Who are you? Who am I? | Week 20

May | Health and Fitness | Week 20 | 5/21/2023
Talk about your health regimen 

My health regime is to me what a core processing program is to a PC. My regime is Windows 11 - it forms the basis for my actions and my decisions. It took years to develop and years to master, and it will be updated and fine tuned in perpetuity. I started thinking about a "program" of some sort at a very early age. My father, being a former bodybuilder and supplement junkie was always encouraging in this domain - some vitamin C if we had muscle aches from soccer, some Lysine if we had a cold sore, some pre-workout before a swim meet (lol). Growing up as a kid I saw the medicine cabinet as a source of wisdom, a competitive arbitrage, an entire universe of potentiality to help me. Later in life, when I was stricken with disease, my diet, exercise, and supplementation protocols would become very significant as I attempted to ease the muscle atrophy, inflammation, and wasting away I saw happening before my eyes. Around 18 I started eating organ meats to combat my iron deficiency anemia. I experimented with CBD oil before much was known about it. I removed gluten and sugar from my diet for a time. I supplemented resveratrol for it's anti-inflammatory effects. I always figured that the medications I was on would solve the problem I had, as they had done for my father, so it was more of an assisting protocol rather than a curative one. 

At 22, after years of exhausting, continual failure on the health front, I found the work of Chris Kresser. I read his book, The Paleo Cure and lingered on every word he wrote about chronic inflammation's relative historical novelty to society. It was then that I began to look for a cure. I embarked on a 5 year journey of very serious investigation and contemplation, which has led me to today, following the important work of Dr. Shana Swan, Dr. David Sinclair, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, Dr. Peter Attia, and others as they explore the optimization of human performance, beyond just preventing disease, aimed instead at living longer, healthier lives. With the aid of Dr. Jordan Peterson, Dr. Gabor Mate, and Dr. John Vervaeke, I introduced a fourth pillar to my health protocol, mental health. 

[1] Diet 

The Paleo Cure, The China Study and Lifespan pointed me towards slightly different dietary directions, but when I triangulate their work with the work of the folks aforementioned, I find some central things in common. [A] Drastically reduce processed foods. [B] Prioritize intermittent fasting. [C] Reduce the eating window. [D] Go heavy on vegetables. [E] Go lighter on carbs. [F] Don't be afraid of natural fats. All in all, these days I stick to a mostly clean Western Diet, with enough exceptions to satiate my unique preferences, and assist in the maintaining above-genetic-baseline muscle mass. I wake typically between 7:30 and 8:00 AM. At 9:30 AM I begin ingesting caffeine, sourced from green tea, not coffee. At 10:30 AM I eat breakfast which consists of non-fat, low sugar, Greek yogurt, 3 eggs on a croissant and 20 grams of plant-based protein with almond/coconut blend milk. Lunch, occurring about 4 hours later consists of fresh caught, smoked salmon, rice, and vegetable juice. Snacks after lunch but before the gym are rice cakes, pecans or bananas. After the gym I have 20 grams of whey protein. Dinner usually consists of chicken or steak (organic) with white rice and vegetables, typically spinach, kale, broccoli, or green beans. Throughout the day I drink unsweetened green tea and electrolytes. 

[2] Exercise 

I essentially do two sports, competitive running and competitive bodybuilding. For the last 3 years, November to July is bodybuilding on-season and running off-season. Then July to October is running on-season and bodybuilding maintenance. During running on-season, I'm typically training for and running races. When I'm training for a race I may run up to 4-5 days a week, putting in 20+ mile weeks. During running off-season I run 1-2 times per week, usually during run club (2 miles) and then sometimes on a weekend (3-4 miles). During lifting on-season I could very well lift 7 days a week, but more typically 6. I have a variety of different splits and focus areas I will modulate, as to continuously confuse the muscle. Some weeks I will lift heavy, compound lifts like squat and deadlift. Some weeks I'll focus more on machine work and getting fastula stretch. Some weeks I superset everything and some weeks I prioritize 1 muscle group per day. Overall, I attempt to grow my max lifting ability over time (max squat, max bench, max deadlift) while prioritizing muscle size through hypertrophy work (training to failure). These days, after a series of injuries and discovered incongruencies, I place a much higher emphasis on stretching, stability work, and functionality. For example, no matter how big I get, I need to be able to do 15-20 pullups, 30-50 pushups, touch my toes, and do a muscle up. I also never like to let myself get too removed from cardio as to not be able to do a hike whenever I please. 

[3] Supplementation 

AM

• Focus Aid - 100 mg caffeine from green tea leaves, complete with a multivitamin 
• Fadogia Agrestis - 600 mg, known to increase total testosterone
• Tongkat Ali - 400 mg, known to increase total testosterone 
• Vitamin D3 - 5000 IUs, known to increase mitochondria function, immune function and testosterone
• Lutein & Zeaxanthin - 25/5 mg, known to increase ocular function and short term memory 
• NMN powder - 1 gram in Greek yogurt, known to activate cirtuins for longevity 
• Micronized Resveratrol - 1 gram in Greek yogurt, known to activate cirtuins for longevity 
• Plant based protein - 20 grams, known to prevent muscle atrophy but produce less inflammation upon digestion 

Afternoon

• Body Armor Lyte - 700 mg potassium, 70 mg magnesium, 8 mg of Zinc and other micronutrients 
• Jasmine Green Tea - rich in polyphenols, known to reduce inflammation and fight cancer

Pre-workout (Mode Nitric by Gorilla Mind)

• Creatine monohydrate - 5 grams, known to increase neuromuscular function and training output
• L Citrulline - 10 grams, known vasodilator, increases output during exercise

Post-Workout

• Whey protein - 20 grams, known to be anabolic and increase muscle synthesis

PM

• Magnesium Citramate - Thorne product, 135 mg magnesium, for electrolyte balance
• Potassium Citrate - 99 mg, for electrolyte balance 

Sleep

• 5 HTP - 100 mg, known to aid serotonin reuptake and reduce sleep latency
• L Theanine - 200 mg, known to aid serotonin reuptake and reduce sleep latency
• GABA -  250 mg, known to aid serotonin reuptake and reduce sleep latency

[4] Psychology 

For almost a decade, between the ages of 15 and 25, I lived in a perpetual state of unhappiness and unsatiety. At 15 I had no reason to exist like that, it was personality. While the unsatisfaction and unhappiness directed me to straight A's and athletic achievement it bound me to a state of constant stress. At 17 I gained a reason, the disease. That reason begun running dry around 25 when I finally found some relative stability on the health front and migrated my life to Charlotte, NC simultaneously. Better late than never, I decided then to begin focusing on and prioritizing aspects of my mental health. I'd been having conversations about it for a rather long time, probably since about 20 years old, but I'd never taken the time to fully articulate a mental health protocol. Living in the place of my choosing, in the city of my choosing, with the job of my choosing, gave me some semblance of control and so I begun to concretize elements of this newfound happiness into a protocol. I achieved some success but it was quickly and overwhelmingly supplanted by a very tumultuous relationship which left my mental health in shambles - a clear sign that it was rather weak and unstructured to start. At the age of 27, toward the end of 2022 when I'd reached rock bottom, I begun building a latter, which has elevated me to a position well above the hole, on a platform I can firmly stand on. That latter is my current mental health protocol. 

[A] Sunlight - The first thing I do when I wake up, curtesy of Dr. Andrew Huberman, is get sunlight. Low solar angle sunlight (achieved at sunrise) sets the circadian clock, and flushes the chemicals produced during sleep from your brain. This has profound benefits on mood and wakefulness. Low solar angle light in the evening (achieved at sunset) triggers the body's production of melatonin and sets the sleep cycle right once more. This aids in restful sleep. 

[B] Writing - During the thick of my previous relationship's collapse I began the 6 Minute Journal, which prescribed a repetitive process of morning and nighttime questions, the same each day, around gratitude and assessment of your actions that day. I stopped that journal after 4 months once it's usefulness had run it's course, but to this day I try to write in some form or fashion every day, no matter the time or the subject. This helps dump the thoughts from my mind into a place I can later go back and read/remember.

[C] Walking - Because of the sedentary nature of my work, I'm not able to get out and move as much as I'd like. However, movement is dopaminergic, and therefore a mood elevator. One thing I started doing in order to improve my mental stability during the breakup was go for afternoon walks and listen to The Power of Now on audiobook. That was revolutionary in calming my mind. I've turned it into a daily practice, of walking, either at night, in the morning or during the day, and listening to music, an audiobook or just the sounds of nature. 

[D] Sleeping - It's somewhat obvious but the earlier I go to sleep, the better I feel. To this end, I've been making a concerted effort to move my wake time from 8:30 to 7:30 and my sleep time from 12:30 to 11:00. With a bed time of 11:00, I'm able to fall asleep at 11:30. With my alarm set for 7:30, that gives me 8 full hours of sleep. Total time in bed is 8.5 hours, but according to my Oura ring I have about an 85% sleep efficiency score, so I need more than 8 hours of time in bed in order to get 8 hours of total sleep. 

[E] Therapizing - For years I listened to Dr. Jordan Peterson's lectures, and gained tremendous insight into myself, into human nature and into the psyche in general. Through hundreds of hours of conversation with others on the topics of happiness, clarity, stability, and fortitude, I made huge leaps and bounds compared to my 15 year-old self, with regards to my mental health. However, it was the tumultuous relationship that uncovered my blind spots I wasn't able to tackle on my own. Professional help has been remarkable. Bouncing the learnings I've had in the professional setting with my own personal investigation of Stoicism, Buddhism and Christianity, has paved the way for a new version of myself - a version which is far more capable of interpreting my thoughts, far more comfortable with my own boundaries, and far more in control of my emotions.