Posts made by SpaceManJim

(edit - replying to @Norwegian Mugabe) But he takes 100+ supplements daily

Yeah I really don't get this guy. His diet is so good apparently but is insufficient to:

1. get him the nutrients he needs, so he takes 100+ supplements,

2. keep healthy hormone levels, so he takes testosterone and other hormones

Really weird approach. I'd think the diet is foundational, and supplements should be the minimum to fill in gaps.

I think his approach is literally the "chatGPT" of health. He'll follow midwit science ("oh this is good, so is this, and this, let's supplement all these things!") and put it all together and end up with this weird frankenstein approach where his positive results and appearance is probably explained 95% by testosterone, weight loss/cleaner diet (he was quite pudgy before), and good sleep.

Damn that's pretty sad... I remember reading briefly about all his high maintenance pre-cautions he takes in order to travel, planning in the extra sleep, meticulously packing all these vitamins and supplements and other remedies. And the man supposedly exercises every day too and has great strength for his age and size...

But then he just breaks his ankle dancing, doing normie people stuff?

Pretty damning to his whole philosophy imo.

https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1860016163960557983?t=23RTNKqCiXfOpIRQd6QrUA&s=19

Interesting follow up, posted an exhaustive list of biomarkers and physical tests.

A lot of these seem really good tbh.

@Gardner how is lowering his metabolic rate going to help with longevity? What happens when he gets sick or injured?

https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1859962709988798824?t=KGCHEIo5VYbLEbwjQFd2xQ&s=19

Here's a study he cites:

https://x.com/bryan_johnson/status/1859980688520564954?t=83yeQBngnlPuIiIuqTOz9Q&s=19

I think this is a poor approach. We need to dig out those sources about caloric restriction not necessarily being the longevity panacea that people think. IIRC it was the restriction of other nutrients that actually helped, not lower calories.

Johnson's influence and following is potentially going to lead to really poor outcomes in others. A major issue is that Johnson is not natural, i.e. he takes exogeneous hormones that others won't want to do (or even realize). He needs them because his odd diet and extreme supplementation regime cannot support healthy testosterone levels.

The one good thing I think he does is preach the importance of consistent good sleep. Otherwise I'm not so sure on this guy.

This is such fantastic work! I wish there was like a crowd funding system for this type of independent scientific research, I'd chip in money lol. And as a reward maybe give ppl the raw data and/or write up.

An interesting mix of B vitamins, why those 3 in particular? Anyone have the cliff notes?

Maybe those are good longevity health supps

@sneedful Can you link to him recommending these ratios? Is this recent?

Just the other day I watched a video on him recommending 100-200 micro(u)grams of K2/day, which would be about 1mg/week.

As well, I saw a vid of him recommending 20 IU of vitamin E/day. I guess that's closer at 140 IU/week.

There's a wide range of recommendations out there, and maybe what's best for muscle growth isn't the best for health, despite muscle being very important (especially in the elderly).

Let's assume we're talking about adults (primarily males) that regularly do resistance training / lift weights.

From the bodybuilding side of things, here's a few data points to consider:

• A common meta-analysis is cited by many in the science-based lifting community that 1.6g/kg/day is "optimal" - https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/6/376
• A more common 'bro' recommendation is to just get 1/g/lb (2.2g/kg)
• There's more recent evidence that even more may be beneficial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYAZdUP6dZQ (this states that up to 1.6g/kg is a great improvement over the RDA, but that you can get increased, though diminishing, returns up to 3.1g/kg)
• Lyle McDonald, a fairly legit strength and hypertrophy coach and author focusing on natural lifers, recommends towards the higher end as well (2.2 - 3.0g/kg), with some reasonable justifications, i.e. protein goes towards far more than just muscle - https://bodyrecomposition.com/nutrition/protein-requirements-growth#Protein_Requirements_for_Athletes
• Some anecdotal datapoints, a lot of 'top youtube natural lifters' such as Alex Leonidas, Geoffrey Schofield, Natural Hypertrophy, Basement Bodybuilding, skew to the lower end at 1.6g/kg or even a bit less.
• Renowned bodybuilder and original thinker Mike Mentzer in general recommended '25% of calories to be from protein' which for most people would probably be somewhere around 0.8-1g/lb of protein/day. He also did some interesting math showing that if one wanted to build something like 20lbs of muscle in a year (that's a lot!), they'd only need to eat something like 10grams a day above their maintenance needs for it to add up, while staying at a slight calorie surplus.
• Most bodybuilders on anabolics almost always go higher than 1g/lb from what I've seen. Could it be that anabolics allows better utilization of protein so it isn't wasted? Could the fact that they don't need to rely on fats and carbs for hormone support also contribute to this?

From what I've heard and understood from the Peat world side of things, here's a few points:

• Peat himself has recommended at least 100g/day for adults - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygyxqxlx51U
• Danny Roddy posted what looks like a solid Peat-inspired day of eating, which someone in the comments worked out to be around 125g of protein at >3000cals, probably somewhere between 1.2-1.6g/kg for his size - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGEbaCiih5o
• @haidut has given recommendations (iirc) of anywhere from 1g/kg (yes, per kg) up to 2g/kg at the most for a serious bodybuilder. I recall him citing issues with excess ammonia from protein breakdown becoming a health concern. I'd be really interested to see where he recommends something specific for optimal muscle building, and/or citing studies showing excess protein leading to ammonia-related problems in humans, because I don't recall exactly, and haven't seen elsewhere problems to do with high protein intakes.
  Here's one interview I had watched a while back that touched on some of these things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXbBUVPMj5E
  (I need to get transcripts for a bunch of these interviews and throw em in a chatbot one day :))

So there's some info from different perspectives. I think the 'mean recommendation' to get solid results while erring on the side of safety is probably something like 1.6-1.8g/kg/day. This isn't even discussing the primary sources that go into most people's bodybuilding diets, which I reckon are chicken breast, whey, and some eggs and red meat mixed in.

What do you guys think, any more info/research suggesting that extra protein is wasted past a certain point, or even harmful? To be honest I really haven't seen any solid research to indicate that very high (>1g/lb) protein diets are harmful in humans, unless we are talking about pure keto or other silliness which neglects critical nutrients.

I'm curious what you guys think are ideal ratios, and safe quantities. Specifically we're talking A, D, E, K(2).

For example, @haidut 's estroban is as follows:

Vitamin A - 6,000 IU
Vitamin D - 2,000 IU
Vitamin E - 200 IU
Vitamin K2 (MK-4) - 2mg

So something like 30 : 10 : 1, at 2mg K2

And since fat solubles build up, are we sure that the amounts above are safe? For example, the A is 2x the recommended 3000 IU per day. But then there's the other vitamins "balancing it out". Also, is that amount of D on the low side? Ditto for E and K2 - though I've never seen any guidelines for K2.

So as a starting point, are these optimal and safe amounts? Or what might one change? Assuming for an average adult male let's say.

@Jakeandpace why not provide the link or reference for us? If you don't mind

Odd that nobody's mentioned it, especially after seeing your username, but...

How about salt?

Decreases stress, and helps retain fluid which could be issue if waking to urinate. I've had similar issues whereby my caffeine intake, sweating from exercise, and 'healthy' eating probably left me salt-depleted. Waking up around that time, especially to urinate, has been a common issue for me. But then by chance one evening I had some salted bread thing and wow I didn't sleep so well for a year it felt like. The pattern became more clear with some experimentation.

(Someone mentioned baking soda which is an equivalently good call I guess.)

Peat on Salt: https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/salt.shtml

Edit - another minor thing I do which may help, is to take any supplements earlier in the day. I notice those can disrupt sleep sometimes.

OP, I'd say the golden staples, especially for a beginner, are going to be something like resistance weight training 3x a week, and getting your daily step count up to 10k.

You can do these things gradually to reduce cortisol, but also don't be so afraid of it. Your body will adapt and recover if you're not an idiot. Weight training can start as 3 lifts, such as a push, a pull, and a leg exercise, done as 1 hard set towards failure after a warm-up set of each. That will be like 10-15 minutes in the gym, and honestly will give you 50% of the results as a "full" workout. Super time efficient. Then you can add additional sets, a fourth exercise, etc, as your body adapts. Whatever you work up to, I'd recommend capping your weight sessions at 40-60mins, longer than that and you're probably being time-inefficient or doing too much.

Same with walking or even jogging. These activities are completely fine and you don't need to worry about cortisol at all if you build up gradually based on what your body can handle. Start with 10 minutes of something every other day, then 15 mins, etc.

Use your sleep, energy levels, attentiveness, and body composition to gauge your cortisol response. Don't be afraid of short-term stress, it's chronic stress (e.g. for under-sleeping) that will mess you up. If anything, short bouts of acute stress are actually really good for your overall system ('hormesis').

I watched the whole vid, was intrigued from the first few mins when he described a very intuitive and somewhat Peat-related approach: lots of carbs, lower stress, high agency lifestyle. He then goes into his staple meal being red meat and rice, plus unlimited fruit, which seems like a pretty solid way to run one's diet.

But it also made me think about how just being active every day is such a huge factor in one's body composition. This guy, like many YT fitness influencers, don't have "real" and sedentary jobs, including stressful commutes. They just live a "more natural" life, are on their feet way more, always moving, don't have low-grade stress associated with constant use of Microsoft Office products (lol!).

I've noticed this effect pretty pronounced in myself. I'm an office worker by day with side business ambitions I work on during evenings and weekends when possible, so it's a lot of 'modern day office work'. I also do intense weight training 3x a week and a few bouts of cardio via martial arts, so I'm in reasonable shape - strong with slightly visible abs and ~15% bodyfat.

But when I'm not working, not having an alarm clock, for extended periods of time, my physique just takes on that extra ~25% of quality that's hard to describe - everything feels and looks tighter, more abs visible while at same body weight, energy levels and lifts are maybe 10% better automatically, etc. I tolerate any and all foods way better too. I really get the sense that if I focused on living life this way for more than a few weeks on vacation here or there, I could be making these dumb "here's my life as a fitness guy" videos lol. Just being on my feet walking some European city on vacation for a few days does incredible things compared to standard north American life, and people like Bill live closer to the former than the latter everyday.

Not meant to brag, but rather to say that I believe most anyone could quickly and continuously improve their physique and physical well-being if they make appropriate trade-offs in life. And I'm sure those of us stuck in the corporate North American grind can continue to find and apply principles to improve our health and fitness too.

@Insomniac Interesting... I remember seeing posts on the old RP forum that the pyridoxine HCL form is fine, even worked in some study for a positive effect at 100mg, but @haidut and others would recommend P5P anyways for the conversion efficiency (only 10% would be needed for equivalent dosage).

Do we have any sources besides Asprey on facebook showing that pyridoxine is problematic?

@DavidPS Yeah I saw that about salt water, how about baking soda? Similar idea? I've started trying it, feels soothing, and my understanding is that after meals/drinks we want to counter the acidity, so something basic like baking soda should help.

Another one is "oil pulling" (weird name), but it's basically swishing around coconut oil in one's mouth for a while. Another good Peat-y substance so I'll give it a try.

Has anyone had this and been able to make positive progress reversing (not just halting) the issue? (Didn't find anything on search for this site.)

What would make sense to do besides switching to a softer toothbrush?

Hopefully we can put together some info that'll be helpful for others as well.

Cheers

@Serotoninskeptic Can you expand on that?

People from the old RP Forum take all kinds of supplements (check out Haidut's store for instance). Why would a multivitamin be worse than taking XYZ other supplement?

For convenience and to get away from swallowing 10+ pills everyday which may or may not be necessary... I'm wondering about multivitamins.

Are they useful to support good health and give nutrients from a Peat-inspired perspective?

I've seen long-term studies (observation I guess, so grain of salt) saying no benefits.

One positive factor is that they seem to have a lot of things in lower doses, something Peat generally endorsed. For example, I read he'd only recommend in the 10s of milligrams of B vitamins (i.e. not these crazy B50 or B100 formulations), and up to 2K IU vitamin D (multis tend to have 400-800 IU from what I'm seeing, so a decent supplement to some somelight).

What say you, any multivitamin takers here? Recommended brands? Fillers/additives/ingredients to watch out for?

Seems like a great supplement: anti-estrogen, anti-prolactin, helps counteract PUFA to some degree, seems to feel pretty decent for me lately. However, higher doses I noticed can cause some extra bleeding, e.g. from a small scratch, brushing gums a bit hard, etc.

So how about something like 100 iu daily, would that be safe? Mostly I'm interested in the anti-PUFA effects, because it's hard to avoid dietary PUFA especially if you eat out a couple of times per week.

Thoughts on vitamin E safety?

Interesting that no one has specifically called out (just) D3 yet. I recall it being a top supp by people like Haidut and Danny Roddy (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Vitamin E is fantastic too but I don't know about daily - I think it's great on a day where you eat out some not-so-great food that may have PUFA, and/or maybe as a weekly therapy.