Join Ralph (DSO) and Coach Vance LIVE!

Welcome, welcome everyone. It's your boy Rafa Lito coming to you live with a special guest today. Mr. Coach Vance, who is a coach on the Help for Men team. And by your attire today, Mr. Vance, I would say your specialty is what, insurance? This is the universal uniform for I help get people in shape. The tank top, and you got the medals behind you. There's no doubt what Mr. Vance does here. He helps people get bigger and stronger. More specifically, with the medals behind you, those are for Olympic-style weightlifting competitions. I don't want to take away from you. Tell us a little, you know, give a little speech, a little bit about what Mr. Coach Vance does for folks.

Yeah. So in my day job, I do wear khakis and a polo. I do dress more professionally, but in the internet age, Uh, people care more about the shoulder— shoulders than they do about, uh, your knowledge. But I am a senior international weightlifting coach. I've done that for about 2 decades now. Been coaching international level weightlifters for, for a long period of time. I was a decent weightlifter myself, so I was at a fairly high level. But my other full-time job is I am also a kinesiology professor at Bruin Parker College in South Georgia, have a PhD in that. So the science side of it is, is, is a big passion as well. And I think I'm in a unique position being an athlete and coaching athletes versus just a professor. I understand the, the theories and the science behind this stuff, but also how to translate it into actual application is kind of a big, a decent gift to be in this space because usually you have the nerds on one side and you have the coaches on the other side. Well, I'm both. I'm coach nerd.

Very good. Got your hands on both. And I was talking to, I was talking to, uh, Dr. Robert Glover about this on the Help for Men podcast, that, uh, we are seeing more and more, um, there's a lot of science-based stuff going on out there. How to say this, uh, people really sticking to facts, people really loving to blow up, you know, these people that put out a lot of nonsense supplements and a lot of nonsense fitness advice and got guys obviously on tremendous amounts of anabolic steroids telling people that they're natural and stuff. So you will see a lot of people— now we're seeing a lot of people calling out those folks and here's a study that shows your, your powder that you're selling is nonsense. Here's another study that shows your type of workout is way too much. Uh, there's another gentleman who's big in the internet by the name of Mike Israetel, Dr. Mike. Uh, he's really big on pushing a lot of the science-based stuff, so he's kind of leading that. Cause, if you will. And I'm seeing that kind of bleed over into the relationship-oriented world. We have a lot of people spouting facts of, you know, 80% of this happens to 30%. People are like, do you have some study to back this up? And for a lot of that, you realize, no, this is just stuff that's been spit out year after year, and people just take it as gospel. That's just the way it is. And in your world, the fitness world, oh my gosh, it is filled with that. Like, this is just the way it is. It's nonsense.

Right. So, they've even labeled those people like Michael Zurutel and the people with PhDs and whatnot as being evidence-based, evidence-based practitioners, which kind of shows you that the other side of the thing, just the bros in the gym who have been doing it and kind of following each other through this path over the decades, they were considered not evidence. But, you kind of have to look at it both sides and meet somewhere in the middle. Some of these things the bros were right about, right? It's just trial and error, you figure things out, you know, people used to be this size and now they're this size based on these practices. So that is a form of evidence, we would call that anecdotal evidence. But then there's some other things that get into that world where they just say, "We just do it because Ronnie Coleman did it or Dorian Yates did it or one of these big guys did it." And then, you know, the research kind of shows that that wasn't the best way to do it. They were just the genetic outliers and whatnot, and they worked hard and were good at their craft, but some of their methods probably shouldn't be replicated, especially with your average— your average gym-goer just trying to get more fit. You know, some of these things that professional bodybuilders do or professional athletes, do is a whole nother world. So it doesn't always apply and it gets mixed into where the general population thinks they need to do these things this way. And it's kind of like, it's a poor bandwidth to go down. Your bandwidth should be on very simple evidence-based things versus like just copying what other people are doing.

Yeah. We see— I've talked about this before with you, the popular bodybuilding culture stuff. Has really infiltrated a lot of the mainstream fitness world. You have a lot of people just downing protein shakes and taking pre-workout and doing very large volume bodybuilding type of workouts on, you know, sometimes multiple times a day and everything else. And you're just like, wow, these people really got the message that more is better. Not necessarily the case, um, that all you got to do is take so many supplements and everything else and you'll look like those guys. No, um, you know, to, uh, to illustrate the point, there are— so your average Joe can take a whole lot of anabolic steroids and a whole lot of protein and every other supplement in the world and replicate the workouts exactly of Ronnie Coleman, like I mentioned there, and not even look 1/100th of as good— and it's a subjective term— as muscular and lean as, as Mr. Ronnie, uh, we realize that genetics are a huge, huge, huge component of this whole thing.

Yeah, it even leads to people who want to go down that, the dark path, as you call it, the gray area, right? Sometimes they get very disappointed too because they put on 5 pounds of muscle and you go, great, that 5 pounds is better than no pounds, but they were expecting 30 or something like that. And they don't realize, first of all, most of those guys have been doing this for years and years and years even under using anabolic steroids and stuff like that. And, their growth might only be 5 pounds a year, but they do it for 10 years, that's 50 pounds. And then, you have the 1% of the 1%, the Ronnie Coleman who are like they're on Mr. Olympia stage, they claim to be natural, and then a year later they're 40 pounds, 50 pounds heavier when they get on the stuff. And genetics even plays a role in how you respond to those type of things.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Some people are kind of frail and weak and they take, you know, a little bit of testosterone, they blow up. Other people, good athletes, good genetics, have a good amount of muscle already and they see minimum gains. Your body can respond differently. You know, things like androgen receptor affinity and all these nerdy science stuff can explain that. But for the most part, the regular folks can just think of it just like some people are good drug responders and some people aren't.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's the name of the game in the fitness world. The more and more you go down and try to learn all these different pathways of what works, what doesn't, it always seems to come right back to, eh, it depends. And the depends has a lot to do with your genetics, which you really can't control a whole heck of a lot of. And like I say, that bodybuilding world kind of infiltrating a lot of the fitness world as we see almost— I don't know if it's the proper term or not— what's the, uh, body dysmorphia amongst men, uh, young men in particular, saying, uh, I don't look like that. You know, used to be magazines, now it's pointing to Instagram or whatever, saying I don't look like that dude, I got to keep at it, I got to keep Hitting the gym maybe 3 hours a day is the key. Maybe an hour a day of cardio. Maybe cutting this out of my diet. Maybe really extreme stuff for the average Joe, all in order to get to a look that is— you have to ask, what exactly are you going for here, buddy? And it's at the detriment to a lot in your life. You're, you're really changing your life around to accommodate— I need the 8-pack abs, I need veins in my abs. Why? What's the endgame here? You're not a professional. You're not making money off of your body. It's— it is kind of a dysmorphia.

Yeah, in males it's kind of an acceptable, uh, dysmorphia because it's a very masculine thing to do, um, that sort of thing. You know, the, the girl who gets the breast implants might get scoffed at, like, why does she want to? She should, she should just love her body as it is. She shouldn't wear makeup, all this kind of stuff. But if male get really buff, then we we encourage that. So, there's that side of it.

Yeah.

There's that side of it too. But, yeah, and a lot of people get into when they get really into strength training or whatever, some people just love it. I love it. It's just a great part of my day to be able to do it. It's great stress relief. I just enjoy it in general. That's why I became an Olympic weightlifter. I played other sports and I just— they weren't as fun as the weight room for me. Yeah. But, you know, like some people go into with a chip on their shoulder as well. Like, if I change my body, then people will look at me differently. Or maybe they do it because they think they'll get more girls and stuff like that. And for the most part, you know, if you just talk to more girls, you probably, you'll probably get more girls. If you're in the gym for 3 hours a night and you never socialize, don't have a social group or anything like that, then you're still not getting the girls. You know, you look on Instagram, but they're not going to be messaging you in droves like, oh, I saw your abs. You know, that's still kind of a rare occasion for men. Works for women, but it doesn't really work for men.

It— well, there's some— with that being said, there are— I did go from before when I was in marriage number one to kind of a chubby, really nothing to look at. And then thanks to anxiety and everything else, I lost a lot of weight, and then I started hitting the gym more. And I remember some really blunt, oh wow, dude, look at you, like, hello. And I remember getting the, the woman at work, I've talked about this before in some other stuff, uh, grabbing the arm and squeezing the arm. I had one woman lifting up my shirt to look at my butt and everything. And it was like, you know, I'm a piece of meat now. And so I got a taste for, yeah, the shallow stuff kind of matters and it kind of brings a visceral level of excitement, but not necessarily for Oh, how to put this. You're— it's possible that your good long-term relationship prospect is not necessarily going to be swayed one or one way or the other by are you able to bench press 315 pounds or not. There are some outliers that are— that's important to them. They're in the fitness world, they want another guy who's also in the fitness world, and that's part of their culture, sure. But for the most part, um, look good That's a subjective thing. Look healthy, be confident, be outgoing. And it's— if you get in shape, a lot of that stuff comes with it. I feel better, I stand taller, my anxiety's down, my clothes fit better, I feel better about myself, I carry myself differently, and people treat me differently as a result. So yeah, it can work, but maybe not like you think, a lot of— for a lot of guys out there.

Yeah, strength training is a big confidence booster. You know, you know, if a female dresses really nice and goes out on the town, you know, she's going to be more open to talking to others and people of every gender and, and walk of life as well, not just the dating as well. So it's definitely a big confidence booster, stress reliever. And when you do get a girlfriend and whatever, you know, she, she might appreciate that you stay in shape. That's a big one. As well. They do appreciate when you stay in shape and don't let yourself go, especially, you know, if you really let yourself go, which happens in relationships a lot. There's good data. Yeah, on that. But she's probably going to get over the fact that like, oh, your abs are— if you did have that going for you, she's going to get over that pretty, pretty quickly. That's just like a novelty, you know.

There you go. That's a good word, the novelty. And we've also seen that there is a dividing line between, oh, look at you. Into, oh dude, as far as muscular development is concerned, uh, the, the, the professional bodybuilder world that you see online and everything, 99.9% of women look at that and go, oh dude, no, that's freakishly weird looking. That doesn't look healthy, number one. It's just something's off and it's kind of scary too.

Yeah, Chris Bumstead, who he's like one of the, the, um, what do you call it, not the heavyweights but the, um, yeah, classic physique.

Yeah.

Classic Physique. So, he's not enormous, but he is 230 pounds. And, he gets that question a lot like, "How many girls are messaging you?" and this sort of thing. And, he said actually, he gets more messages from males than females, first of all. But also, he said actually when he gains a little bit of a fat and gets a little bit softer, then he gets more message when he gets super shredded, because when he gets super shredded, then the girls, like, he just looks lumpy and gross to them, you know. So there's a fine line. They like a nice set of abs, but they don't want veins coming out of your, your cheeks and your forehead and your abs and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, a lot of guys don't like to hear that because they think that that's the physique ideal. It's the ideal, it's the most masculine thing. And you talked about earlier when we talked about the body dysmorphia thing and how it's It seems to be extra tough for guys because it is an extreme form of masculinity, if you will. And that is praised by society overall. And if you're in really good shape and muscular shape and you got a tight-fitting shirt and you walk into a room, you're gonna get a lot of people going, "Look at you. What do you do to work out? I should work out with you. You look really good. What do you do? What do you eat? How much do you bench press?" And on and on and on. Rarely will a guy walk in and people will laugh and go, "Get outta here, you weirdo, with your tight shirt on." No, he'll get nothing but positive reactions. And that really feeds that ego and makes you want to just keep going and going. And men and women alike give you the second look. That's kind of addictive to feed that ego. And it also, on top of that, is kind of a very, uh, oh, real big, like, masculine winner type thing of keep going, keep achieving, keep getting bigger, keep getting leaner, keep getting— so it's a really double whammy of of, I don't know, physical achievement in a potentially really negative way. I mean, you can take this shit too far and take, you know, get down the world of anabolics and so forth that can get, as you know, um, really unhealthy. And, uh, there was a— there was an anabolic that really made the waves here on the internet because of its, uh, psychological effects— trenbolone. And, uh, some, some, some men going on that just get— go really out there as far as, uh sexual behavior, for example, and aggression and all kinds of stuff when they're on that particular anabolic. But it's one of the most effective, and they get super lean and super muscular, super strong. And you hear guys on the internet sharing war stories about that, and you realize it's kind of funny, but it's also scary because that is some dangerous stuff. We've seen, um, effects on the brain, uh, links to things such as dementia and Alzheimer's down the line and all kinds of craziness. So if you guys are out there really getting into that world, I guess it's Long-winded way of saying be careful, you can go down the nasty paths. Yeah. Do we have anybody on the, um, uh, comments here today? I don't see anything just yet. Got a like, thank you whoever liked that. Um, if you guys could, if you're watching this and you enjoy the chat, something a little different from the typical Dad Starting Over stuff, talking about health and fitness, but this is a channel, if you will, an account primarily for dudes, and staying in shape is a big deal for us. And, um So I have Coach Vance. He's on the staff at Help for Men. Go to helpformen.com, go up to coaching, and you click on Vance's portfolio there, and you can book time with Vance. He will work with you one-on-one to come up with a program to get leaner, more muscular, more fit, if that is in fact your goal. Uh, mostly what we've seen, Vance, in our world is, I would like to lose body fat and I would like to gain muscle at the same time, please. That's the big secret thing, isn't it? And that's, that's, that's difficult. Some would say almost impossible. I don't know if it's impossible. It's a lot more difficult than what people think.

Yeah, I hear that a lot. So when I start a session with a, with a new client or something like that, they say, I weigh, I weigh this. So I weigh, let's say, 210, and they would like to stay 210 and but gain 20 pounds of muscle and lose 20 pounds of body fat, right? So that's not like 100% unachievable. You have some, some, some people who do have the genetics to maybe do that, um, but you really should just focus on one goal first. Um, if you look at like kind of average people, average folks, if you look at research on either weight loss studies or muscle building, uh, programs that they put these people on and they're typically done with physical education students because that's what's available for research, college students, that sort of thing, physical education students. So, these are people who are kind of into fitness, usually into strength training and they'll put them on diet and they'll lose body fat, X amount of body fat over 8 weeks or 12 weeks and they usually will put on a little— a few pounds of muscle as well but it's not a— complete transformation. That's what people want. They want a 12-week complete transformation. It's better to look at, well, what would I like to look like maybe 4 months from now? If the answer is, I would like to look leaner, then your goal should be weight loss. That should be your goal. And if you're eating enough protein and training hard enough, have a good training program, you will put on a little bit of muscle. If your goal is to be a lot more muscular 4 months from now, say I would really like 5 to 10 pounds of muscle, I'm kind of new at this, um, then that should be your goal. You should probably be eating in a calorie surplus. And if you're relatively new, you will actually lose a little bit of fat, but again, it's not going to be like you're going to lose 20 pounds of fat and put on, uh, 10 pounds of muscle. It's going to be like, I lose 2 or 3 pounds of fat, but I'm more muscular, my my clothes fit better, I look better. So, take one goal at a time is usually the approach unless you're really just kind of, you know, I want to lose a couple pounds of fat and put on a couple pounds of muscle and I weigh 190 pounds and I like to stay there. That's an achievable goal. You're not looking— but if you're looking for a big transformation, it's usually like you have to one goal at a time. And, what's the most important to you? You put that first. Which oftentimes is lose the body fat. And then if you slowly eat in a small calorie surplus, especially if you're a novice, like you haven't been training for 10 years and all this kind of stuff, um, you can usually put on a good amount of muscle mass without accumulating much, if any, fat if you're relatively new to this or untrained, or it's been a long time since you actually had a good fitness plan.

It's a— on that note, is it safe to say that we are, especially us men trying to get into this world and get in better shape, we're fatter than what we think we are, aren't we?

Yeah, that too. Is, um, people sometimes get disappointed by the way they look when they do lose the 20 pounds of fat, or they discover like they weigh 200 pounds, they think I'll just get down to 180, and that 180 will just be shredded muscle, and they realize that to get shredded, they actually have to lose 40 pounds. There you go. Yeah, because they have, they have some muscle, but it's disguised by a layer of fat, and they don't realize that that muscle they thought they had wasn't muscle, that, that it was fat. So sometimes it can be kind of discouraging. Um, but yeah, I would say get to the, get to the body fat you want to be that you're comfortable with, not too lean, that sort of thing. And then, just try to slowly build muscle over time. And, it's a very long arduous process because unfortunately, it's mathematically, it's easier to lose body fat than put on muscle. New muscle takes a long time. It's difficult psychologically for some people to lose a lot of body fat,. But in terms of mathematics are concerned, just thermogenesis, it's relatively easy. If you stop eating, you'll lose all kinds of fat really fast, right? But you can train your butt off and it's gonna be slow no matter what to put on the muscle mass.

A lot of different ways to take this conversation, but talking about the stop eating part, is that not basically what is happening with these semiglutides? Like Ozempic is the big name brand. It in essence lowers your appetite so you stop eating so much so you lose weight like crazy. It's not a magic formula. It's just— that's basically it, is it not? It's just the old calories in and out.

Yeah. And not just the medical side, but the diet side. Anything that kind of works on the brain and prevents you from eating less seems to be the only widespread— kind of the only widespread good evidence we have that you're going to lose weight. Because biologically most people are designed— us as a species are designed to just eat and eat and eat until we're full because we no longer have, we no longer have food shortages and that sort of thing unless you're desperately poor, of course. So it's easy to make a domestic dog obese, right? Because they're designed to kill the deer if they're a wolf, to kill the deer and eat and eat and eat because they don't know when the next deer will be available. Humans are kind of like that too. There is variability between genetics. Some people are— they have a difficult time gaining weight. But most of us, the average human being is designed to— we don't know when our next famine is going to be. You know, if you lived 2,000 years ago, you don't know when your next famine is going to be, so eat and eat. And accumulate body weight. So appetite suppression, whether that's through a ketogenic diet, through fasting, through medication like Ozempic, if you can take away the desire to eat, seems to be the only very successful way to prevent obesity. We've, you know, you can give people all the education, like you eat this amount of calories, but to get them to do it is kind of difficult.

Yeah, but, but I'm sorry, go ahead.

Like a registered— like a dietitian is good. Like dietitians help a lot of people, but you're almost sometimes better off going to see a therapist or a psychologist to figure out why you overeat versus just like, you know, eat your fruits and vegetables, eat this many calories, eat this amount of protein because it's hard to change the behavioral side of it, which Ozempic does that for you. I mean, it's very powerful. Hunger suppressant is the main thing. You, um, in, in the people who are affected by it in, in a positive way sometimes have difficulty eating enough. Even it can be that powerful for them.

And I think this is why some people are pointing to be careful when you're on those Ozempics and whatever the other name brands are. You could potentially lose a lot of muscle mass, and And that's, well, that's because you're not eating enough to maintain. So everything just shrinks down. It's not like it targets your muscles or anything. Um, it's just that, uh, yeah, appetite goes down, you eat less, which all points to the, the end lesson here is it is after all just a calories in and out thing, isn't it? When it comes to weight gain and weight loss.

Yeah, for the most part, there's a, there's some nuance to, to macronutrients and micronutrients and that sort of thing. Thing. But, uh, yeah, I always say if somebody says, you know, it's, it's, it's not calories, it's something else, it's just insulin, or that sort of thing, that's mostly been debunked because we have lots of— we have lots of studies now that compare different types of macronutrient diets. The all, you know, the high carb, low fat versus the low carb, all that kind of stuff. And you see very similar outcomes when calories are overweighted. So yeah, it's all about just kind of controlling the number of calories you eat, however we can actually do it.

With that being said, I would assume if I'm on a 2,000-calorie diet of steak and salad, my blood values, my lipids, my overall body composition may be different than if I'm on a 2,000-calorie diet of Twinkies, I would assume.

Yeah.

At the end of the day. But, you know, science shows it's still 2,000 in and out. Let's see, your body's going to react overall. We can, we can safely say it depends on how much you're eating. And when we have all these people go, no, no, no, I'm a little different, I have some kind of, oh, disorder which slows down my metabolism, a glandular thing is a thing. When I was a kid, everyone used to say I have a glandular problem or whatever it may be. Well, that may be the case, but it's slowing down your metabolism. Maybe it's a thyroid thing, it's ramping up or slowing down your metabolism to the point where you're processing the same 2,000 calories in a different way, but still the, the end lesson is it's calories in and out. It's how your body is processing it, but it's still calories in and out. Maybe you can't process 2,000 calories like this guy can. Well then, maybe because you're a very sedentary individual and so forth, you need to take in 1,700 per day, not 2,000. And there's your— but still, it's, it's in the number, isn't it? So, um, yeah, yeah, there's, there's very—

there's definitely variability in, um, in metabolisms. And this is kind of an area of research that they look a lot at, um, and trying to figure it out, how much variability of, of resting metabolism there actually is between human beings. Like, some people can say, I could— you know, people who, um, eat whatever they want and they just can't gain weight. And then, you have people who will say, "I actually don't eat very much and I gain weight." Now, sometimes they're just delusional. Sometimes, once they write everything down that they eat, they go, "Oh, shoot. I actually do eat a lot." But, the biggest difference is usually just what we call non-exercise physical activity. Some people eat a lot and unconsciously, they just move more. Like literally just, you know, some people just fidget more in their chair. They talk with their hands. They just move differently. So, that's the main variability between people, which is why step count stuff's become more popular, tracking that. So, you can, for example, you can go on a diet. Let's say you restrict your calories by 500 calories and you used to get 7,000 steps a day and you get a little lethargic from your diet and you realize now I'm getting 2,000 steps.. And so it mitigates some of the calorie restriction that you've gone on just because you don't know consciously that you're moving less. You know, I'm not going to get up to get the controller, you know, change the channel on the TV because I'm fatigued essentially.

Mm-hmm. Anybody who's traveled quite a bit, go to your more metropolitan areas, like in the US, it would be like a New York City and so forth. You see fewer obese people. And if you ask the people that live in that area, what's going on here? How come there's so many thin people? They would say, because we walk all over the damn place. I have to pick up and go, I have to walk 4 flights of stairs down to go out, go 4 blocks that way to get my food, walk back, as opposed to suburbia guy, of which I am and so forth. It's jump in car, get out, go in Walmart, jump back in car. It's just a way different world. Those little things matter. Park a little bit further away from the entrance when, you know, when you get someplace, those little extra few steps matter. We have some questions here. I don't know if you can see it on your end, but I will read some here. From Fight for a Better Now from YouTube, he says, "The challenge I have isn't necessarily the program, it's getting the consistency down." So it sounds like a discipline thing. "Any tips on being more consistent with your following programs, Mr.

Vance?" Yeah, so what that usually means is that when you, when you say I have difficulty, it usually means that it isn't a priority, right? You desire the results, but sometimes it's not a big enough priority because there's no necessarily, there's no immediate reward or immediate penalty for not getting to the gym is kind of the big issue. What I try to— I usually tell people if they have difficult time getting to the gym, they got to do it before they go to work, right? Most people make up excuses once the workday is over. They say, "Oh, I'm tired from work," and then they don't go. They have a reason to not go or, you know, family responsibilities and sort of that sort of thing. I think just get into a routine that you're going to prepare ahead of time, get your stuff all ready to go to work. My wife— I train at lunchtime, but my wife trains in the morning and you can see her after we eat dinner. She's preparing like, you know, she'll drink a protein shake because she doesn't have time to eat breakfast and all that kind of stuff. She'll make the protein shake before, she'll put it in the refrigerator, she'll get all her stuff ready, put all her stuff in her purse, get her clothes out for the next day. So as soon as she wakes up, you know, she basically puts her clothes on and goes straight to, straight to the gym. I think you just have to kind of develop a routine. It can be also helpful if you get a training partner. That's a big one because then you keep accountability.

Yeah.

Accountability. Right. So like when I don't go to commercial gyms very often, but when I was, I would see the same 4 guys together and there was, there was always like a leader too. What are we going to do today? And it would be that guy, that one guy that maybe knows a little bit more than the other guys or has some experience. And he's keeping all those other guys accountable. So, um, the social aspect is a big one, you know, the peer aspect as well. But I could write a whole book about, you know, uh, changing habits and all that kind of stuff. It just— it has to become a priority, it has to become a habit.

Absolutely. Mr. Daniel from YouTube, this is several parts here in his comments. He says, do you see a trend amongst your clients Or am I just unlucky here? Haha. That they become more sensitive to carbohydrates once they get into their upper 30s and into their mid-40s. He says, that happened to me. And continuing on, he says, workouts and physical output stayed consistent, blood work was great, but I really have to watch my carb intake now or I put on fat quickly. He says, more than 50 grams of carbs in a day and the fat starts increasing fast. This is a big thing. We went through a trend here, I don't know, a decade ago or so, and it's kind of— I see it kind of dying down. The anti-carb, pro-keto— well, carnivore, that's kind of big now, right, isn't it, for the last several years? That's a very, very extreme version of the ketogenic diet. But carbs, seen by many as enemy. Some people are more sensitive than others, so, you know, some people are pre-diabetic and other things, they have to watch their carb intake. Some people are flat out diabetic. Do you see people that become more sensitive to it as they age? Is that a thing?

Yeah, it is real. You know, insulin sensitivity, and we even have what you're referring to is often kind of the insulin model of obesity, which really has to do more with your behavior versus the carbs themselves. So, as you age, especially like if you've let yourself go health-wise, fitness-wise, that sort of thing, you do become more insulin resistant as well, which can cause more of— basically more of those carbohydrates to be converted into body fat and less stored in the muscle. That's a real thing. That does happen with just usually just a health decline in general. So, it can be age-related and it can just be, you know, "Well, I haven't been to the gym for a very long time," sort of thing. If you're healthy, in fact, we have some good research to show that if you're training, your body actually upregulates its ability to store more carbohydrates within the muscles themselves, muscle glycogen, and you can say that's improvement in insulin sensitivity. We also have the psychological side, which is you eat carbohydrates, it raises your blood sugar, it raises— then raises your insulin, and you get hungry again. So it might not be necessarily the carbohydrates themselves are making somebody fat, but if I drink some chocolate milk or something like that, and that's all I, I drink, and then an hour later I get that rise in insulin and then I get a drop in insulin, then I get— start to get a little hypoglycemic, I get hungry, and I start to eat again. So it could be that if you eat a certain amount of carbohydrates, you might just be eating more calories in general, um, uh, due to that, that psychological part of it. So it might not actually be the carbohydrates themselves, but at least you understand that you kind of know yourself, like If I eat more than 50 grams of carbohydrates, it results in this. So, if you're okay with going the rest of your life only eating 50 grams of carbohydrates, then that is a good answer, right? If you can't stand to do that, then you might have to just look at your total calories and really count how much you are eating and make sure it's not going up, you know, above what you think it is.

Very good. And we have, um, oh, here's a good one. Mr. Jason from YouTube says he's 42 years of age, good shape, he lifts 3 to 4 times a week. Is there a positive effect to taking a pre-workout if I don't necessarily need the energy to get through my workout? So I feel fine, I don't need the energy, should I just take this pre-workout anyway? Any benefits to doing so?

Yeah, there's a performance benefit, and the main performance, uh, benefit actually just comes from caffeine. A lot of those pre-workouts are like a blend of a whole bunch of different things. But if you actually look at the research on those stimulants, the highest dose in those pre-workouts is typically caffeine. And we know that the performance benefits of caffeine are between 2 and 6 milligrams per kilogram, right? So if you weigh 100 kilograms, that's 200 milligrams of caffeine. And that's, uh, when they say it gives you energy, it doesn't really necessarily give you energy. What it is is it's stimulating your nervous system so that you get better performance. Uh, the problem with pre-workouts is that, A, you get an accommodation. Um, so you take one pre-workout and you get a performance benefit. You take it the next day, you get a performance benefit. But 2 weeks from now You're getting no performance benefit because you've become accustomed to it. Now, you just have to take the pre-workout so that you feel okay. It's a drug. Caffeine and all those other stimulants are a drug. And, just like cocaine or heroin or whatever, you got to take more to get the same effect. So, what I tell my athletes because they love pre-workouts as well is I try to encourage them. Some of them don't use it at all, but the ones who do, I— I say save it for key workouts. Like, you know it's going to be a hard workout, save it for that. Or, sometimes you can make up for, let's say, I wouldn't want to say bad behavior, but let's say you just didn't get a good night's sleep and you feel like this could be beneficial to get you through the workout, then it's okay. But, if you're just every day I use my pre-workout, eventually the effects of that pre-workout are not going to be useful over time.

And the pre-workout world is one that, like a lot of the supplement world, if not like 90% of the supplement world, it's kind of bullshitty. And the pre-workout world is just like you say, it's basically a powdered form of a cup of coffee with some extra stuff that makes you feel like it's doing something. Like, what do they put in it, like niacin or something that gives you that skin flush, gives you the tingles? So you're like, oh, this is doing something, this is, this is gonna help my workout. Not necessarily. Necessarily. It's just, just there to make you feel like it's doing something, making you flush.

Yeah, a good pre-workout, the less ingredients would actually be better. So if you're shopping around, a big scam is the niacin, because niacin gives you a skin flush, so you feel warm, and you say, oh, people like feeling something, I feel like this is working. So there's a big placebo effect, but niacin actually One of the reasons why in the past it had been used for cholesterol medication was it lowers lipids in your blood. So the fatty acids that you should be using for energy are now being suppressed during your workout. So it actually has a performance detrimental effect.

Yeah. Wow.

So when you go look for your pre-workout, look for, you know, to have caffeine in it and have, you know, some citrulline or beta-alanine. There's usually in those things, they usually have B vitamins, which are not going to give you much of a performance benefit, but they're not harmful in those amounts by any means. But, if it has a laundry list of things, chances are everything in there is underdosed anyway and won't give you an effect. So, look for 3 ingredients at the most with those pre-workout, basically flavored caffeine.

Yeah, but Vance, that's not very marketable. If I look at my product and I turn it around and it just says sugar, caffeine, and B12. Well, hell, I can make this myself versus a giant paragraph of words I can't understand. Well, that sounds scientific. That has to be something, right? Um, speaking of just stuff to take before working out, as a guy who's getting up there in age— I'll be 50 soon— um, got the injuries you deal with, and the, you know, the, the typical remedy for that as far as stuff to take is like, what do they call it, your NSAIDs, your non-steroidals, like your ibuprofens and so forth. They basically suppress the inflammatory response. Is that, is that in turn a negative as far as working out and gaining muscle? Should I limit my anti-inflammatories? Is that negating some of the work I'm doing in the gym?

Yeah, but the devil's in the dosage, right? So we do have some, some research on whether— what they do is they suppress what's called the COX-2 pathway. Which is your inflammatory pathway. And, I always tell my athletes, some level of inflammation is good. You need inflammation because that triggers the repair and the adaptation on the cellular level. So, without— do all the strength training, you're going to get muscle damage and all that kind of stuff. It's going to cause inflammation. The inflammation triggers muscle growth, the repair, and the adaptation of the muscle itself. And, if you suppress that too much, then you don't get the adaptation. So, but the studies are like, you know, typically 800 milligrams to 1,600 milligrams of ibuprofen or something like that. There's even some studies on vitamin E and vitamin C, which reduce inflammation through a different pathway, the antioxidant pathway, and that suppresses adaptation to exercise as well. But, on the flip end, we also have studies where when people who are 65 and older take NSAIDs, they get more muscle growth, which shows that, you know, as we age, we have more general inflammation. The inflammation is too high, then it actually impairs a lot of our functions that will lead to adaptations as well. So, a safer route is only use NSAIDs when you really need them, like you have a lot of pain or something like that, an injury. It'd be better to get enough vitamin C but not megadoses, not 500 or a gram or something like that. Get enough vitamin C, Some antioxidants are good from your berries and all that kind of stuff. Fish oil is very good. But, when you start taking the megadoses of anti-inflammatories, then A, you're kind of kicking the can down the road in terms of your joint health because you're suppressing the pain and repair of your joints themselves and you're going to keep pushing too hard. But yeah, also taking megadoses, you might be reducing your adaptation, which people are also doing with ice baths as well. Those are—

yeah, that's a big— I was going to say that's a big thing that, that took off with Wim Hof and all of that, with jumping in an ice bath. And now we're seeing the science— then the science is like, I don't really— you don't really need to be doing that. And, uh, but then we have— this is a cultural thing. Like, if you go to like to— oh, where's like Finland or somewhere where they're jumping from, from sauna to ice and back and forth, and there seems to be some indication that that could potentially be helpful to your overall health. But as far as keeping the inflammation down and this longevity and everything else, eh, maybe not so much.

And the issue is not that those things aren't good, it's just they're being overdone or overhyped is a big— mostly overhyped. I doubt people overdo it because a lot of people who probably say they're ice bathing every day aren't. Your Joe Rogans, I do an ice— maybe he does, right?

But he's kind of—

most people aren't. Who's got 2 hours every day to be ice bathing and all that kind of stuff. But it's one of those things like when your body really hurts, yeah, jump in an ice bath, you know. But if you're doing it every day, that sort of thing, um, you're negating some of the, some of the benefits of the ice bath itself, and then you're also negating the effects of your training.

There you go. And we got a question here from Chris from Facebook. Yay, Facebook! He says, well, how about creatine? The old creatine monohydrate.

Yeah, so creatine is, is probably the only— outside of like, uh, vitamins and those sort of things, minerals— is the only one I ever say it's probably worth it. Um, creatine, caffeine, maybe beta alanine, uh, because creatine is one of the only supplements which actually has evidence that it works. But I always tell guys, the reason I, I I don't have a problem recommending it is because it's super cheap. Yeah. You can get a 6-month powder thing for $20 or something like that. So, you're talking about cents per day. It's going to help you get a couple more reps. It's going to help your recovery a little bit. They're doing research, good effect on your brain as well. And, it doesn't seem to be harmful unless you have a pre-existing kidney issue. So, I always say you probably can't go wrong with taking it, 5 grams a day. You don't have to take megadoses of it. And, you'll get about between 1% and 3% improvement in performance. So, it's not earth-shattering, but for $20 every 6 months, it's probably— you could say it's worth it.

And, there's the psychological component too where a guy takes something, he thinks it is helping, the old placebo effect. And while, while science shows about 1 to 2% change, there's some guys out there like, rawr, and he hits his personal record on a bench press that he wouldn't otherwise unless he took that powder. It wasn't the powder, it was his brain's reaction to what he thinks is going to happen.

Yeah, the placebo is very powerful. So with my athletes, if they're already doing something, I usually don't say I'm like, oh, that's BS, don't I don't do it because I want them to believe that it's working. But, when people ask me questions, "Should I take this? It cost me $50 to buy this thing," or whatever, is usually when I say, "Ah, we don't have good evidence that that's useful. If you want to try it, spend the $50 and try it, but maybe I shouldn't say anything, then I'm noceboing people." Noceboing. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Jack here from—

Let them believe it works.

Jack here from YouTube says, uh, hey Coach, I'm 50. Uh, he deals with chronic pain, especially inflammation. Uh, regarding the NSAIDs and cold therapy, can you further clarify on dosages with like vitamin C, E, etc., other vitamins, minerals? I guess he's saying things that can help him out, that guy with chronic pain, inflammation, 50 years of age.

Yeah, so, um, Chronic pain is a little bit of a different thing because, I mean, that's something that the benefit to treating it was— which is more important, a few percentage points more of effectiveness of your training or being in chronic pain, right? Chronic pain is probably worse. So in that specific case, Yes, if you took like 500 to 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C, that might help with your inflammation, 400 IUs of vitamin E. Another good one that's good for inflammation is curcumin, right? And not turmeric— turmeric's good in its own way, but curcumin is not very bioavailable. So, they typically have to high-dose the curcumin as the anti-inflammatory itself within the turmeric. They usually have to high-dose it and they usually add black pepper extract to it which helps the absorption and that sort of thing. That's something to look into, fish oil as well. A big one, it's expensive but it does have good evidence behind it is glutathione. Injections or IVs. They're stupid expensive, but it's a very powerful anti-inflammatory that's not—

yeah, my first thought with Jack is you're in chronic pain. Why? What's, what's going on there? What's the underlying condition here? Is it— could we be potentially aggravating something? Such as if he said like he has an autoimmune issue, lupus or something like MS or something that causes some pains. Um, is it— is there a potential that high-dose vitamin C or whatever it may be may actually aggravate an issue like that? Or these are all pretty innocuous things that regardless it's usually safe to suggest?

Yeah, those things usually do help even for people who have autoimmune diseases, uh, as well. The other question I would, would have is What are you doing to hurt yourself too? Like, do you need a personal trainer? Do you have, do you need somebody to help you perform these exercises with better technique? Are you doing too much volume? That sort of thing. Are you choosing exercises that cause pain is always the question as well. So yeah, that's, it's always, I'm in chronic pain. The second question is, well, why? You know, why are you in chronic pain? Because you can take— you can put a Band-Aid on a lot of things, right? Is it something that you have control over or you don't have control over? You know, is this because you were in a car accident or you don't have any cartilage left in your knees because of previous, you know, you played college football or something like that? But if you have control over it, then you, you'd want to treat the problem and not the symptoms.

Yeah, Jack is clarifying here. He says it's a back issue, sciatica, spinal things. We were just talking about that the other day. My wife had a couple of back surgeries. She had a herniated disc, and you know, that the herniated— the material bumped up against her nerve, which caused her not being able to walk and all kinds of— it can get pretty nasty, those things. So, oof, you know, that's, uh, back trouble. Oh man, I've had some back issues, not to that extreme. I've had back spasms in the past, but it just incapacitates you. So I can imagine wanting to look for any kind of solution to something as crippling as that. Um, Jason here says, uh, about fish oil. His research makes it look like a lot of it's BS. Do you have a recommendation in fish oil, what to stay away from, and brands or anything like that?

Yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely overhyped, or was overhyped at one time. And there was— I remember back in the '90s there was guys like Charles Poliquin were saying, take 30 grams of fish oil and stuff like that. They happen to sell it as well.

Sure, of course, that's usually what goes along with that.

So, um, yeah, it's, it's not, it's not earth-shattering. Would you survive without it? Yes. We know it has some beneficial effects on your triglyceride levels and your inflammation, 2 to 3 grams. It's also, there's like the supplement industry, there's a lot of good products and poor products. So, it's really the amount of EPA and DHA in there. And then, it has to be bottled and shipped and all of that kind of stuff and it can spoil very easily too. Exposure to light is a big one. So, if you go to your Walgreens and you get a bottle of fish oil and it's a clear bottle, Don't buy it. It should be opaque to keep the light out as well. But yeah, it's something that probably won't hurt you. But again, if you have chronic pain, it might be beneficial amongst other things, but it's not going to just take away your pain. So, I definitely agree that it's kind of overhyped. And yes, we have studies that show it does nothing for lipids and triglycerides and we have studies that show that it does. Does and for pain. And so it's, it's, yeah, which basically means it's not as powerful as some people would make it out to be.

And there's some other anti-inflammatory omega-heavy things such as what Jack here mentions, like flaxseed oil and other things like that. Some people don't like the old fish oil burps that you get sometimes. Some good name brands, for example, Carlson's is one that's a popular one, high quality. Relatively expensive compared to some of the others like your Walgreens brands or whatever. I take it myself. One thing, uh, reason I did is not for the anti-inflammation pain necessarily, but for heart health, because I have in my family heart issues. So I've been very proactive about staying on top of that and doing things to help with the heart. Everything shows me that fish is probably a good thing, and if you can supplement it with oil I was gonna say the safest thing to do, um, would be to eat actual seafood.

Eat fish, salmon. Yeah, yeah. And the mercury thing has— that's also been overhyped, that like, oh, if you eat a lot of salmon, you're gonna have mercury poisoning. We've done a lot of research on that too and found that there's not enough. You know, you'd have to eat a lot of fish, which most people don't. It's like, who's— unless you're, unless you're Japanese and that's like 90% of your diet is seafood, like very difficult to give yourself mercury poisoning, but it is something you should be aware of, of course. But yeah, if you just ate salmon 3 times a week, that would cover— that would cover your, your fish oil needs as well. And has other neat stuff in there like vitamins, minerals, protein, low fat.

There you go. And I wanted to go back on the topic of like heart health, for example. We have gentlemen on here that are, you know, in their 50s And, uh, you should start worrying about things like heart health and being proactive like back in your 20s and 30s. But most of us don't. It's not until we get to the doctor in our late 40s, early 50s, the doctor's like, you know, yeah, it's not looking good, buddy. Your blood pressure's a little high. Here, here, take this blood pressure med. Here, your lipids are a little off. Here's, here's your, uh, oh, what's the word? The, uh, what's the cholesterol med? Statins. Here's a statin for that. And everything else, we're like, oh shit, well if you're in that boat, which a lot of guys are unfortunately, kind of watch some of these things like the stimulants, for example, the pre-workout could potentially raise your blood pressure to unhealthy degrees. That's why a lot of the doctors say cut back, if not completely, on coffee to a guy who's got a 150 over something, you know, blood pressure or whatever it is. It's like, just notice that spikes up a little bit. So just be aware, guys, you're no spring chicken anymore. You got to watch a lot of this stuff. It's for those young 20-somethings that are just completely, uh, what's the word, they're, uh, impervious to any of these things. They don't worry about these things. They're, uh, they don't have to worry about pains and high blood pressure and all that. They just take things and their body's like, yeah, whatever. So in their world, it's a lot less things to worry about. But for us older dudes, you gotta be careful. Um, and the guys in the comments here are talking about the importance of things like stretching. So as and all this other stuff. It's a good point. Is it safe to say as we get older, we should start paying more attention, Vance, to things such as flexibility and mobility?

Yeah. It doesn't— it doesn't hurt. I'll make a couple points on that. One is if you're doing strength training through full range of motion, that actually leads to better flexibility than—

than just stretching that rubber band, right? Yeah.

Yeah. The yoga itself, we have direct studies that show that. They have one group doing an hour of stretching mobility work and another group doing full range of motion lifting, and they have equivalent mobility, right? So, I mean, a big source of pain is just like you haven't strengthened the joint and the muscle through its full range of motion. So, if you're careful and you work up slowly with light weights and that sort of thing, usually that's, you know, The only thing we know that prevents injury is strength training. Like, we have all these studies on different mobility and different rehabilitation exercises and all that kind of stuff, stretching, that don't seem to do— at least in athletes, don't seem to do much except for strength training. Kind of shows that make— the first rule is like when a joint hurts, make it stronger, right? But, yeah, sitting all day, the big one is just sitting all day at your desk and that sort of thing.

That's me. Yeah.

I always give this example when my athletes are like, "Oh, I stretch my hip flexors all the time." I'm like, "Yeah, but then you sit there all day in class. You're spending 8 hours shortening those muscles and then you're spending 30 seconds trying to mobilize them." It's a big difference. So yeah, just getting up and moving around, getting a standing desk. You don't have to stand up all day, but, you know, give yourself an hour break every once in a while. Work on your computer standing up is a, is a big thing. And yeah, and work on any problem areas you have, like the psoas, the hip flexors, the hamstrings, that sort of thing. It won't hurt you.

And we keep coming back to the— it's not our natural state. And by that, I mean, we haven't evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. To do what I do, which is sitting at a desk all day long and stare at a glowing box. It doesn't— and our body tells us in a roundabout way, you're not supposed to be doing this, dude. Get up, move. And hence why we see, oh wow, people that get up and move tend to be healthier, and they tend to be thinner, and they'd not be heavy. And oh look, they don't have so much joint pain and stuff. So guys, if you take anything out of this, get up and move. Stop sitting around so damn much. But for some of us, we kind of have to It can't be, and we try to find ways around it like the standing desk. They even have, you know, like little desk attachments for your treadmill, so you're sitting on the treadmill on your laptop while moving your feet while walking. Kind of silly, but hey, if you can get your steps in that way, it's something. So yeah, being sedentary and everything is a big driver for poor health. And we're talking about back issues in the comments. Looks like poor Jack had a back fusion. Of his spine there, discs. Ouch, that's not good. And thankfully my wife didn't have to have that. They had to— I can't remember what the term of it was— where they came in and carved away some of the, the bone, got in there and got some of the tissue out and cut some of it out. And then in the process, they accidentally nicked her spinal cord and she leaked spinal fluid out of an incision in her back for a while. That wasn't fun. So I had to get that all fixed. Back to the hospital, we went for a second surgery to fix that. Fun, fun. That was fun. So I know all about that world. Um, anything else, guy? Any, um, I put a couple times in the comments so you guys wouldn't miss it, a link to directly to Vance's page on our site at help4men.com. Go to coaching, go to Vance, and read more about him and purchase one of his programs and work with him one-on-one, chat with him one-on-one, come together with a program that will work for you. To get that elusive lower body fat, higher muscle, whatever it is you're looking for to get better overall health. Obviously Vance knows what he's talking about, works at the professor level at the college. He coaches people in Olympic weightlifting, award-winning Olympic weightlifting. He knows his way around the human body. Sounded not so good. You know what I mean? Vance knows his way around the human body. And, um, so check it out at the Help for Men website. Um, before we wrap her up here, anything else, Mr. Vance? Any other big issues to touch on?

I, I think we kind of—

we could go on and on for hours on this stuff, right? I mean, supplements we could talk about for 2 hours, stretching we could talk about for another— it just goes on and on and on. Uh, um, so we can—

yeah, we can sum up a lot of this stuff is like, um, you You wouldn't believe how much better you'd feel injury-wise. We looked at the blood work, cholesterol, medication, all that kind of stuff. All those things come down to being a healthy body weight. Like, people don't— Yeah. —underestimate just the fact that if you got to a healthy body weight, some of these problems maybe not go away, but they get drastically better.

But they're minimized. Yeah, yeah. I was listening to a podcast where they were saying that I don't think we give enough appreciation to something like the Ozempics and how much of an impact that will have overall on the overall health grade as a human race just by lowering the body weight. Lower body weight and we just see this cascading series of positive effects as a result of that one thing. Body weight goes down. Yeah, sure, you may lose a few pounds of muscle in the process., but your body weight is now down to a healthy level, and suddenly all these things such as type 2 diabetes and yada yada, it just vanishes. And if that in fact, we will see 5, 10 years from now the overall effect, but they're thinking like this is gonna be huge, potentially pretty huge. Unfortunately, it's very, very expensive right now, and you have to stay on it. Once you go off of it, the appetite just comes right back, and you can potentially go back to the way you were before, but it could be a miracle for a lot of people. We'll see. It's kind of interesting. So yeah guys, lose weight, eat less, move more, and done. But if you want to look really good in the process and do it the right way, let's get with Coach Vance. He is here to help you guys out. He is standing by. And you can go to helpformen.com and check it out on the coaching. I put the link, I'm gonna put it one more time so you guys don't miss it. Boom. You can see it in the comments if you're watching this on Facebook. You can see it in the chat if you're watching this YouTube. But check that out, ladies and germs. Oh, Fight for Better Now says, did I miss his question on cortisol? Well, I sure did. Let me scroll back up here. Nope, that's not it. Doop-a-doop-a-doop. Skidi-bop-a-doop. All right, where'd it go?

That's gonna be complicated because cortisol is complicated.

Yeah, see if I can find, you your specific question. Isn't it also in the cortisol levels that you have inside your body? That's kind of a general question. Is that a follow-up to another that I missed? I'm sure it is. But you want to talk about cortisol a little bit?

Sure. Yeah, cortisol is kind of clickbait at this point, like cortisol is the devil sort of thing. It has a job. It's a stress hormone. It does a lot of different jobs. So, it's very extremely complicated. So, I literally teach physiology classes and we spend several days talking about cortisol. So, what kind of wakes you up in the morning, right? It's a stress hormone. It also drives the cleanup crew. So, anytime you have stress, whether that's physical or psychological, you create damage to the body. Cortisol is released, it comes in, and it essentially works with your immune system to kind of clean up all the damage you did. So, if you're chronically stressed, yes, an elevation— it's more of like— it's hard to look at it just like cortisol is the bad guy in general, or is it that you're doing something which is causing a high cortisol level, which is just telling you, like the canary in the coal mine, is telling you you got too much stress going on. So, but yes, we know that, that elevated cortisol leads to more fat gain, a reduction in fat loss if you're on a diet. So when we study athletes and people in weight class sports that are on— have to be on extreme diets, their cortisol goes through the roof and it prevents some of their adaptations training and it prevents their ability to actually make weight if they're a wrestler or whatever it is. But, I would be wary about anybody trying to sell you something to say like, "Oh, this is the cause of all your problems is cortisol, so buy my supplement to deal with the cortisol," and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of like inflammation. Cortisol has a job to do. Its job is very important. Most of these people aren't smart enough to understand that if you suppress your cortisol too low or that sort of thing, you're going to have worse problems, much worse problems than if it's too high. But it's dealing with your stress. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be going to the doctor measuring your cortisol levels. I would just approach it as like, can I do something to reduce my stress? Can I get more sleep?, right? Can I be in a healthy workout plan? Can I do meditation or whatever it is, you know, socializing, go out to the movies with your friends, that sort of thing to reduce your cortisol versus like trying to crush your cortisol with some type of supplement or some type of weird diet or something like that.

Yeah, one of the most popular current supplements is ashwagandha. Familiar with this one? And supposedly it attacks the cortisol and lowers it in the body. And some people, you know, again, whether it's placebo effect or not, that's one of the most heralded supplements right now for making people feel less anxious. We got a lot of anxious people out there.

And we don't know if it directly suppresses your cortisol or if it's just an anxiolytic, like it reduces your anxiety, which thereby reduces your cortisol production.

Yeah, some kind of sedative I think would accomplish much the same thing. Um, but, uh, good questions, guys. Good questions. Anything else, gentlemen, before we wrap it up? Any other questions? Please check out the website, uh, website in general, helpformen.com. Articles, videos, all kinds of good stuff, as well as our private group for men only, of which Vance is a member of here, a coach within that group. Um, most of the clients that coach Vance deals with, as well as clients that I deal with, come from within that group. And that group is called the Brotherhood, the Help for Men Brotherhood, or HFM Brotherhood for short. And you can learn more at helpformen.com. Go to helpformen.com/join and you'll see more about that group. We would love to have you. All kinds of cool benefits, which I won't go into, but, uh, you get a lot of bang for your buck by joining that group, including big discounts on coaching, like with Coach Vance and myself. I think, uh, I think we're all done here. So Coach Vance, thank you so much. Appreciate it, brother. Stay safe. The big hurricane or tropical storms come— well, you're going to get the aftereffects here in Georgia. So once it gets through Florida, you'll, you'll still get hit, but it won't be as bad as what the poor Floridians get hit with. But, uh, yeah, just the winds. Stay dry. So, all right, thank you so very much. And, uh, guys, we'll catch you on the next one. Have a good one.