Chat With Ralph (DSO) Live! #fitness #testosterone #hormones #trt #hrt #marriage #relationship

Alright, alright, alright, this says I am live. Let me see that is in fact the case before I show my pretty face. Mm-hmm, I don't see me on Facebook just yet. Alright, there we are. Cool beans. Let me bring up my face here. All right, there we are. Hello world, how are you guys today? If there's anyone— oh, I was going to say listening in, more than listening in, viewing, watching us today, we are live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, or X, or whatever it's called these days. So if anybody is on right now, welcome, thank you so much. Or if you are watching the replay of this, thank you so much for watching. Greatly appreciate it. We'd like to get more people involved in these live streams, broadcasts, whatever you want to call it. So, uh, want to do these more often. Just a matter of time. Uh, doing all the other traditional videos takes up a great deal of time, and I am a father of 4 now. If you guys knew that, I got a— all the way from an almost 20-year-old gal in college all the way down to a 2-year-old I'm one of those guys, so I'm a busy dude. Let's wait and see, we get some more folks in here. If you are watching this, give me a comment, give me a thumbs up, give me a like, por favor. I would greatly appreciate it. I'm just going to wait here a bit for people to file in before we get into the meat and potatoes of today's live stream. I'm waiting, waiting for more people. I see one person watching. I don't know, it says one. I don't know if that includes myself. If so, that'd be pretty sad. So let's, uh, wait and see what happens here. Bit of a delay, I noticed, at least on my end. I don't know how this works with, you know, your individual internet connection, everything else, but I can see— hey, I got a thumbs up! I can see what I see, uh, my screen going out live versus what I see on Facebook over here, and it's quite a bit of a delay. All right, so that's about, yeah, 10-second delay for me. Cool. I got one thumbs up. Thank you so very much, whoever did that. Appreciate that a great deal. I'm going to give a little bit more for people to file in here. This is not going to make for a very interesting replay, that's for sure, me sitting here watching the people file in. But, uh, hey, what can you do, right? All right, folks, say hey! Got some more coming in. All right, now some folks are starting to come in. Yay! Let me know where you guys are at, where you're from. Just say howdy, let me know where you're, uh, watching us from, where in the world you are geographically. Always love to see people from all over the world, always find it very interesting. So And if you could, give me a like, give me a thumbs up, share this, however it works. Helps to grow the audience. That is the whole purpose of this, is to grow the audience and let more and more people find out about the world of Dad Starting Over. Um, let me do a quick intro. For those that don't know, my name is Ralph Brewer Brewer Brewer. I go by the little fake internet name of DSO in case you heard or seen that somewhere. It stands for Dad Starting Over, which is not coincidentally the name of my business website, the Facebook page, the YouTube channel, the Twitter account, wherever it is that you're watching this. DadStartingOver.com is website and kind of the hub for everything. I've written books, one of which got pretty popular as far as, you know, the world of self-published books are concerned. It did pretty well, and that book was called The Dead Bedroom Fix, and it was my musings, my reflections on the world of marriage, sex and marriage. As far as men are concerned, what's the number one pain point for married men? They ain't getting any. So I wrote a book about it. And sure enough, that really touched a nerve with a lot of people. And that's what brings a lot of people, a lot of eyeballs to my site. But I have a lot more content out there, article form, video form, than just about dead bedrooms and all that salacious stuff. You know, we talk about, in the world of Dad Starting Over, we talk about divorce, uh, staying married, what happens if you divorce, life after divorce. We talk about, uh, oh, all kinds of things. Kiddos. We've touched on health and fitness over the years. But as far as what's popular, you know, I can see what people click and like and read and watch. Two things. Number one, if it's about infidelity, more specifically, uh, women cheating. That gets a lot of attention, but more than anything, sex. The old SEX gets more attention than anything else that I've done, hence the book's popularity and all that fun stuff. So if the old SEX talk brought you to me, welcome perverts. I appreciate it. That's not nice. I shouldn't say that. But welcome, welcome. And dads3andover.com. And I should, I should mention we have a private group As part of the Dad Starting Over website, which has a bunch of free articles, there's a bunch of videos on YouTube that you can watch. We have a section on the website called Dear DSO where people submit questions and I answer them in video format here. Oh, what else we got? We have courses that you can pay for. We have podcasts you can listen to at no charge. Dad Starting Over Public Podcast, wherever you listen to your podcast, just do a search for Dad Starting Over. And whoever gave me the old heart and the thumbs up, thank you so much for that. Please like this if you're watching this or share it so we can spread the word. What else? Um, but we also have a private group because it's important that men get together and that we're able to, um, chat without the outside world seeing what it is we're talking about, especially ladies. Men tend to put on a different face when a lady enters the room. We've, we've learned that over the years. So we have a little private space just for men and we have a discussion forums. We get on live on Zoom and talk one-on-one face-to-face, so to speak. Um, I host those meetings as well as our coaches on the Dad Starting Over staff, of which there's 8 of us, and we do one-on-one coaching. So if you want to pay for my time, you can do so, if— as well as the other coaches. We all have our own little specialties, chatting with guys, helping them, whatever stage of life you are in, in this whole relationship game. And if you are a member of the DSO fraternity, which is the name of our private group, that coaching, way cheaper. Those courses I mentioned, way cheaper. And the books that I mentioned, all for free. You can download them PDF format, or you can listen to them audiobook format. Uh, the meetings that I mentioned as part of the DSO fraternity, we record all of those, and you can listen to them from your phone. So it's like having 100— 600+ hours of podcasts, if you will, these meeting recordings at your fingertips, in addition to the audiobooks, in addition to a special DSO fraternity podcast, basically, basically like little monologues myself and others put on. And, um, What else? Articles. We get together in person. Forgot to mention that. We call our— we have big conferences that we put on. We call them Bro Fest. It's kind of cute. A little story behind that. And we've done— we've done a Bro Fest in Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Nevada. And we got one coming up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our brothers, our DSO fraternity members, our brothers in Australia, they've gotten together twice in Brisbane and Melbourne. And then we have our folks in Europe. We just had, they had a little gathering here in Amsterdam here recently. So we are worldwide. Love it. We're reaching people from all over. We're adding new members at a pretty good pace. Would love to have more, obviously. So check it out. The DSO fraternity. You can learn more at dadstartingover.com or dsofraternity.com. I am going to start getting into some questions because we got a couple here. Let's start with Mr. Ryan, shall we? Ryan Pope, you know, I just said your name out loud, Ryan. You, you are, you know, commenting here and has wanted me to watch with her. It's led to some good conversations. Are you familiar? Any thoughts? I am not. Um, is that true? You know, now that I'm looking at couples therapy, I think maybe I've seen little clips here and there. Maybe you want to help flesh that out for me, Ryan. What, what Is it like, um, just what it says? A therapist sits down with a couple and talks about stuff? I think I've seen little clips here and there. I remember seeing one that went kind of viral about it. One of the dude was very narcissistic. If I'm— if it's— if it's a show I'm thinking of, you know, you see so many of these clips on TikTok and YouTube and Facebook, they all blend together. I'm on my phone entirely too much. Uh, but there was one where this guy got up in the middle of the session and walked around the room. Is that the one we're talking about? But, um, It's interesting. I haven't sat down and watched it, no, so maybe I should. Thank you for the recommendation. Dr. Psych Mom would probably love that if she hasn't watched that yet. She loves her TV shows. I always tease her about it. Samantha is always, "You gotta watch the show." I'm trying to do the New York Brooklyn accent. "There's a show you gotta watch." Last one she said I gotta watch is Brother Husbands. Wordsmith from UK. YouTube. How you doing, Wordsmith? One of my regular commenters on the YouTube videos. Thank you so much, buddy, I appreciate it. But he says he has been lifting, which means lifting weights, working out, for a month consistently, and he is down 73 pounds since August. Dude, holy shit, man, that's awesome! Good for you, brother. How long to start seeing results from the lifting? Well, that's— there's a lot of factors there. I know I just started, but wondering what to expect, LOL. Well, You, first of all, you need to be a little bit more patient. Um, this is— you need to do it consistently. First, I don't know how old you are, buddy. I don't know, you know, your hormonal makeup. The fact that it's— you lost 73 pounds shows me that you were overweight. Um, excessive adipose tissue, which is another way of saying fat on your body, that impacts your hormones a great deal. A lot of people don't realize that. So now that you've lost the fat, your hormones may be kind of, you know, leveling out. Your estrogen goes down, maybe your testosterone is going up a little bit, and that will help your muscle gaining journey, um, what you're doing working out-wise. Maybe you're just, you know, wasting time in the gym. You're not pushing yourself hard enough. Maybe you're pushing yourself too hard. Maybe you're going to be overtrained, you're going to start getting sick, you're going to start having tendon injuries. That's me, by the way. The arm still hurts. I mention that every time I have one of these live things. Pardon me. Um, a lot of factors here. So how long to start seeing results? Boy, there's some dudes that are like lifting a month, and you're like, seriously? You look at the guy and you're like, you look good, dude, already. While others been at it for a year and you're like, mm-hmm. It just— there's too many factors. Genetics, what you're doing, all that other stuff. One thing I would suggest is we have a gentleman on our staff at Dad Starting Over. His name is Vance, and I wouldn't have him on the team if he didn't know his stuff. Vance is Olympic-style weightlifting coach. He is a professor at a university, and he really knows his stuff as far as what weight loss, fat loss, muscle building. I mean, put— I'll put him up against anyone out there, period. He's done a course on muscle building that we sell on the website. If you're a DSO fraternity member, it's a heck of a lot cheaper, and you can actually book time with Vance, and he can actually put together a specific program for you to help you build muscle, continue losing fat, and get in shape, um, all while staying healthy. And that's most important as we get older. Us dudes got to put that health on the, you know, on the front burner, if you will. Uh, Mr. Tom says, DSO, great to see you live, my man. Well, great to see you, Tom. Tom of W. T-Dub, that's your new nickname from now on. You're T-Dub. Hope you like it. Alan says, so in your conclusion of Romantic Dynamics— maybe he's got me, uh, or do you have me confused with somebody else? Because you're capitalizing Romantic Dynamics as if this is like a book or a course. I, I do— I— if you're referring to a specific thing, book, course, something that— that's not me. But I'll continue on. In your conclusion of romantic dynamics, do you think that marriage/cohabitation cranks down the physical affection, sex in a relationship, or separate residence and dating for a long time the only way to keep— is residence and dating, or separate residence and dating for a long time the only way to keep the fires burning? Well, let me take your second question first. Is that the only way to keep the fires burning? No. There's all kinds of tricks of the trade. I don't know romantic dynamics, but I have a book called "The Dead Bedroom Fix" maybe you wanna check out, and I outline some stuff that you can do as a dude to crank up the old sexiness in the marriage. But do I think that marriage cohabitation cranks down physical affection? Yeah. And I think any therapist worth their salt, psychologist, whatever, will tell you the same thing. That is not a condemnation of marriage. It's not a condemnation of women specifically. It's human nature. What's the term? Familiarity breeds contempt. That's a really, I guess, extreme illustration of the point. The point is that when you are with somebody, this is your long-term monogamous partner, and everything is safe, secure, you guys are going to be together forever and ever, at least that's the insinuation, right? Naturally, for men and women both, but we notice that it seems to be more acutely so for the woman, the sexual energy knob gets turned down for sure. Sticking with the ladies, we notice as men, wow, in the honeymoon phase, at least if we're a proper match, the sexual energy is just— it's like a 10, right, with the women. And it takes almost virtually no work on our part as men to get that engine going, and we get spoiled And we want that again and again. And sure enough, when you're in the honeymoon phase, you get it a lot. And it's wonderful. It's amazing. And who doesn't love that, right? And then we notice as soon as you commit, move in together, the knob starts cranking down. You get kids, it really gets cranked down. And then the old Father Time kicks in and yada yada yada. We got menopause and everything else. And again, us men are not immune to this, but it seems to be not as drastic for us. Thank you, testosterone. That helps, you know, keep us at a certain level. Not all of us. Some of us aren't blessed with high testosterone. But for those of us that are, um, yeah, we're like, you know, I'm 55 years old, I've been with this woman over here for 30 years, whatever it is, I still love her to death, still think she's amazing, still, you know, lust after her more than day one. And when you ask the lady, she's like, not so much. Um, again, human nature. It's not the old bait and switch like a lot of guys say. It's not evil, it's not conniving, it's not planned out, it's It's just the way it is. So you need to know some little tricks of the trade to keep the spark alive, as they say. So one shortcut method may be, hey, we're not gonna get married. We're not gonna get hitched. We're gonna stay separate. You have your little independent life, I have mine. And when we get together, it's kind of an event. And absence makes the heart grow fonder. We all know that one, right? So maybe that is like a shortcut cheat code for keeping the spark alive. For some, they will say, yep, that's it. For us, we've discovered that some people take it to the extreme extreme and say, no, we're committed, we live together, but guess what? And we have an open relationship. We've introduced some of the— oh, that sexual tension, whatever, via other people, and that keeps things alive for us. Yeah, best of luck. You're introducing all kinds of potential drama there, as we know. Uh, swingers, open marriage, poly whatever, whatever flavor of that is. Those people all claim that that's their key for unlocking that sexy code, if you will. All right, Raleigh, that's a cool name. Uh, he's referencing the working out that, uh, Wordsmith was talking about. Takes a while to see the changes. Yep, take your pictures every now and then so you can, you know, see the, the, the, uh, results. And there's Mr. Vance. Hello, Vance. Vance is the guy I was just mentioning, uh, Professor Vance, our resident fitness expert. He says you get results in small increments immediately, but it isn't noticeable in the mirror or the scale for 3 months at a time. So there you go, you got a couple of guys talking about 3 months. 3 months seems to be the, the gold standard here for when to start looking at stuff and when you start seeing real results. Like I say, there's some of us that are blessed and they just see 1 month, you're like, you know, your chest looks a little bigger, your arms are already looking bigger. Some guys just, they have that, they're just blessed with that. That's not most men though. Um, the older men get, the harder it is to get in shape. Yep, old father time, the old hormones and everything else. Everything just starts breaking down on you. I know it better than anyone. Hmm. Mike says— Mike from Facebook says, I lost 30 pounds in 2 months immediately after my last marriage broke down from the stress. I immediately took that momentum— I'm sorry, it's scrolling away on me here— and decided to change my fitness life and gain as much as I could. It became the best thing I ever did. Before I was then ready to date again. You know what, Mike, I think a lot of guys can relate to that. It's like a little, um, yes, sticking with the, the term cheat code, uh, the old divorce diet. It's a real thing. Um, for some it is anxiety-induced. You're not sleeping well, your heart's racing, you're, uh, you're probably— that results in your, uh, metabolic rate going up. Um, and you're not ingesting as much calories because you lost your appetite. You know, the double whammy. And and you're just— pounds are just melting off of you. And for some, that's like a, you know, a little bit of, um, incentive for them to like, well, I'm looking a lot better. I needed to lose some fat, and there you go. Thank you, anxiety and divorce. Now I want to kick things up a notch. Let's hit the gym and add some muscle. Let's keep this weight loss going. Let's keep the healthy eating going. And for me, that, that happened for me. I was, uh, my fitness history was such that as a young man, I was very, very fit. I worked out all the time, looked great. And then marriage and kids, and I became very doughy. I look at pictures of me from that time, I'm like, dear God, dude, I just gave up on myself completely. Just dropped the whole fitness thing altogether. And then divorce, and then I lost a good 20-some-odd pounds pretty quickly. And then say, I need new clothes, I need this, I need that. You know what, let's hit the gym like I used to in the old days. And got a lot better shape than what I used to. Not what I was back in my early 20s. I would love to go back to that time, but, uh, that was the old kick in the balls that I needed to get going. Um, Raleigh says, one topic I noticed that you haven't addressed is what if your infidelity spouse has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was manic, put on medication, and changed personality? I don't think you should divorce, especially when kids involved. Thoughts? So, uh, Raleigh says, I hope this is not public. Uh, Raleigh, this is public. This is going out to the world, buddy, so you may want to delete your comments. Um, I have not, uh, I said Raleigh. I don't believe I've said your last name here for the whole world to see. But yes, for those— I'm going to pause here— for those that don't know, this is going out for the entire world to see. Your comments, uh, everyone can see them. Me reading them, everyone can hear them. Just so you know, you're on a public page, public Facebook, YouTube, wherever it may be. This— the public can see you. So Raleigh, yes, everyone can see you. Um, but you, you raise an excellent question. Thank you for this. So Um, there's some poor people at no fault of their own, zero, have what we call mental illness. Could be severe depression, bipolar, borderline personality, whatever it may be. Um, all different flavors of, of, uh, mental, mental illness. Um, sometimes that wreaks havoc on the, on the, uh, the relationship and their partner in particular. And that puts that partner in a tough spot, doesn't it? Um, you know, they're like, I feel like an asshole for leaving them, but this person has done— oh, you know, bipolar people can have like extreme ups, a manic episode that results in maybe a lot of spending, put them in the poorhouse, they lost their home, they lost this, they lost that. Um, infidelity, they go sleep around with a bunch of people and bring home some kind of STD or get pregnant or whatever it may be. And there's a chorus of people saying to that person, 'What are you doing, dude?' Or, or gal, um, 'You need to leave. This is hell.' You know, although it's not their fault what they're experiencing and their actions, you don't necessarily have to be around for the ride. And I agree, you don't have to be around for the ride. But you're saying, um, 'No, my partner'— or, or I'm, I'm inferring here, let's say you know somebody who went through this, um, spouse bipolar manic episode, um screwed around with other people, but, uh, has since been put on medication, I assume is what you mean. Um, change the personality for the better? I, I don't know where you're going with that. Um, and you're saying, I don't think you should divorce. Well, good for you, dude. You don't— you're like, no, I, I can see through this. I see past this, this facade, if you will, of the mental illness. That I, I see past that. There's the real person, and that's who I love. That's who I fell in love with, and that's who I'm committed to, and I'm going to be with them Regardless of their actions. Sure, they cheated on me. I can move past that. That's up to you, dude. Would I personally be able to deal with that? I don't think so. And I don't think I'm wrong. I don't think you're wrong. Yeah, whatever. You know. Now you get into like this, I guess you could say, philosophical debate of what if you discovered they killed somebody? You know, and they're in a manic fit and they got in a car and drove and smashed into a family and killed 4 people. I don't know. I'm just making this up. Do you stick with them then? It was their illness. Now they're a murderer of 4. Now they're going to prison. Do you stick with them through a prison sentence? They'll be out in 12 years. I don't, you know, all kinds of interesting little ways to look at that. Wordsmith says, Wordsmith from YouTube says, get your testosterone levels checked, game changer. Mine was 254 a year ago. He went on the TRT, now it's around 1,000. Didn't notice a lot of difference until I lost weight. Now I'm feeling so much better. There's that weight loss and how it affects the hormonal balance in men, especially in regards to estrogen. So that may have been throwing you off. Now that you're— I would assume you're aromatizing much less, which is the process of— make it super simple— conversion of testosterone into estrogen. Happens a lot when you have a lot of extra fat on your body. Without that, maybe now things are leveling out and you're able to feel that testosterone at 1,000. That's a healthy number, dude.. And, um, yeah, you combine that with a decent diet, protein-rich diet, getting enough carbs, enough calories, plus some, some, uh, strenuous exercise, weightlifting in the gym, you're gonna— you're probably gonna change. I don't care if you're a 40 or 50-year-old man, you're going to change, especially with that level of testosterone. Um, but it's amazing, isn't it, for some of us? Uh, oh, he says he's 42, so there you go. You're still young, dude. You can still put on some muscle and get in really, really good shape. Um, but, um, you're— for those of you who, uh, kind of belittle the, the impact of hormones, some go on, you know, cycle of steroids or whatever it may be and just say it didn't really change my personality much, while others say I am a different human being. And I can attest to that. I am on testosterone replacement therapy and have been so for Oh, 10+ years now. Wow. I said out loud, that's kind of— I had no idea. Is that right? Yeah. And, um, it has changed me personality-wise, I can say for sure. Um, anxiety for one went down. How interesting. Um, social anxiety went down. I'm very much the type, uh, as a young man who was very concerned about my appearance, how I look, and what others think of me, you know. It went on the testosterone Now it's, it's a correlation. It's not a definite causation here. I can't say testosterone made me lose that type of anxiety, but along with me starting testosterone, that kind of anxiety went away. It could also be that I also at the same time went through divorce and everything else. So it's not definitive, but I can say, uh, since I started it, it— that's just one aspect of my personality that changed. A lot of other stuff changed as well, physically, changing personality-wise, anxiety-wise, um, all kinds of stuff. One interesting little side note, um, I used to be extremely big into a lot of artistic stuff. Photography. I was always big into drawing, painting as a kiddo. Uh, behind me, see guitars, creating music, that kind of thing. I was always the type of— not if I'm not creating something, it's— I don't feel right. That dissipated a great deal after starting testosterone. Some that maybe make a living at the old creative side may say that doesn't sound very good. Well, that was my personal— some people say it had no impact on me, but for me it did. The interest in photography, for example, just went basically to nothing. It's like, I could take it or leave it. Well, for a while there was a pretty obsessive thing for me. Tom says— T-Dub says, I began following DSO via the Dead Bedroom Fix. DBF is short for Dead Bedroom Fix. About 2.5 years ago, I dig into Gottman. I hired a female coach. I attended therapy with a male and female separately over 2 years. Wow, very good. I joined DSO in the other— in another men's group. I read tons of books and listen to tons of podcasts. Here what I— here's what I learned. Number 1, If either partner isn't at a 7 or 8 out of 10 on the emotional regulation skill, forget it all. Stop. Do not pass go, be— which means be in any serious relationship. And I learned all the great advice out there goes defunct when there are personality disorders at play. The relationship slash graph between emotional regulation and safe, secure, fun relationships— well, ignore the relationship. Well, ignore that relationship at one's own peril. So in other words, Tom's saying— T-Dub is saying, um, yeah guys, uh, if they have a problem with emotional regulation, there's some kind of a mental disorder at play, or personality disorder. As he's saying here, there's a, there's a, there's a subset of personality disorders called Cluster B personality disorders. For example, borderline personality is probably the most popular amongst that, although narcissistic personality disorder is pretty close. You hear that one a lot. Um, histrionic personality disorder, you don't hear about that one much, but, um We, we talk about that a lot in our little men's sphere relationship talk because, uh, the majority of people that suffer, for example, from borderline personality disorder are women. Uh, most people that suffer from narcissistic personality disorder are men. Um, so we talk about BPD a lot amongst us. BPD meaning borderline personality, not bipolar. Um, but T-Dub here is saying, uh, yeah, if Dudes, if you get a whiff of that early on or you discover that that's the case, just don't. And that is not necessarily quote unquote fair to the person suffering from said condition, 'cause they just wanna be in a relationship. Maybe they're medicated, maybe they're da da da, they just want a chance. And T-Dub's here saying, don't give 'em, you don't have to be the person to give 'em that chance. And I am sad to say that I agree with Mr. T-Dub here 100%. I've just seen it so many times, guys. There are just so many people out in the universe that are, you know, potential partners to you, whether it's casual, whether it's serious, one-on-one, long-term. To say, "I'm gonna settle for this one who has admittedly some issues which could bubble to the surface at any moment and destroy me as an individual," eh, oof. And I'm the first to recognize that's not the nicest, fairest thing in the world to say. You know, what if my own child were diagnosed with such a disorder? Would I tell their potential partner, you know, run for the hills? That's tough. Um, Miss Rita, how are you? Miss Rita always loves a Miss Rita. She's a common, um, a common, okay, uh, frequent, uh, follower, commenter on all my stuff. Thank you, Miss Rita. She says that my twin sister is single and she wants to be in a relationship again but not get married or live with that person. I think that's a great idea since she's already been married and divorced. She's not looking for a man to take care of her financially otherwise, but wants a relationship again. Well, all right. Are you, Rita, under the assumption that— does that make things more difficult for her as a woman? I would say probably not. You know, from a guy's perspective, if I'm single again and I sit down with a beautiful young woman and she's your twin sister, so obviously she's good looking, Rita. How's that for charming? And she tells me, just so you know, I am interested in relationship, but marriage, no. Cohabitating, no. I see value in staying independent from each other. But I do like the idea of being in a relationship. I'm gonna say, a whole bunch of men out there would say, well, hello, Rita sister, you sound awesome. I don't think she's gonna have a problem there. Hmm. T Dub following up on his previous comment, get off the personality disorder slash mental illness ride. Life is too short. Yeah, I'm with you there, brother. And Mike says, speaking of TRT, both his father and his brother have low testosterone and they are on TRT. Uh, he is assuming from genetics that he is likely to be in the same boat. I don't know. Again, you know, there's something— and Vance can— I see there's a comment from Vance later on down the line, but in the fitness game, in the fitness encompasses your diet, your exercise, your hormones, all that stuff. What— if you're in that game long enough, you quickly realize, wow, it's just so very— it's just so— this guy does the exact same thing that this guy does., and they have wildly different results. It's very interesting. It's frustrating too, you know, as you're a guy that's wanting to get in shape and you're following this other dude's program and not, not nearly the results that he's getting. Well, Mike, you may in fact, um, go to the doc and they'll be like, no, your testosterone is like 500-something, you're good, I don't, I don't want to prescribe you anything else, you're right down the middle, average dude. And it may surprise you. And then if you really dig into what's going on with father and brother, you may say, well, their lifestyle is not the greatest, they don't eat well, they don't sleep well, they don't do all all these other things very well. Well, that contributes to the hormonal levels for sure. Hmm. Jake says, I only have so much time to commit to working out. Where would you personally place emphasis on your workouts? And Vance replies, uh, emphasize strength training and get your energy expenditure and cardiovascular health up through non-exercise movement, step count. Yeah, isn't that something, Vance, that everyone, um, lose sight of. And I like that we're going on kind of a fitness kick here. That's— it's not normal for us, but I love going to different topics other than sex and all that stuff. Um, but, uh, energy expenditure— get up and move. Uh, how many of you fellow Americans on here have taken trips to Europe, anywhere else other than the US, basically? You get off the plane and you go into a major city somewhere, hell, even like New York City, for example, and you will notice everyone seems a lot thinner than, you know, bumfuck Iowa or wherever it is you're from. I say that because I'm in the middle of Kentucky, so I can say that. And I grew up in Indiana for most of my life as a young kid. Whole bunch of obese people in this part of the world. But then you go to Paris, France, and get off the bus and you're like, a lot of good-looking people here. It's not like Walmart back home. What's going on here? You know what it is? They move a lot more. That's it. Very few of them probably have a gym membership. Very few of them are counting their macros. But what they are doing is eating a hell of a lot less. They don't have cakes like this. They have a little pastry like this. They don't have, you know, fries fill on the plate like this. They have a little pommes frites like this and a little piece of meat like this and a little café and a little wine, and then they go walk 19 miles that day. And that's no joke. If you've ever been in a major city and done some walking, you can crank up the miles pretty fast, and lo and behold, your weight stays down. Funny how that works. But we lose sight of those simple little things like just keep moving. I say that as a guy who sits in this chair Um, I, I don't know if you've noticed that sometimes I have a different background. In the background, I have two different offices in two different states. I'm pretty fancy that way— Texas and Kentucky. And, uh, um, but either way, wherever I'm at, I am sitting in my chair staring at a dumb computer screen for hours and hours at a time, and it's not healthy, but my work kind of requires that. But I do get my cardio— not as much as I should, probably, um, like a serious cardio session 3-4 days a week, and I lift weights 4 or 5 days a week depending on my schedule. Uh, Mike asks, can anybody comment what age they started a TRT? That would be for me, late 30s. So Rita says the women need to check into hormonal replacement therapy too, could save some marriages even. Oh boy, Rita. Do we really want to go down that road, Rita? You've been on my page for a while. You see what happens when we mention this. That is a, um, a sensitive topic for sure. For whatever reason— I shouldn't say whatever reason. I know one of the big reasons. Uh, there was a study, literally a study, that came out years ago, years and years ago, which said, uh, basically without having the study here in front of me, the abstract, so I could quote it to you, but just going by memory Um, women who take, uh, hormonal therapy have a higher risk of developing things such as breast cancer. Oh, that study has been basically picked apart and debunked left and right already for quite a while now. There are podcasts about it, there are YouTube videos about it. Just do some Googling and you'll see, um, what it was based on, the population size, the population's age, and all this other stuff. For the average Jane out there who wants to get HRT, you probably have nothing to worry about unless you are genetically predisposed to estrogen-sensitive types of breast cancer. If so, then yeah, you probably shouldn't take, you know, extra heaping doses of estrogen. Uh, no-brainer. But for the rest of you, the hormonal replacement therapy could be a godsend to you. Maybe, maybe not. Some women are like, I am a new I have new energy, my osteoporosis improved, my blood pressure improved, I'm hitting the gym, I'm exercising, I look 10 years younger, and I want to have sex frequently with my husband. Holy shit, this thing, every woman should be on it. Well, that's not necessarily fair. Not every woman should be on it. Some will have no positive, some will have increased risk of cancer, very few of you, but some do. So, but if I were to put right now a post on my public Facebook page, for example, and said every woman should be on HRT or at least look into it, to it. End of story. Rita, I think you could attest to this. I will get dozens of comments from women telling me to go to hell. Sensitive topic. Hmm. Well, now this is interesting. Alan, Alan M. says— Alan from Facebook says I guess for me, it's not like I am hungering for marriage. It's just that if I was dating a woman that stated to me that she wants us to be in separate dwellings versus the woman that wants to get married and presumably live together, I would expect that the woman who wants to get married, wants marriage, will treat me better. How interesting, Alan. I don't know. Let's talk about that. Rita says the same thing. That's interesting. She actually dated a guy who felt the same way. Well, yeah, I guess, where does that come from, Alan? Do you think that's from your upbringing, I assume? Are you one that was raised to be like, you know, you like the traditional values, man, woman under the same roof, get married, have kids. Anything else that veers from that path is weird. If so, I can see how that would color your judgment. But to me, I, you know, quite the opposite. Um, one way of looking at it, a very admittedly cynical way of looking at this, is if I have a woman— let's say I sit down for the first date with a woman and she says, just to let you know, just so we're on the same page, I'm in this for the long haul, I'm looking for the next husband, somebody to move in with, somebody get married with— that almost shows me that there's some kind of ulterior motive is not the right word. Some kind of predetermined pathway here that will— that, like, she's, she's got her mission and she's going to get that no matter what, damn it. And for somebody to have that kind of narrow-minded, single-minded, this is, this is what I'm going for, they will potentially, at least in my mind, uh, see their potential partners in a different way. Maybe they will set aside some things like, I don't really have genuine physical attraction to him, but I got to stay on my path. I need my next husband. Yeah, he may be a little this way, he may be— I don't necessarily respect him all that much, but there's these other two things I do like about him. I got to stay on that path. Versus a woman who's like, I just want a genuine relationship with somebody that I really like. I'm not interested in cohabitating and marrying and all other stuff. You have your money and your world, I have mine, and we get together and just have fun and just be a couple together. I don't know, that, that sounds— the latter to me sounds like, yay, awesome. The former sounds like setting you up for some trouble. But again, that's just me, and that's my, uh, my own personal baggage that I bring to the equation here. Hmm. Rita says, I'm in Arkansas, pretty obese here. Say no more. Been to Provence, France. They walk and eat less. Yes, they do. Uh, Wordsmith says to hormonal replacement therapy, you have the ones that say stay away from it, it's evil, and then you have others that are like you need to go on this regimen, and then you have this middle ground of women saying I would love to go on it but no doctor takes me seriously. Well, welcome to the club, ladies. That's, that's a big thing when it comes to Oh, your general practitioner, your family practice, your general, uh, what do you call it, family medicine, general practitioner, your family doctor. Uh, it's funny, I'm married to an MD, by the way, a medical doctor. My wife is a pediatric surgeon, so she cuts up little kiddos. Well, I should say little, all the way from infants like newborns all the way up to 18 years of age. She's a general surgeon. She'll be the first to say she doesn't know every little single thing there is to know about the body, but she does some pretty cool stuff. Like today she removed a teratoma. If you know what that is, Google it. Pretty interesting. And cancerous tumors all the way, all the way down to like just your appendectomies and so forth. Well, we expect like all of our physicians to have this general knowledge about every little part of the human body, and they gotta know inside and out. And if they tell me something, I'm gonna take it as gospel, damn it. Well, you go to your regular family doctor who has to deal with your flus and your all this other garbage and say, um, I'm interested in testosterone. The majority of the time that doctor is going to probably go, dude, you're no He-Man, what are you doing? Just get out of my office, don't be silly. Seriously, that's what they— I've had men have reported that exact same thing. Like, for— they laugh and go, oh boy, getting up there in age, are we? Well Happens to us all. You know, if you're feeling depressed, I can put you on some Prozac or something like that, but it's testosterone. I'm a little— I'm hesitant about testosterone, all this stuff. I know. Um, which is precisely why there are clinics all over the freaking place, at least here in the U.S., even here in Kentucky. I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a testosterone clinic, and they will prescribe you pretty liberal doses, meaning pretty big doses, like 200 milligrams of testosterone cypionate every week kind of doses, which will get you into the— sorry for hitting the mic— will get you like into the 1500+ total testosterone range, which is super physiological, which can lead to some not so good things. High blood pressure, estrogen levels being up, anxiety levels being up, all kinds of not so good stuff if your levels are too high. Um, some positives too, like muscle goes up. Libido could probably go way up. Um, libido's a— we could go on and on about libido. That's a very unique person-to-person thing. But, um, yeah, in short, I agree with the Wordsmith. Regular doctor, probably not gonna know a whole hell of a lot. Um, it's funny, uh, my wife can attest to this too. Do you know what a lot of doctors do when somebody comes to them with something kind of unique? Uh, they go to Google. And YouTube, just like everybody else does. I remember seeing some kind of little viral video where a person went in for like an ankle sprain or something like that. They went to the doctor and the doctor went to the other room and they didn't realize that the patient could see and was filming with their, with their phone that the physician was on a computer YouTubing how to wrap a sprained ankle. Um, They, again, they can't know everything. Uh, Joel from Facebook says, I've been getting on the fitness kick. Never been a heavy guy, but the opposite— skinny white guy who put on 15 to 25 pounds. I started a program with Dad Bod Steve Lutz. It's given me a bit of structure to help keep me going the right direction. After 2 months of working out consistently, my wife noticed. Well, good for you. We're working out together sometimes, but more importantly much more supportive of each other. Well, hallelujah! I thought I was, uh, I thought I was but wasn't much in hindsight. You mean supportive? Um, I had my testosterone checked a year ago after feeling blah. It was actually me pulling away in my marriage instead of being assertive and addressing issues. Well, how about that for some, uh, positive messaging there, some ultimate responsibility. Very good, Joel. Um, Jeremy says he can vouch for testosterone pellets. I'm glad they work for you, buddy. That's awesome. I am not a huge fan of the pellets, and I think Vance would agree with me here. Um, I inject via a syringe in my butt twice a week, just— and I don't take a massive dosage twice a week. I basically take the weekly dosage and cut it in half and do half and half, uh, simply because when it comes to this kind of thing— I'm oversimplifying here— but you do a shot of testosterone, your testosterone levels look like this, whoop, and then start going down down, down. And what I'm trying to do via splitting the dosage is just make you go whoop, and then as it starts going up, back again and back again, as opposed to extremes, ups and downs. There seems to be some health benefit to avoiding the extreme ups and downs. Well, problem with testosterone pellets— the problem is, um, uh, you get a— I guess it depends on how they are released within the pellet. It's like a time-release thing. I don't know how it works exactly, but from what I've heard Pretty good spike, and then it drops. And then you are— there's like a— it's a schedule thing, like on your calendar, you know, they say, okay, let's— I don't know what the timing is— let's say, uh, 4 months from now you'll come back in. So on the 4-month mark, you go back in. What a lot of people report at the 4-month mark is, I feel like total dog shit. And you say, why? Well, if you were to take the testosterone readings probably for a good month before that last appointment they were probably needing more testosterone like a month ago. But the way those pellets are, it's just— it's implanted in the skin. You would have to go in, remove, and reimplant, I assume. Or you— you— I don't know if you absorb the pellets completely and there's nothing necessarily to remove, you just keep adding new. But the timing for many seems to be off, and there's very little control on the timing versus a shot, which is either you put this much liquid into your, your syringe or this much. That you have complete control over it. So I like the shot. The other alternative is a cream. Not a fan of the cream. You could sweat and you don't absorb as much. You can actually transfer it to others. So if you're, you know, wiping it, let's say, on your inner thigh, or pardon the, the disgusting imagery here, trying to be as medical as possible, scrotum. Some guys actually apply to the scrotum, uh, inner thigh, scrotum, somewhere like that. Let's say you're doing sexy time with a wife. You could technically transfer the cream to her. Now she's getting a dosage of testosterone cream. And you want to talk about some goofy things that can happen when women get, you know, excessive amounts of testosterone. Google that. That's some interesting stuff. Here's a term for you. Clitoromegaly. Yeah, you don't want to go there. So I don't like creams for that reason. Doesn't absorb very well for some. What if you sweat? What if it wipes off? What if it gets on your clothes? What if you transfer to others? I liked the injection. If you're scared of shots, get over it. Um, Josh says— and I'm going to wrap it up here soon, folks— uh, my wife and I have been together for nearly 20 years, or near 20 years, with 3 children. We are both almost 40 years old. Why, you married young! For— oh, let me move my mouse here— for us, sex has been everything between hot and cold over the years. Recently it has been far into the hot side of spectrum and could not be more pleased about it. What are your, uh, what are some general steps to maintain such a dude question? Things are looking great, how can I not make it great? How can I make sure it doesn't go to not great territory? My biggest fear is that it crashes again, which creates friction in all aspects of the relationship from my side. Well, Josh, A lot of men are very, um, oh, what do you call it, analytical, almost spectrumy in nature. And I don't mean that as an insult. Uh, spectrumy, mean autism spectrum. That's what I mean when I say that. I don't mean to say that flippantly, but, um, well, let's be honest, men tend to fall on the autism spectrum more so than, uh, than women do. But so when I say spectrumy, I mean very analytical, very— they study things. So Josh, have you in your very manly ways? Have you studied this? Have you sat down and said, what the hell's going on here? Why is suddenly my wife, you know, really kicking it into high gear? Is it simply you're almost 40 years old? Maybe she's hormonally reaching some kind of flux or change in her life that is causing the libido to spike. Um, has she gone through a major change physically? Uh, she really more in love with her body for whatever reason. A lot of women report that. I lost weight, now I suddenly feel sexy again. I'm suddenly able to wear certain things I always wanted to wear, and I just feel like a more sexual creature. And I noticed my husband, you know, coming on to me more. I notice other guys checking me out more, and it just makes me feel more attractive overall. And husband sure is happy lately. Maybe that's what's going on. So maybe, you know, put on your analytical hat and try to figure out what the hell's going on here. And, uh, what is it— maybe another way to look at this— what is it that caused the slippage Uh, earlier in the relationship? Sounds like you've been doing this. Anything that precipitated the dips? Um, when— 3 kids? Maybe it was as soon as we had a kid, yeah, and then things started getting a little better, and then another kid. Yeah, could be that simple. Uh, what's my resolution for that? Stop having kids. Um, but, uh, hey dude, welcome to being a human being. The libido sex drive thing is, is, um, it's difficult. It's complicated. There's so many things that go into libido, it's not even funny. I always laugh when there's so many guys that are like, uh, oh, you'll know your woman's into you because she's going to jump your bones 24/7, and if she doesn't do anything more, or if she does anything less than jumping your bones 24/7, she's just not into you. It's like, dude, it's a little bit more complicated than that. Human body is complicated, especially for these poor ladies spitting out babies, menopause, all the garbage. Uh, us guys, we can't relate to that, so it's a little different for, for them. A lot different for them. A lot more goes into it. And, um, uh, Ryan asks— sorry, I'm jumping around a lot here. Peter said— well, let me start with Peter. Peter says, you do a lot for many men, respect. Well, thank you, Peter, I appreciate that. Um, Brian, can someone's T levels go up simply from weight training? Yes. Uh, he definitely feels different. Yeah, after working out so much. Yeah. And then Vance says, yeah, but don't expect miracles. It's right. Um, more likely to go up if you were obese and now you're not. That obesity, that extra fat does, does a real number. It doesn't advance on your, on your hormonal makeup. People don't realize that. Uh, look up things like gynecomastia. I'm throwing all kinds of really cool— let's see what we got so far. Clitoromegaly. Don't Google that at the office. And gynecomastia, probably not another office Google thing, but these are interesting. Um, if someone has normal testosterone levels without negative symptoms, is it still worth pursuing treatment? Uh, I, you know, and though that question was for Vance, but I guess what can it hurt? I think everyone in general needs to be more proactive about your health. Um, taking blood tests and that kind of stuff. What does it hurt just to know where you're at? Yeah, you know, vitamin levels, hormonal levels, you got your thyroid, your testosterone, your estrogen, all kinds of stuff. Um, you know, what's it hurt to see where you're at? That's what I say. Um, yeah, and then, uh, you know, everyone expects the— Vance is talking about here miracles, you know, get a shot in the butt of some TRT level of testosterone. You know, we have the occasional gifted dude that just looks like, holy crap, dude, you look like a fitness model. That ain't your average guy. Average guy's gonna feel a little different, feel a little better, maybe anxiety a little bit less, he'll have a little bit more energy and stuff, but it's not gonna be like steroid miracle levels. And steroids themselves are not miracles necessarily for everybody. Everyone thinks you just take, you know, shoot some super physiological level of testosterone and maybe some pills or whatever. You know, there's so many different kinds of steroids out there that you're just going to be a different human being and new, and you'll look like those guys in the magazines or whatever. Magazines— I'm showing my age. Uh, no, it takes a lot of work and gifted, you know, genetic gift and, uh, and the drugs and the diet and a lot of discipline. And yeah, so I'm going to, uh wrap it up here soon. It is almost time for me to pick up my kiddos from school. Uh, Jake asked, can you explain emotional intelligence in man language? No. Anybody else? How's that for a— it's kind of a nebulous kind of a generic concept. Um, from what I understand, it does not have any base in science. Uh, you, you know, any kind of psychiatrist, psychologist, or whatever, it is not in the DSM, emotional intelligence. I think it's one of those Concepts that was kind of invented by somebody, but it's too vague, it's too all over the place. You ask 10 people, you get 10 different, uh, definitions. So, uh, people that— somebody— I've always kind of been, um, interpreted it as, uh, people that have— are, I guess, well in tune to their emotion. They can read the room, so to speak. They, you know, they understand and can empathize better with other people and understand their emotions or where they come from. Um, somebody— I mentioned the autism spectrum. Those people tend to be, uh, not the most empathetic. They're not able to read the room. They don't understand sarcasm. And those other kind of things are kind of, you know, beyond them. Maybe it could be argued they don't have the most emotional intelligence, if, you know, using in those terms. Um, Ryan says, for Vance, uh, I was told that TRT would stop normal testosterone production. I was nervous about that. Is that something to worry about? Uh, I'll answer for Vance here real quick. Um, yes, Ryan, if you inject an outside source of testosterone into your body, the body is smart and says, well, I don't need to make my own anymore. Thanks for, you know, shooting it into your butt or applying the cream or the pellet or whatever. And yes, your own natural production will either cease or be dramatically decreased. And, uh that will cause some physical changes such as your testes, your testicles will atrophy. They will get smaller. There are some things you can do to remedy that if that bothers you to have, you know, raisin balls. Then you can do something like HCG or something that will help swell them. But that has its own negative side effects such as elevated estrogen. And yeah, and Vance says, if, but if you go off of the testosterone, your body will say, well, time to start ramping up my production again. And there are certain drugs that you can take to speed up that process, to expedite the return. In the world of steroids, you'll hear guys say they go on a certain type of regimen of drugs, compounds if you will, to help— what's the word— mitigate that change, or to help. So in other words, the guy's been injecting and swallowing all kinds of stuff and he's like, I'm stopping now, and I'm purposely stopping for a period of a month or 2 months. And during this, I'm going to take these drugs that will help bring my natural testosterone levels back. Or you can just wait it out. Um, uh, and while you wait it out, uh, yeah, as Vance says here, you feel like doo-doo, you feel like poop. And, uh, yeah. And, uh, oh, there's also, uh, you didn't ask, um Ryan, but also when that— when you're, uh, uh, when you take the outside source of testosterone, for many including myself, uh, fertility is impacted. Um, I had— I'm sharing some personal stuff with you guys here. Since being on testosterone therapy, uh, my wife number 2, uh, and I decided we wanted to have a child. And, uh, guess who had zero sperm count? Not a low sperm count, zero. I'm shooting blanks. And so I had to go off of the testosterone and administer some HCG to get the old swimmers back for a period of months. Didn't take long, and it came back, but didn't feel too good during that. Noticeable physical changes to my body as well. So it was interesting. You know, from a purely scientific point of view, to watch how my body and, and mind and everything else changed just from stopping administering that one little liquid into my body every week. How interesting. And Vance says post-cycle therapy, HCG and Clomid. Clomid is another, uh, um, pill you can take, right? And, uh, what's the, uh, Clomazone? I can't remember what it's actually called. Clomid is the brand name for a longer name drug. And, uh, some clinics actually prescribe Clomid in place of testosterone, which I am not a fan of. A lot of people don't feel good on it, elevating estrogen if I am correct. Vance, you can correct me on that. But you can take it in place of testosterone. I just, I just like plain old testosterone. And Jake says, thank you for your time, you're greatly appreciated. Well, thank you, Jake, I appreciate you. Uh, anything else before I call her quits here, folks. Going once, twice. If not, I'm going to say thank you all so, uh, very much. I appreciate you all a great deal. dadstartingover.com, check it out if you are a dude. Pardon me one moment. I did this last time I had the live thing. I wasn't prepared with this link, but I'm going to be. Oh, look, I already got it right up here. Copy link. Paste in the comments. All right, give it a second. There you go, now it's on YouTube. It'll be up here on Facebook soon. Um, if you're interested in joining, or checking out rather, our private group for men only called the DSO Fraternity, you can do so for free for a month. You do have to put your credit card info in there. If your membership lasts past the month and you don't cancel, you will get charged for the second month. And so on until you cancel. Uh, you can try it out for a month, and if it's not for you before that 30 days is up, you can say cancel. I think you can actually do it from your account. You don't have to call or email or anybody, or you can email us and say, I'd like to cancel, please. Um, and I tell you what, even if it's like on day 31 and you're like, shoot, I meant to cancel and I forgot and I just got charged, we'll give you your money back. I'm not in this to rip you off, guys. I'm trying to start a group of like-minded guys— trying to start— I've been at it for 3 years now, trying to grow a group of like-minded guys who all want to work together to help each other out. Um, that's what a lot of us are sorely missing is another dude or dudes in our life who are like-minded and just say, I want to become a better dude. Fitness is a topic we talk about quite often, which we've been blabbing on here about it now for about an hour now. Uh, Western relationships, divorce, staying married, fixing the dead bedroom, all that common dude stuff. We talk about it a lot in the group and we would love to have you on board if you're a dude. Check it out for a month for free. Can't beat that. 30 days, you get to see all the cool stuff we have and, uh, try it out. Wordsmith, why don't you join us, buddy? You've been on the YouTube for a while, a lot of comments. We would love to have you on the group. A lot of stuff to learn from. Get involved, some meetings, get involved in the private discussion forum, which when we tallied up all the discussions we've had in a couple of different groups— Facebook, Discord server— we have a Discord server for our lifetime members. Uh, it's like 50-some thousand different separate discussions were started. 50-some thousand, that's insane. And then our meetings, we have over 600 hours of meetings recorded that you can listen to. We're not hurting for content, and you ain't ever gonna make a dent in it because we keep adding it to it like on a daily basis. So check it out, the DSO fraternity, dadstartingover.com, dsofraternity.com. Click that link, get 1 month for free. And of course, my books and all this other stuff. Just do a search for DSO, Dad Starting Over, on Google. You'll find me. And all right, that's it, guys. Thank you all so very much. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and rest of your week. Toodaloo.