reach this target ? Should I still follow the shredmaxxing protocol with some changes ?
I was thinking of just eating fruits til noon 2x/week, with a more classic breakfast the other days. And maybe increasing my amount of fats through dairies every days.
If I can just ask a quick 2nd question : do you have a target for the quantity of fats you consume overall ? (Ex : 1g/kg of body weight ?)
Anyway, maybe another part of the shredmaxxing protocol / or another protocol focusing on winter diet could interest other people too ? Just giving an idea, I like a lot your work by the way, thanks for that !
Your intuition is correct here. Cut down on fruits in the winter. Focus on training hard and staying active and most importantly eating clean. Do this until early spring and then incorporate the fruit till noon model more religiously.
Lots of stewed meats, some dairy for sure but don't overdo it if body composition is your goal. Focus on starchy carbs as primary carb source with as much locational accuracy as you can with fruits (apples, berries).
As for fat targets, I do not have one. Aim for around 50g a day and feel free to up this in the winter. Fat soluble vitamins stay around for a while so if you start low and feel you need more, you can up them. If you eat fats for an extended period of time that can "carry over" to low fat periods
Wintermaxxing protocol is a great idea, I will start working on that.
Hey Noah, I’m a 27 yo guy and I look very young, people can easily say I’m 18 yo.
It annoys me, and would like to just look my age. Do you have any tips or advises ? Is it related to T levels ? Last time I tested it, I had normal T levels but low free T and relatively high prolactin. Also, I think not having a lot of beard plays a role here..
thanks in advance for your answer
Yo! Not an awful problem to have. But in this case I would recommend chadramming harder. A lot of age perception is demeanor. Are you assertive enough? Confident enough? Competent enough? Focus on behavioral changes.
Train your neck, Look into lowering prolactin, consider boron for SHBG to raise free T, Up your minerals in general and incorporate more oysters. Get a tan. Train martial arts to grizzle up your face. This may sound cliche but doing high T things makes you look high t and subsequently more mature
Hey Noah, even though I get 6–8 hours on SSRI/SNRI, my sleep feels like a coma—no recovery, energy, or focus—and I never get naturally tired, just stuck in a zombie-like numb state. This has been going on for a long time, and I need strategies to make my sleep truly restorative again. Thanks in advance :)
Hey, so this zombification is the most common side effect of SSRIs. It may stop you from feeling bad, but it stops your ability to feel at all. I was on SSRI for a long time. I would highly recommend speaking with your medical doctor on how to get off as it does cause damage and we don't know the effects long-term. But I personally know the effects are not great.
When it comes to the energy portion here, until you re-balance your brain chemistry, it's going to be hard to make progress. But there are some things that we can do in the meantime:
1. Make sure that you are staying on top of the basics like sunlight, exercise (particularly high-intensity interval training), micronutrient-rich diet from animal implant sources, as well as a non-overstimulating and desensitizing environment.
When it comes to tactical targeting, we want to focus on the mitochondria because SSRIs do damage your mitochondria which produce energy. So a lot of those lifestyle interventions will help there. When it comes to actual tactical use, I really enjoy CoQ10 and PQQ for mitochondrial biogenesis, taurine is an amino acid you can look into here and potentially consider saffron as an adjunct therapy to your SSRI use. I highly recommend speaking with your medical doctor about this. As I am not a medical doctor and this is just from personal experience.
Hey again Noah, thanks a lot for your reply. I’ll definitely take a look at it. I agree with you on antidepressants—I’ve had a hard time quitting a few times because of withdrawal, but I’m planning to do a hyperbolic taper once I feel ready.
After both successful cuts I ve had (8-10%bf), I noticed that for first 3 months of surplus all new fat goes directly to my lower abs, nowhere else. I have veins on arms/legs even shins when I am 15%+
What can cause it or what can I do about it - is it any hormonal imbalance?
Last year I thought it was too big of a surplus (500) so now I do only 200, gaining fat slower obviously but all is in lower abs and was already very visible after 1 month of the bulk.
Thank you
Thats very good reply man, thanks for that. Even I see its kind of liferime thing, I am glad I finally understand that and can navigate it at least to the certain extent. Thanks.
Hey man, just like muscle cells, fat cells have memory. When you gain fat, you generate new fat cells. But when you lose fat, you don't lose fat cells, but rather deplete them of their adipose tissue storage. So when you regain said fat, you're gonna have a strong preference for where that fat is stored. For a lot of men, they get Android Fat Deposition which is primarily around that midsection. It is unfortunate, there are some lifestyle interventions that cause that and a lot of it is genetic as well. So when it comes down to this, "lean is law". That's really what it comes down to. Optimizing your hormones will help with this, but it will not solve that problem. It is a give and take though. You may have more fat there, but you have less fat on your extremities. You are more vascular. This is just the reality. Grass is always greener, learn to love your body and treat it the way that it needs to be treated to get the results that you want. God speed.