For two reasons:

1. I refuse to work with brands caving to the enshittification model. Now more than ever, there’s a strong tendency for health brands to sell out and cut corners.

2. I also refuse to back any product I don’t habitually use & fully believe in.

Very few brands clear both. The gentlemen at Central Coast Live Foods are one of them.

What’s In Them

“The preservatives are in there because they have to be. Otherwise it goes stale.”

We’ve all been fairly asking Big Food the same question for at least a decade now: can’t we do without the additives, the trash oils, the preservatives, all of the bullsh*t we don’t want?

Central Coast answered it by saying: F*ck it, we’ll just make it ourselves.

7 ingredients. Simple.

Can you really do that…without everything else?

Yes. Apparently you can.

If there’s anything the founders care about, it’s doing the customer right.

That means sourcing the cleanest organic ingredients they can find from family-owned farms with rich, biodiverse soil and never taking shortcuts on what they’re creating.

The philosophy is simple: Everything you need. Nothing you don’t.

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How They Taste

I get it. You look at the ingredients on these & naturally think: “no way in hell these taste any good”.

I’ll walk you through the taste life cycle though.

The first thing you notice is a subtle saltiness. One of the less obvious signs it was fermented into the pulp rather than simply dusted on the surface at the end.

If you’ve had the Kraut Krackers before, expect something milder. These are much less sour. Overall, they’re less assertive and closer to a mild sourdough than to eating straight kraut.

You get a very subtle cabbage touch on the front end, but fermentation takes over and mutes it into something more savory. So if you’re not a huge cabbage respector (like me), you’re all set.

A couple things I expected (was a little worried about honestly):

1. Bitterness from the flax

2. Green & grassy flavor from the parsley

Neither is there. Not even subtly.

No aftertaste at all.

Texture is a feature here as well. They don’t do the thing where they crumble into pieces the second you look at them.

Best way to describe them is they snap, but don’t annoyingly shatter.

How to Use Them

A few ways I’ve been enjoying these over the last couple months:

Crushed into bowls → Every bro bowl deserves a crunch. Break them into crumbs and swap out the wonton crisps or croutons.

Anything fermented → Pickled onions. Kimchi. Sauerkraut. There’s something about the way these pair with fermented foods that’s become my lunchtime ritual. A gut health pairing elixir here too.

Tzatziki → The cucumber & dill pair well against the cracker’s base. Ideally use a low-fat or full-fat Greek yogurt since the fat is what makes the cracker more satiating.

Whipped feta → Can’t believe it took me as long as it did to tap into the whipped feta lore. Exceptional pairing. Here’s an easy recipe.

Salsas → Pairs immaculately with my favorite salsa…Cowboy Caviar.

Crumbled into soups → Now that’s mid-September, it’s soup season. A much healthier oyster-cracker alternative.

After three orders with more inbound, these are definitely a crunch vehicle.

I enjoy them most with something else on top. But I’ll still grab one or two plain ones (sometimes add a little sriracha) and they taste terrific on their own.

Where to Pick Them Up

Big Food gets shelf stability at the cost of adding more slop ingredients.

Trail Salad gets it with a little more work & patience on the front end with their fermentation & dehydration process.

Try them once & you’ll never return.

Support the grassroots movement taking our food supply back.
Vote with your dollar.
Get 15% OFF with PHYS15.

Grab a Bag Here

And if you want the more fermented, sour version of this, the OG Kraut Krackers are worth trying as well.

Until next week. Stay after it.

Your friend,
Phys

If you found this article useful, here are some others you might find practical:

Japanese culture has always fascinated me.

Their overall health. Their low crime rates. Their high intelligence. Their cleanliness. Their ability to defeat the tragedy of the commons. (Even when it’s off their own shores.) Their ability to take the otherwise mundane and turn it into an art form.

Whatever they do, they do exceptionally well as a culture. The more I studied them, the more I became convinced none of it was coincidental. There’s something going on underneath. Some fuel that drives the deeply embedded cultural norms. On the individual level that is.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated & adopted many of the underlying principles that guide their success.

Ones that transcend health. Ones I’ve found to be transformative across all domains of life.

We emphasize them here because if you strive to become a physical specimen in this life, you must strive to do so in whole: the truly elite individual is elite in mind, body, & spirit.

Here are the 22 most useful ones I’ve kept at the forefront of my own mind over the last decade.

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#1: Shin-shin ichinyo (心身一如)

“heart-mind and body, one suchness”

What it means: Body & mind unified as one.

How it applies: We’re deeply interconnected beings. Psychology and physiology bidirectionality is one of the most overlooked concepts in the current health landscape. There’s no such thing as a purely psychological symptom or a purely physical one. Every emotion has a metabolic impact. Every metabolic state has an emotional one.

#2: Yamai wa ki kara (病は気から)

“illness & health comes from ki (breath/energy)”

What it means: Sickness starts in the mind. A proverb that anticipated psychoneuroimmunology by several centuries.

How it applies: Stress doesn’t necessarily cause disease, but it dysregulates the systems that defend against it. A couple fantastic reads I’d highly recommend on this topic:

• Why Zebra Don’t Have Ulcers (Robert Sapolsky)

• When the Body Says No (Dr. Gabor Mate).

#3: Genki (元気)

“origin energy”

What it means: Fundamental vitality.

How it applies: Upstream force that injects vital energy into life. It is our subjective vitality that drives objective biomarkers. It’s the spark. It’s the internal fire. It’s what separates those who read the book & those who write each chapter.

#4: Mibyō (未病)

“not-yet illness”

What it means: The state between perfect health & disease.

How it applies: Western medicine has a pathogenic approach → treating sickness. Classical East Asian medicine takes what we prioritize here with a salutogenic vector → focusing on prevention & what supports the optimal state of health.

#5: Ichigo ichie (一期一会)

“one time, one meeting”

What it means: Principle derived from the traditional Japanese tea ceremony meaning every gathering is unique & unrepeatable.

How it applies: The highest ROI solution I’ve found for addressing the divided attention epidemic. Wherever you are, be there. And only there. Close the gap between you & the moment.

#6: Omoiyari (思いやり)

“sending one’s thoughts out”

What it means: Anticipating what someone needs before they ask. Given without an expected return.

How it applies: Two broader applications I’ve derived from omoiyari:

1. The more transactional you make relationships, the more costly they become, ironically.

2. “Let me know if you need anything” outsources any work to the person least able to do it. True concern for someone’s well-being is marked by a deep understanding of what their needs are, then supporting in a way even the individual themselves are incapable of unearthing internally.

#7: Shoshin (初心)

“beginning mind”

What it means: The art of detaching from preconceived notions & embracing true curiosity.

How it applies: The paradox of expertise in any field is that it increases efficiency at the cost of closing perception. James Clear taught me the best practical methods to rekindle the childlike curiosity.

#8: Mushin (無心)

“mind without mind”

What it means: Flow state.

How it applies: The more I fixate on the end state, the more I start managing a result instead of producing the thing that would cause it. Instant feedback-coded environments make flow states more difficult than ever. Learn to fall in love with the sound. Detach from the outcome.

#9: Kuchisabishii (口寂しい)

“lonely mouth”

What it means: You’re probably not hungry. You’ve probably just got a case of bored mouth.

How it applies: A 72+ hr fast will turn 3 eggs & avocado into a Michelin star meal. And that’s the mark of true hunger. The highest ROI tactic to fend off the cheap dopamine-induced bored mouth state has virtually nothing to do with health at all: fix your environment (digital & physical).

#10: Hara hachi bu (腹八分)

“belly, eight parts” (out of ten)

What it means: Eat to 80% full.

How it applies: Learn to slow down when eating. Satiety signaling is slow. And takes 15–20 minutes to completely register a meal. Trust the fullness will arrive.

#11: Shun (旬)

“a 10-day period”

What it means: Peak ripeness window.

How it applies: Eat seasonally. Nutrient density in produce is much higher near harvest & decreases with storage. Satiates longer. Tastes richer. Nourishes better.

#12: Gaman (我慢)

“self-pride”

What it means: Enduring the seemingly unbearable with dignity.

How it applies: Choice of pain now beats the discomfort chosen for us later. Growing muscle. Building the cardio engine. Learning focus through boredom. Choose progressive adaptation or succumb to chronic deterioration.

#13: Tanren (鍛錬)

“forging and tempering”

What it means: Thousands of reps. Never one dramatic strike.

How it applies: The only shortcut worth learning is the one telling you there are no shortcuts. Build the system that introduces infinitesimally small, hormetic stressors sized to be sustainable & progressive. Obsession creates the default system. And the system prioritizes pace over perfection.

#14: Kaizen (改善)

“change for the better”

What it means: Continuous, incremental improvement.

How it applies: The art of progressive overload is defined by impatience with action & a patience for the results of those very actions. It’s ever so subtle that on a day to day scale, progress is unrecognizable. But over the years, it’s profound.

#15: Karōshi (過労死)

“excess-labor death”

What it means: Death by overwork.

How it applies: Josef Pieper would’ve been suspicious of the hustle p*rn culture when he said the inability to rest is despair disguised as diligence. Hours logged has always been a meaningless proxy for contribution (now more than ever in the AI era). Rest & recovery to the athlete is boredom to the creative spirit.

#16: Ma (間)

“interval, the space between”

What it means: The gap treated as substance rather than waste. Silence in music. Emptiness in architecture.

How it applies: Growth happens in the interval. For hypertrophy, muscle protein synthesis peaks the day after training. For cognitive growth, memory consolidates in deep sleep. Design your schedule with built-in ma (deloads & rest days).

#17: Kinhin (経行)

“sutra walking”

What it means: Interrupted sitting.

How it applies: Get a standing desk (added bonus with a walking pad). Every hour of prolonged unbroken sitting = 10% HIGHER cancer mortality. Every hour broken up by movement = 18% LOWER risk. Great way to stimulate creativity & fend off back pain with age too.

#18: Inemuri (居眠り)

“sleeping while present”

What it means: Dozing on a train or at your desk. Socially permitted practice in Japan. Understood to be exhaustion from commitment rather than a lack of it.

How it applies: Learned this one from a Japanese coworker who would zonk out on her desk at 3 PM daily. There’s a sweet spot to the nap game. 10–20 min → you improve alertness & feel refreshed with minimal sleep inertia. More than 30 min → you wake up mid-cycle feeling groggy & spending sleep pressure you’d otherwise have for the night.

#19: Kanso (簡素)

“simple & unadorned”

What it means: Simplicity through elimination. The removal of everything non-essential so the essential becomes visible.

How it applies: Notice that any time you add to a system or protocol, it is always defensible. You can explain away each and every little thing. But conversely, removal requires true knowledge of what’s pulling the weight. Yet most people neither know nor care to find out so they keep everything as insurance. First, learn to operate with less. Then, learn to subtract until something breaks.

#20: Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ)

“mistake-avoiding”

What it means: Designing the error out of the system rather than willpowering it out.

How it applies: The ideal health posture is a default system running in the background. Resilient to the stressors of the modern environment & flowing day to day without requiring a decision.

Not enough diligence in setting up the proper system? Expect a barrage of chronic pain in the future.
Optimize too hard? Start implementing solutions only to create problems you never had.

#21: Wabi-sabi (侘寂)

“spiritual richness in imperfection”

What it means: Finding the beauty in what’s imperfect, impermanent, or incomplete.

How it applies: A couple points to derive from wabi-sabi:

1. Optimization culture (neuroticism) treats every deviation as a failure to correct. Wabi-sabi declares an “error” as a feature of the system, not a bug. A resilient, but imperfect system consistently executed for decades beats the perfect, rarely conducted one.

2. Never fall victim to the comparison induced inadequacy of the digital space. This is a game between two people: last week you vs. this week you. It is that simple.

#22: Nagori (名残)

“remaining name”

What it means: The traces left behind by something that’s gone.

How it applies: On a long enough timeline, every self-respecting man contemplates the same question: what do I wish to be remembered for? But this is starting to feel like the wrong one to me.

The people who carry your legacy won’t remember the work as much as you think…do you remember your grandfather’s work? How about your great-grandfather? Do you even know their full names?

What people will remember about you is how the vibes shifted when you walked in a room. They’ll remember who you were on an ordinary Thursday. They’ll remember who you were at your worst. At your best. And when nothing was at stake.

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I can guarantee you’ll gain something from this list. Even if it’s just a single concept you let marinate in your head for a few hours.

Many have been paradigm shifting for me. Enough to shift my perspective in life over time. And I think they will for you too.

Understand them fully. Practice them intentionally. Normalize them daily. All to be applied for your own unique trajectory in this life.

Stay after it. And we’ll see you guys next week.

— Phys

If you found this article useful for improving your life, here are some others you might find practical:

The European Society of Cardiology announced last week that xylitol might not be as safe as we once assumed.

Across 17,710 people, those with the highest blood xylitol levels had a 57% HIGHER rate of heart attack, stroke, or death versus those with the lowest.

For years, we’ve assumed the myriad benefits of xylitol for oral health were low cost:

• Cavity prevention

• Plaque reduction

• Saliva pH stabilization

• Lower mother-to-child bacteria transmission

But is there now a legitimate reason to worry the oral benefit isn’t worth the cardiovascular price?

#1: The study never measured xylitol use

Fasting plasma xylitol concentration was measured, not xylitol consumption.

The pharmacokinetics of xylitol make their conclusion sketchy at best right off the bat.

After a 30g dose, plasma xylitol peaks ~30 min, then comes back down to baseline within 6 hours.

The blood samples for the research were drawn after an overnight fast of 12+ hours.

By the time the blood was drawn, any dietary xylitol the participants did have would have cleared…twice over.

The authors said it themselves in a different 2024 paper that initially stoked the xylitol fear fire: the fasting levels they measured represent endogenous production, NOT food intake.

A misleading component from the initial press release’s headline.

#2: Your body makes 5–15 grams per day

Xylitol gets labeled as a commonly consumed artificial sweetener, but it’s a normally present human metabolite produced at ~5–15 grams daily through the glucuronate–xylulose cycle.

A piece of xylitol gum typically has ~1g.

Before food is even consumed, the liver substantially outproduces dietary intake anyways.

#3: You’ll never guess who has the highest levels

3 big factors drive flux through the xylitol production cycle:

1. Poor glucose metabolism → When glucose is chronically high, excess gets sent down side routes not normally used. One of them is the glucuronate pathway that produces xylitol.

2. Liver burden → The liver neutralizes drugs, alcohol, & metabolic waste by tagging them with glucuronate (raw material for the xylitol cycle). So the harder the liver works to clear things out, the more xylitol produced.

3. Failing kidneys → Xylitol clears renally so fasting levels jump as kidney filtration declines (GFR). Dialysis patients with no residual kidney function reached serum concentrations ~10x higher than ICU patients given large IV doses with working kidneys.

Bottom line = those with the highest fasting plasma xylitol are most metabolically unhealthy

No coincidence these happen to be three of the most prominent canaries in the CVD coal mine.

#4: A natural experiment that should’ve shot this theory down

Pentosuria is a rare, inherited, but completely benign metabolic condition which causes people to excrete 1–4 grams of L-xylulose daily. They also carry plasma xylulose concentrations around 80 µM.

Xylulose is xylitol’s closest structural analogue.

The 2024 platelet experiments that generated the “prothrombotic” headline were run ~3x lower at 30 µM.

Keep in mind pentosuria is asymptomatic & harmless.

If xylitol at 30 µM meaningfully drove clotting, those with the pentosuria condition would be a disproportionately dense population of cardiac event patients…but they are not.

#5: We’ve already tested mega doses

In the early 1970s, 52 Finns lived on controlled diets using xylitol as their only sweetener. They averaged 67 g/day for 2 years. One subset was even in the 100–150 gram range with peak intakes up to 400 grams daily. No adverse events beyond occasional GI discomfort.

In one ICU trial, 55 patients got up to 120 g/day IV with no adverse effects and ~⅓ LESS insulin requirement than controls.

#6: Xylitol doesn’t behave like a toxin

Finally just look at the two cohorts side by side from the recent press release.

57% higher event risk over 6 years in the Canadian cohort. 18% over 30 years in EPIC-Norfolk.

The exposure and the outcome tested were the same, but the SHORTER follow-up produced ~3x GREATER effect.

If xylitol were really a vascular toxin, more exposure should mean near equal (usually greater risk) over 30 years.

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Three big takeaways this week:

1. Approach headlines with a healthy dose of skepticism. And always keep the Sagan standard at the forefront when facing the digital zeitgeist.

2. Xylitol remains in my arsenal. Gum & mints after meals. Toothpaste tablets upon waking & before bed. The proven benefits outweigh the weak, fear-inducing claims.

3. Recall who produces the highest levels of endogenous xylitol. This (along with so many other headlines) keep coming back to our fundamental objective here: become & stay metabolically elite. It all comes back to ENERGY. It’s all downstream of the MITOCHONDRIA.

Stay vigilant. Stay metabolically elite. And stay after it.

See you next week,
Phys

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Longevity has evolved into the buzzword of the health space. It’s also imprecise to the point of meaningless.

The traditional David Sinclair-sponsored camp now runs on the premise aging is a disease that is both treatable and reversible. A single, giant problem waiting on a single, giant solution.

Our view is quite the contrary: build resilient health infrastructure by its components (i.e. organs & bodily systems). Fix what’s broken & improve systems in a targeted way. As opposed to throwing sh*t at the proverbial longevity wall.

Any intervention worth implementing answers “yes” to all three:

1. Is it specific? → What problem is this solving?

2. Is it measurable? → Is a biomarker, a behavior, or a feeling moving over time?

3. Is it practical? → Can you do it continually without a longevity clinic, a six-figure protocol, or a neurotic 47-step morning routine?

The industry falls short on all three.

Now for a proper rundown on all the longevity psyops I’m not falling for.

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Resveratrol

The Hype

The king of overhyped supplements & notorious “red wine” polyphenol (you’ll get more from a handful of grapes & blueberries anyways). Claims are to mimic caloric restriction & of course extend lifespan.

David Sinclair’s lab rode the longevity wave from cell line studies → mice → his company, Sirtris, that GlaxoSmithKline bought for $720 million.

Why It’s Overhyped

150+ human trials showing either neutral or in some cases even negative effects like blunting the benefits of exercise.

Pick your flavor of failed test, you can bet it’s here:

• No lifespan effects in longevity models: No lifespan extension at any dose. Sinclair was a co-author.

• No cardiometabolic impacts on the longest human RCT: 6-month trial. 41 adults randomized to 150 mg/day or placebo. No differences in insulin sensitivity, liver fat, body composition, blood pressure, energy metabolism, or physical performance.

• No mortality reduction link for humans: 783 adults tracked for 9 yrs. Urinary resveratrol levels had no association to inflammatory markers, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or all-cause mortality.

• Brain volume loss experienced: 52-week Alzheimer’s trial at up to 2 g/d. Greater brain volume loss in the resveratrol group than placebo.

• GSK’s self own: Reached the same conclusion with its own money. Their proprietary blend (SRT501) was abandoned in 2010 over poor tolerability & adverse renal outcomes. Sirtris was shut down in 2013.

  

• Highly estrogenic: Hormonally disruptive. Increases sex hormone binding globulin. Lowers free testosterone. Raises estrogenic activity.

Biological Age Tests (Epigenetic Clocks & Telomere Length)

The Hype

Direct-to-consumer tests that output a single value as your “biological age”. TruDiagnostic, Elysium, Generation Lab, & Sinclair’s Tally Health all sell subscription versions.

Why It’s Overhyped

The biological age gamification model:

1. Get a baseline biological “age”.

2. Provide you the “solutions” to lower your “age”.

3. Re-measure your “age”.

4. Run the loop all over again.

They leverage a human flaw: our bias to create neat & compressed models (stories) for the intimidating complexities of human life.

Unfortunately, they don’t serve as useful on the individual level (at least not yet):

• Same sample with different “ages”: When identical samples are split by testing method, there were deviations up to 9 years.

• Cheek swab ≠ blood draw: Oral swabs (preferred by leading companies) vs. blood estimates differed by ~30 years in some clocks across 284 samples.

• Good for population analysis. Poor for individual clinical use: “there are substantial technological & biological barriers that prohibit current epigenetic clocks from being useful on an individual level…epigenetic clocks at an individual level may lead to harmful societal and personal consequences.”

• The inventor built it for labs:

Cost-efficient + comprehensive blood biomarkers >> biological age tests

If you’re reading this, you probably care about your long-term health like me. That’s why I ignore the random number generator tests and opt for hundreds of proven biomarkers at a fraction of the biological age test cost.

That’s also why I’ve been using Superpower for the last 2 years and haven’t looked back.

No one will ever care about your own health more than you. And Superpower is the path to taking your health into your own hands.

100+ biomarkers tracked longitudinally
3,000+ labs nationwide for convenient testing
24/7 unlimited access to medical practitioners

All for less than $15/month.

Test. Don’t guess.

Check Current Pricing

Blue Zones

The Hype

Five regions identified in the early 2000s as having unusually high concentrations of people living past 100:

1. Ikaria, Greece

2. Sardinia, Italy

3. Okinawa, Japan

4. Nicoya, Costa Rica

5. Loma Linda, California

Belgian demographer Michel Poulain & Italian physician Giovanni Pes teamed up to publish the AKEA study in 2004. Journalist Dan Buettner later joined the project, published a National Geographic cover story, & trademarked the term the following year.

The premise was simple: Find where people live longest. Identify their habits. Copy the protocol.

Pop culture took it & ran. Nine bestselling books, one 2023 Netflix documentary, and one consulting business that certifies “blue zone” cities later.

Why It’s Overhyped

Buettner sold Blue Zones LLC to Adventist Health in 2020 for $78 million.

Cities now pay $100k/year to keep the designation.

A five-year contract with an Iowa insurer covering 10+ cities cost an ~$25 million.

Frozen blue zone meals are now in 4,000+ grocery stores across the US.

All of the hype built on a foundation of fraudulent centenarian stats:

• Only 18% of validated centenarians have a birth certificate: When you bring actual birth certificates into the mix, there’s a 69–82% drop in centenarian records in these regions. Ironically, the strongest predictors of 100+ years of age were high poverty, missing birth certificates, fewer 90+ year old people, & high crime rates.

• When Japan conducted an audit, 82% were dead: A Japanese gov’t review found 82% of their 100+ population was long deceased. Many killed in World War II then kept alive on paper to collect the pension.

• Japan isn’t alone: In Greece, 72% of centenarians were dead or made up people. In Costa Rica, 42% lied about their age.

• Loma Linda was added to appease Nat Geo editors: Buettner admitted including the California site only because National Geographic asked for a U.S. location. Poulain never acknowledged it as a blue zone.

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Outrage about the move naturally hit the digital health space. But many missed that the enshittification of a once S-tier supplement brand started well before P&G’s recent acquisition.

In 2023, L Catterton, a LVMH-backed private equity firm, bought Thorne for $680 million.

Not long after, they fired most of their research team & cut more overhead to increase short-term demand.

After pointing this out last week, my DMs & replies filled up w/ the same question: What supplement brands are we left with to trust now?

A valid question worth addressing as the enshittification of the industry ramps up.

What we’ll get into this week:

• How enshittification happens within the supplement industry

• Principles I stick to when looking for reputable brands

• My top choices (right now)

How Enshittification Is Taking Over the Health Space

Enshittification was coined in late 2022 to describe how digital platforms decay.

The last few years are proof it’s no longer a tech specific phenomenon. It comes for every industry.

Grocery Stores

Restaurants

Appliances

Cookware

Hospitals

Dentistry

Airlines

The health space isn’t an exception to the rule. Once you see it in one area, you can’t unsee the “piles of shit” everywhere.

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The process looks roughly like this:

1. Founding team exits. PE firm takes over.

2. PE targets their own exit at a multiple in 3–5 yrs.

3. Expansion begins. SKUs are added. New markets entered. New formats tested.

4. Retail markets come into play. Niche DTC/practitioner/digital health space channels are no longer the priority.

5. Margins tighten. With retail taking a larger cut than the DTC channel, cost of goods needs to drop.

6. Quality degrades → Cheaper ingredient forms. Sloppier manufacturing practices. Minimal (if any) R&D. Less quality control.

7. Reputation takes a slight hit. Right curve, well-informed consumers (*you*) notice.

8. Well-timed exit. Brand gets flipped or divested at peak credibility.

Most are asleep through these changes thinking the same ol’ reliable brand is what it’s always been. Trust is a lagging indicator after all.

As product quality slowly degrades, there are plenty of subtle signs you can pick up on before it’s too late.

Principles

Brand reputation isn’t constant. It’s hard earned initially then it evolves over time.

Ownership changes hands. Lead researchers and R&D teams move from one company to another. Quality ebbs & flows. So it’s better to root yourself in a set of foundational principles first.

Green Flags

1a) They’re highly specialized.

A good dining rule of thumb I choose to live by: Never go to a restaurant with a huge menu.

They do one or two things really well. Especially true if the brand has only been around for 3–5 years. If they’ve got a huge line of products and only been operating for 2 years, be skeptical.

Shop by individual product/nutrient need whenever possible.

1b) If they’re not specialized, they’ve earned the right to be.

They’ve been around for a long time and they have a long standing reputation built on trust.

2a) They readily provide CoAs.

They either post them directly. Or you’re able to secure it with a simple email request.

Just because a brand isn’t posting a third-party CoA isn’t an automatic disqualifier. Many will happily provide upon request. Others will dance around the request.

2b) They have an independent, accredited lab named on the cert.

ISO/IEC 17025 implies the lab’s methods were externally audited.

Know the common methods to look for:

• ICP-MS = Heavy metals testing (lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury)

• HPLC / UPLC = Potency & label-claim verification for most active ingredients.

• LC-MS/MS = Trace-level quantification. Pesticides, mycotoxins, banned substances.

• GC / GC-MS = Residual solvents, fatty acid profiles, volatiles.

• HPTLC = Herbal & botanical identity.

• FTIR / UV-Vis = Raw material identity & purity screening.

• Microbial limits = Yeast/mold, E. coli, Salmonella, staph.

90%+ of the time, they’ll be one of the following: Eurofins, NSF, SGS, Intertek, Certified Laboratories, NJ Labs, Alkemist Labs, Flora, Covance, Prodigy

2c) They report measured values.

Adjective “measurements” are the classic work-around. Especially for heavy metal testing. Actual numbers for lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, pesticides & different mycotoxins up against stated limits.

2d) They have a lot number on the CoA.

Forged and plagiarized certificates are a recurring problem in the space.

Dry labbing is the act of issuing a CoA with whatever results a client wants without actually testing anything.

Elan Sudberg, CEO of Alkemist Labs, has been calling this out for more than a decade. Sudberg has spoke about getting DMs from others in the industry forwarding sales solicitations with certs that looked exactly like his own. The documents were close enough he had to search Alkemist’s internal lab management system by lot & sample # to confirm the analyses weren’t theirs.

It’s not a single lab’s problem either. James Neal-Kababick, director of Flora Research Laboratories, described the same pattern persisting for years:

2e) Verifying the COA in < 90 sec

The 90-second check, per brand:

1. Fire up Perplexity & search → [input brand site exactly] “certificate of analysis”.

2. Look for a lot number search field.

3. Open any certificate. The 5 big things to look for:

   1. Lab name

   2. Accreditation #

   3. Lot #

   4. Measured values with units & specification limits

   5. Date within six months

4. Verify the lab at a2la.org.

   1. Find search organizations in the upper right of the home page.

      

   2. Search the lab in the “Keyword” field.

      

   3. Cross-check a claimed seal in the certifier’s own database.

      

3) They dominate with the digitally-based health audience & inside functional practitioner channels.

Young digitally-based brands are trustworthy because they have to be to survive early on. Or else it’s a quick death. The high level of accountability from consumers sitting far to the right of the domain expertise curve makes it so.

They read CoAs.
They keep up with the latest.
They read the research papers to know clinically effective dosing.

The customer population says a lot about the brand itself.

4) They put the exact form on the label.

Any vagueness provides the autonomy needed to shift (lower cost of goods & quality) a formula in the future.

Know what compounds to prioritize:

• Magnesium bisglycinate/malate/pidolate/acetyl-taurate > Buffered magnesium/magnesium oxide

• Ubiquinol > Ubiquinone

• K2 as MK-7 > “Vitamin K”

• Copper bisglycinate > Cupric oxide

• Creatine monohydrate (S-tier standard = Creapure) > Creatine HCl/buffered

• L-citrulline > Citrulline malate

• Iron bisglycinate > Ferrous sulfate

• EPA & DHA in mg > “Fish oil”

• Selenomethionine > Sodium selenite

• Alpha-GPC > Choline bitartrate

• Zinc carnosine/bisglycinate/monomethionine/picolate > Zinc oxide

• Methylcobalamin/adenosylcobalamin > Cyanocobalamin

• L-5-MTHF (Quatrefolic or Metafolin) > Zinc oxide

• Pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P) > Pyridoxine HCl

• Riboflavin-5-phosphate > Riboflavin

• Benfotiamine or TTFD > Thiamine HCl

5) They announce changes publicly.

Emails get sent out. Posts go up on their site/social channels about formula shifts. They’e not shady about it. They’re transparent. They care about the details. They assume their customers are all elite health practitioners.

6) They can answer technical questions with nuance.

Subtle way of seeing if a research team is still on board.

Red Flags

1) They’re owned by a CPG conglomerate or PE firm.

Here’s a little trick if you’re unsure: fire up Perplexity (again) & search the brand name with “acquires.”

2) They exclusively sell on Amazon.

No direct channel to a brand site means no accountability. Amazon as a channel is very different from Amazon as the sole channel.

3) They dropship.

You can just smell the rented Lambos, the sleaziness, & the Alibaba sawdust.

Long, vague shipping windows. Stock product photos only. Returns that route overseas. Sloppy reviews with generic names & AI-coded text.

4) They use a raw material CoA.

Clever tactic of using the raw-material CoA issued by the ingredient supplier as “proof” of the finished product.

5) They use proprietary formulas.

As a part of the dietary Supplement Health & Education Act (DSHEA) signed into law in 1994, the FDA allows brands to list total weight without detailing individual amounts.

The proprietary play is bullsh*t wrapped in an intellectual property facade. You should know exactly the amount of each & every component of a formula. Otherwise don’t fall for it.

6) They’re leveraging shady marketing schemes.

Free product or discounts in exchange for reviews. This tactic became popular in the last 5 years. Identify any that are doing this and immediately steer clear.

A perfect recent example of this sort of conduct.

Since 2020, TruHeight has been selling growth gummy supplements for kids backed by some wild claims: “Help your child grow taller! Pure Ingredients, Real Results” and “The Only Supplement Clinically Proven to Help Height Growth.”

A brand we’ve even called out here in early 2025!

The FTC finally uncovered TruHeight was carrying thousands of five-star reviews written by its own employees posing as customers. They also offered free & discounted products in exchange for five-star reviews and ran bot-operated fake social media profiles impersonating real users to post slop comments on its Facebook & Instagram pages.

Who I Actually Buy From

Taking the first principles from above, here are the brands I personally trust & buy from today.

Specialists

Single compounds & efficaciously dosed formulas done right.

Nattokinase: Toku

Single cardiovascular support product. Clinically dosed. Been using for 2+ years now with noticeable lipid & cardiometabolic benefits.

Thiamine: Objective Nutrients (Thiamax)

Built around TTFD by an elite researcher (Elliot Overton – a trusted legend in our space) who works on thiamine specifically.

View on Objective Nutrients

Magnesium & K2: LifeBlud (MAG+ & MK-Seven)

MAG+ pairs the top two bioavailable magnesium forms = glycinate + taurate (w/o fillers). MK-Seven uses MenaQ7® at 100% all-trans isomer.

View on LifeBlud

Trace Minerals: Anderson’s

The Anderson family started harvesting Great Salt Lake minerals in 1969. Three generations later → still run the biz + still control the original solar pools start to finish + still bottle in Ogden, Utah.

View on Anderson's

Oral Bioregulators & BPC: YourProtocol

My only trusted source in a scam-heavy landscape.

Vesugen for slowing atherosclerotic progression.
Epitalon & pinealon for circadian regulation.
BPC for gut restoration & soft tissue repair.
Vilon for immune & thymus health.

View on YourProtocol

Verified Performers

Third-party data provided front & center.

Single-compound sourcing: Nootropics Depot

As high trust & established as brands come. More raw testing data in public than most are ever willing to put out. If I want to know more about a specific compound before I buy, this is where I look.

View on Nootropics Depot

Sports nutrition: Legion

Founder-led with strong visibility. Any blends they have are transparent & efficaciously dosed.

View on Legion

Long-Tenure Independents

Decades under the same owner (& refuse to sell out to PE or major conglomerates).

EPA/DHA: Nordic Naturals

Founder-owned since 1995. Vertically integrated across supply chain & processing. CoAs easily searchable by lot. Carlson & Rosita are the smaller alternatives I’ve used in the recent past.

View on Nordic Naturals

Practitioner-grade formulas: Xymogen

Humble beginnings in a garage in 2003. Founders & family still own ~60% (rest is friends & practitioners). 300k+ sq ft campus with their own manufacturing. On record saying they don’t want private equity involved. CoAs on request.

View on Xymogen

Budget option #1: NOW Foods

My budget go-to for synergistic stack testing. Family-owned since 1968. Runs its own analytical lab. Frequent sales to keep an eye on.

View on Now Foods

Budget option #2: Life Extension

Privately owned since 1980. Own the entire manufacturing process. CoAs on request.

View on Life Extension

It takes an entire community willing to stoke the grassroots flame to resist enshittification.

Vote with your dollar from here on. And stay after it.

See you guys next week.

Your friend,
Phys

Light is the zeitgeber that sets the central brain clock.
Food, social interaction, stress, & other factors set the peripheral clocks.

Mistime these signals and hunger shifts later in the day.

Time them properly & assume the status of the one true chronotype → the circadian aligned one.

The full strategy below restores your naturally aligned biological state to attain both.

Movement With Sunrise

If there was one tactic to rule them all, it’s getting outside around sunrise (without sunglasses).

Sunrise is the strongest natural circadian signal.

It raises morning cortisol.
It suppresses leftover melatonin.
It advances peripheral clocks that time ghrelin (hunger) & leptin (satiety).

All of which collectively work to pull hunger forward into the morning & away from the evening.

People who were sleep-restricted had an expected drop in leptin & rise in ghrelin. But when they got morning light, leptin ROSE and ghrelin FELL reversing the nighttime hunger poor sleep creates.

Movement is also a zeitgeber distinct from light.

Researchers in 2019 put 99 through a short sleep-wake protocol & tracked their melatonin levels. The subjects trained for 60 min at one of eight times of day across three straight days.

The circadian phase advances were greatest at 7 AM & again from 1–4 PM. The largest phase delay happened with nighttime exercise.

Big Breakfast Within 60 Min of Sunrise

Stop skipping breakfast.

Even if you don’t have an appetite in the morning (a symptom we’re correcting!), eat within 60 minutes of sunrise.

93 women were given identical ~1,400 kcal diets with different distributions across the day. Some had the 700 (B)/500 (L)/200 (D) kcal. Others had the 200 (B)/500 (L)/700 (D).

The big breakfast group had greater weight loss / waist reduction, lower glucose, more sensitized insulin across the day, greater ghrelin suppression, & higher reported satiety.

This wasn’t a one-off trial either.

In 2022, Ruddick-Collins et al. did a similar trial and found no difference in total daily energy expenditure, resting metabolic rate, or weight loss over a tightly controlled 4-week period. BUT….they did find significantly GREATER appetite suppression on the morning-loaded diet.

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Fixed Meal Timing / Daylight-Restricted Eating Window (eTRE)

The Importance of a Daylight Diet

The body loves consistency.

Insulin secretion follows a rhythm that peaks in the morning and gradually drops as the day goes on.

What that means practically: an identical bowl of oats is partitioned far more efficiently into muscle and liver glycogen at 8 AM than at 8 PM, when it’s more likely to be stored as fat.

Sutton et al. 2018 showed this. With food intake & bodyweight held constant, the early 6-hr eating window (dinner before 3 PM) improved insulin sensitivity, β-cell responsiveness, blood pressure, inflammatory markers, & appetite.

Why Consistent Meal Timing

The benefit of consistent daily meal times is how they train body clocks to anticipate when food is inbound.

Insulin sensitivity rises.
Digestive enzymes are primed.
Fuel-partitioning pathways accelerate.

The more anticipatory the signal, the more you reduce unnecessary hunger outside expected eating windows.

An 8 AM to 2 PM eating window also dropped ghrelin by ~32 pg/mL, flattened hunger across the day, raised evening PYY, and increased fat oxidation. All without an increase in energy expenditure.

Oral Epitalon (CircadiON)

Epitalon is a tetrapeptide bioregulator (alanine-glutamate-aspartate-glycine, or AEDG) that works by supporting the pineal gland’s ability to produce melatonin in the evening.

It’s especially useful for people whose circadian rhythm need a complete reset:

• Chronic afternoon fatigue

• Wired but tired in the evening

• Very little natural sleep pressure at night

• Waking unrefreshed no matter how much sleep

The only source I trust to evade the scams of the peptide wild west.

Use PHYS10 for 10% OFF

Treat Specific Night Cravings as Signals

Evening cravings are bioindividual interoceptive cues.

Track them long enough and you’ll recognize patterns. They’re physiological calls for specific minerals, hormones, or substrates underdosed during the day.

Identify the craving → correct the deficit or imbalance the next day → recalibrate the natural hunger rhythm

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Balance Electrolyte Ratios

Electrolyte intake in the context of evening hunger is an underrated lever with three big functions:

1. Downregulating sympathetic drive

2. Regulating cortisol & ghrelin rhythms

3. Supporting mitochondrial energy production

Social Media Fast Post-Sunset

Cleaning up my digital diet has been the highest ROI habit I’ve adopted for suppressing any evening hunger (even during diet phases).

Two things happen:

1. Deactivation of the monkey brain: Dopamine is an anticipation signal keeping you searching for what’s next. An flustered pre-bed state is biochemically incompatible with what’s needed to fall asleep.

2. Removal of the lion: Parasympathetic state = digest + signal satiety. If the lion’s in the room with you (cortisol is rising in the evening), your body craves food since it’s the quickest path to shift from an aroused sympathetic dominant to a calm parasympathetic one.

Aggressive Evening Light Restriction

After sunset, treat light as a dose-dependent melatonin suppression toxin desyncing clocks & confusing hunger rhythms.

More light at night → greater melatonin suppression → worse sleep quality + cardiometabolic outcomes → dysregulated hunger + satiety rhythms → more nighttime cravings

The same goes for blasting yourself with short wavelengths (blue light) on devices.

Those using an eReader suppressed melatonin by 55%, delayed circadian phase by ~1.5 h, lengthened time to fall asleep, reduced/delayed REM, & reduced next-morning alertness.

Tactics to Use:

Blue Light Blockers

High ROI, cost-efficient durable pair I’ve had for 2+ yrs now

Shop Sleep ZM Here

CareUEyes

Circadian timed blue light filter app.

Free Download Here

The Real Night Shift Mode

A more effective way to filter blue light on iOS mobile.

If you’re an Android user, use the Blue Light Filter app.

Chromalux® Bulbs

Full spectrum incandescent light bulbs. Low blue light. Low flicker. Low nnEMF.

Shop Chromalux Here

Manta Eye Mask

I’ve tested out at least 5 different ones and finally settled on the Manta. Comfortable. Stays on throughout the night. Full light blockage. Best value found to date.

Shop Manta Here

Dimmer Switches

Turn down the lux at night. Simple.

Analog Cognitive Offloading (Brain Dump)

My favorite psychological tab closing/cognitive de-loading ritual to transition into a more parasympathetic state.

Get a small notebook & a good pen. Offload what needs to be accomplished tomorrow. Watch your thinking improve & grow clearer.

Analog systems build better digital workflows.

Don’t just take my word for it.

Individuals who spent 5 minutes writing a simple to-do list for the following day before bed fell asleep faster than those who wrote about tasks they had already completed.

And the neat part about this?
The more specific the list, the faster they fell asleep.

Evening GABAergic / Inhibitory Stack

Glycine (3–5 g)
The sweet inhibitory amino acid. Drops the core body temperature. Shortens time to fall asleep & get into deep (slow-wave) sleep.

L-theanine (400–800 mg)
Fewer racing thoughts. More calming alpha-wave activity. Easier pre-bed wind down.

Taurine (2–3 g)
Highly underrated as a GABA/glutamate balancing tool to reduce evening excitability.

Magnesium Acetyl Taurate (800 mg)
What L-threonate was supposed to be. Delivers highly bioavailable magnesium + taurine to support inhibitory tone and sleep quality.

Magnesium Chloride (topical – neck, forearms, chest, legs)
Bypasses the gut for quicker systemic magnesium saturation. Alleviates muscle & nervous tension.

How to make your own low-cost solution with distilled water, MgCl flakes, & a glass spray bottle.

Honey Vanilla Chamomile Tea (sweetened w/ inositol)
My favorite nighttime warm liquid ritual. Chamomile’s apigenin to alleviate the day’s stress load. Inositol to suppress ruminating thoughts.

Early Bedtime to Protect the Growth Hormone Window

Be in bed before 10 PM.

~70% of the daily growth hormone output occurs during the first deep sleep period. And it’s largest when sleep starts earlier in the night.

Blunt the pulse with later bedtimes and the appetite rhythm gets delayed leading to late night hunger spikes.

Placebo Deep Sleep & Wake Time

When researchers told subjects they slept well, they performed better on cognitive and attention tasks. Those told they slept poorly did worse. All independent of actual sleep.

Take the placebo pill tonight.

Stay aligned and stay after it.

See you guys next week.

Your friend,
Phys

Mornings

Wake up with glutamine, creatine, electrolytes & extra magnesium

Before you take down the AM coffee. Glutamine for the gut barrier. Creatine for cell energy metabolism. Electrolytes for mineral balance. Magnesium pidolate for nerve & muscle function.

Reframe “sunlight” as “daylight”

Doesn’t matter if it’s cloudy. Indoor lighting is ~500 lux. An overcast sky still delivers 20 times that amount at 10,000+. Shift the wording → nudge the habit → perform & sleep better.

Sip bone broth with eggs & soft veggies to break a fast

Bone broth for electrolytes, collagen, & L-glutamine for gut lining repair. Eggs for a choline-dense, complete bioavailable protein. Soft, cooked vegetables for easy digestion, micronutrients, minimal fiber load when cooked.

Analog-dump before logging onto any device

Map out what you’re logging on for. Clear path before means less negotiating later. Analog notes build the most efficient, algorithm-resistant digital workflows.

Focus

Start with 15 min of uninterrupted long-form reading

The small block of time you dedicate to training an uninterrupted flow state will make up for itself and then some. Build the reading queue every Sunday. 15 min daily to break the shackles of attentional discomfort.

Put your phone in another room

The ultimate cognitive tax of our day. Good news – you can just opt out.

Install the One Sec & Leech Block extensions

one sec for delayed openings. LeechBlock for hard blocks. Increase the friction to the unwanted. The cheapest behavior-change tool that exists.

Bound your day with sacred time slots

Guard the first and last hours. The edges of the day shape the middle more than the middle shapes itself. Waking hour sets your intention before your OODA loop is held hostage by a slop algorithm. Pre-bed hour closes mental tabs.

Chew gum

Lowers anxiety. Increases alertness. Improves memory recall. Counters sleep deprivation.

Pull your hood up to “lock in”

Cut peripheral vision. Narrow the sensory field. Wrangle the scattered thoughts into creative output. A symbolic cue for a lock in physical ritual.

Use music as an amplifier, not a distraction

The right music never rips your attention away. It amplifies the self to the ambient conditions you’re otherwise embedded in. Music done properly is an incredible tool.

Save your dopamine hits post work sprints

Earn the dopaminergic hit so it reinforces behavior. Reward before a task trains you to hedonically chase rewards. Reward after effort trains you to execute the work.

Choose one priority per day

One thing that, if it’s the only thing you finish, makes the day a win. Attack it first so that anything else accomplished is a bliss-inducing bonus. Impossible to lose. Improves depth of sleep too.

Practice exercising indifference

You don’t need to care more. You need to care about fewer things. Life is a game of tradeoffs. Allocate your finite resources wisely. The cost of concerning yourself with too much is becoming a man who lacks the intensity & depth needed to curate excellence.

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Training

Tongue on the roof of your mouth during lifts

Pressing the tongue to the roof of the mouth increased hamstring strength by ~30% vs. a neutral tongue position. Tongue acts as a stabilizer → improve posture → more stable head + spine → better stability in the spine → hams are freed up → greater power output. Applies to training generally.

Split antagonists if you’re prone to elbow tendonitis

Chest & biceps one day. Back & triceps another. Bis don’t get pre-fatigue from initial back exercises. Tris don’t get pre-fatigue from initial chest exercises. Overall better stimulus to muscle tissue with identical weekly volume. Rotate neutral grips through the curls and rows as well.

Grip strengtheners

Keep them on your desk. Easy, cheap tool to increase grip strength & energy expenditure while you’re reading/logging meeting time. A must for desk jobs.

Tadalafil pre-training

S-tier pump product with the added bonus of longevity/cardiometabolic benefits. 2.5 mg. 30 min before training (cardio & resistance training).

Wall sits for blood pressure

Strongest exercise modality for BP reduction. Wall sits. Planks. Isometric leg extension. Grip strengthener holds. Sustained contraction occludes flow → release floods it → vessels adapt.

Nasal breathing only for Zones 2 & 3

If you can’t nasal breathe, slow down. Dallam’s runners hit the same VO2max on 22% less ventilation after six months of nose-only training. Efficiency >> more oxygen.

Morning fasted cardio + sauna for mood

Anti-depressant synergy. Raise BDNF (brain fertilizer) and endogenous opioids. Pre-sauna cardio = sweat already flowing. Minimum 1x/week. Just the tip of the benefits iceberg.

Interrupt sitting periods every 1 hr

Get a standing desk (added bonus with a walking pad). Every hour of prolonged unbroken sitting = 10% HIGHER cancer mortality. Every hour broken up by movement = 18% LOWER risk. Great way to fend off back pain with age too.

Backwards walking for low back pain

Reverses fatigue-driven spinal loading pattern. Recruits spinal erectors to greater degree than forward walking. Greater pain and disability reduction than conventional programs alone.

Flex core to avoid standing up lightheaded

Forces the blood pressure back into your brain. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath. Start an exhale. Hold for 2 seconds. Stand up.

Recovery

Drive blood into sore muscles

Zone 2. Foam roller. Lacrosse ball. Direct blood to the sore tissue to clear metabolites and deliver oxygen for repair. Superior to passive rest.

Lacrosse ball release

Roll each foot 60–90 seconds while you work. Plantar release improves hamstring extensibility. Pressure downregulates protective guarding and raises stretch tolerance.

Psoas release for low back pain before bed

Press fingertips into the muscle beside the navel. Wait for it to soften. Slow exhale. Also nudges you parasympathetic.

Floor stretch release for pelvic floor dysfunction

Highly underrated use of 10–15 min before bed with some added mobility benefits. Hips, adductors, hamstrings, T-spine. Pair it with slow diaphragmatic breathing to pull sympathetic tone down at the same time.

Legs up on the wall with elevated hips for lymphatic drainage

Hips on a pillow & legs up for 10 min. Lymph and pooled venous blood clear from the legs. Swelling drops. Improved blood flow to the head, face, & hair follicles. Reduces tension in the neck, back, & hips. Decompresses the lumbar spine and unloads the hips.

Topical magnesium chloride

Bypasses the gut for quick absorption into muscle & bloodstream. Back of the neck/forearms/thighs. Reduces irritability & anxiety symptoms. Supports GABA-glutamate balance. Spray & massage before bed.

How to make your own low-cost solution with distilled water, MgCl flakes, & a glass spray bottle.

Contrast showers

Cycle hot to cold. Vessels dilate, then constrict, then dilate. A mechanical pump for circulation and lymphatic movement. Finish cold.

Calm the System

Let breathwork become resting-heart-rate work

Slow nasal exhale-biased breathing raises vagal tone. Vagal tone is tracked via RHR pattern. Simple method to discover what breathwork is the bioindividualized best for you.

Vortex method breathing

1. Cultivate: rapid diaphragmatic breathing to load CO₂ & warm the system.

2. Circulate: full inhale, full exhale, then breath hold on empty.

3. Concentrate: shift to 5-second in, 5-second out

4. Cycle: awareness head to feet.

Ice roller to the face

Cold to the periorbital region (eye socket + eye lids) and cheekbones. Drops heart rate within seconds. Spleen contracts (reservoir for red blood cells) to boost oxygen availability. Also reduces inflammation locally.

Anti-anxiety cocktail

✔ L-theanine — 600mg
✔ Taurine — 3g
✔ Magnesium acetyl taurate — 2g
✔ Agmatine sulfate — 500mg
✔ Electrolyte mix (your preference based on bioindividual needs)
✔ Sour candy → gives an intense oropharyngeal input

Inositol for racing thoughts

A sweet sugar-alcohol tied to serotonin signaling. High doses (12–18g/day) reduced panic-attack frequency as well as SSRIs.

Nutrition

Retrograde your carbs

Rice. Potatoes. Pasta. Oats. Cook → cool → transform to resistant starch. An easy metabolic hack.

Cook rice with anything BUT water

Bone broth for glycine & trace minerals. Coconut water for potassium. Dashi for iodine. Pomegranate juice for polyphenol content. Passata (thinned w/ water) for lycopene.

Cook your tomatoes

Lycopene bioavailability increases with heat. 15 minutes at 88°C raised lycopene 171% & total antioxidant content 34%.

Eat with chopsticks

Endogenous GLP-1 & PYY need ~20 minutes to register. Slowed input → satiety signal catches up.

Choose hard foods

Soft food gave us an overbite. Chewing resistance → hippocampal blood flow & supports brain development. Jaw disuse → cognitive decline in humans. Raw carrots. Apples. Pomegranate seeds. Macadamias. Sourdough. Hard cheeses. Cacao nibs. Nose-to-tail cuts. Eat soft to become soft (much of the Western diet).

Psyllium husk before a high-carb meal

5–10g mixed in water/shake 15 minutes prior to a carb-dense meal. Psyllium absorbs 80x its weight in water → forms a gel to trap carbs → delays enzyme access → flattens glucose curve. Decreased post-meal glucose spike by 30 mg/dL. Avoid lead-heavy psyllium products.

Vet your source to avoid buying sawdust:

2–3 fermented food servings daily for gut microbiome diversity

Kimchi. Kefir. Sauerkraut. Yogurt. Unpasteurized miso. Ensure they’re refrigerated & say live/raw cultures. Cycle them all for reducing inflammation & boosting microbiome diversity.

Cinnamon for sweetness cravings

Delivers the perception of sweetness with no glycemic load. Metabolic bonus of improving insulin sensitivity over time. Pick the right one.

Stop drinking mineral-depleted water

Gerolsteiner + ConcenTrace = S-tier mineral cocktail. Magnesium. Calcium. Bicarbonate. Sulfate. Sodium. Potassium. Lithium. Boron.

One Brazil nut a day for selenium

Food-first beats supplementation. One nut covers the optimal daily intake. High variability based on soil origin so no more than 3 per day.

Kefir for hydration

Milk out-hydrates water. Kefir (fermented milk) means more live probiotic cultures. Add in a little salt and you’ve got the hydration elixir = water + electrolytes (K + Na + Mg + Ca) + sugar.

Sardines when traveling

Beats fish oil supplementation. Complete protein, omega-3s, calcium from the bones, selenium, B12, and vitamin D. Cost-efficient. Nutrient-dense. Shelf-stable.

Address low potassium-to-sodium ratio for chronic fatigue

Accounts for many cases of modern fatigue. Potassium runs the pump keeping every cell charged and expends 40% of resting energy. Paleo K-to-Na intake = ~13:1. Western diets = ~1:1. Increase K intake via food first approach. Potatoes. Sweet potatoes. Salmon. Acorn squash. Avocados.

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Supplement Strategy

NAC for nicotine & cannabis cravings

Restores GABA/glutamate balance. Don’t fall for the “Zyns are fine” psyop.

Full exit strategy here:

Camu camu & acerola extracts instead of ascorbic acid

Whole-food & extract sources pair with the bioflavonoid matrix for enhanced absorption. Food > extracts >> isolated ascorbic acid.

Test different forms of magnesium

Acetyl Taurate for anxiety & stress. Malate for afternoon fatigue. Pidolate for headaches. Glycinate for sleep. Chloride for muscle soreness. Sweet spot daily = 4–6 mg/lb BW (spread across day).

Reset your caffeine sensitivity

Adenosine receptors upregulate. The more you spam → the more desensitized you get → the less you feel it → the more you spam. The cycle won’t repeat if you taper properly = Cut 25% every two days over 7–10 days. Use adjacent compounds: Rhodiola + L-tyrosine + magnesium acetyl-taurate.

Why timing matters much less than you think. And what really matters.

The timing rules of thumb

✔ Anything raising catecholamines → AM. Caffeine, tyrosine, alpha-GPC, rhodiola.
✔ Anything driving cellular energy metabolism → AM. CoQ10, B-vitamins, PQQ, glutamine, creatine, L-carnitine.
✔Anything inhibitory or thermoregulatory → PM. Magnesium glycinate/taurate, glycine, taurine, theanine, apigenin, inositol, GABAergic herbs.

Acute Fixes

Hum to unblock your nose

Humming increases nasal nitric oxide 15-fold versus quiet exhalation. NO is a vasodilator and antimicrobial. Peak depletes with repeated humming → take ~3 minutes of silence to recover, then repeat.

Breath-hold to decongest

Neti pot for sinus pressure

Saline irrigation to remove allergens & mucus. Distilled or boiled water only.

Nasal strips for training nasal breathing

Mechanical dilation of the nasal valve. Works for congestion. Underrated for training nasal breathing during sleep (paired with mouth tape) and cardio.

Black seed oil (nigella sativa) for seasonal allergies

Thymoquinone in BSO suppresses the inflammatory response behind seasonal allergies. Organic. Cold-pressed. Liquid form. 1.5–2% thymoquinone content. 500mg twice daily.

Ginger for nausea

Gingerols and shogaols act on 5-HT3 receptors in the gut. 0.5–1g dried = sweet spot.

Squeeze LI4 for tension headaches

The webbing between thumb & index finger. Firm sustained pressure for 60 seconds then switch hands. Press until it’s uncomfortable.

Eliminate mouthwash for balanced oral microbiome

Mouthwash reduces nitrate-reducing species & increases blood pressure. Scrape the tongue. Brush with hydroxyapatite. Oil pull with coconut or black seed oil.

Xylitol mints after meals

Cavity-causing streptococcus mutans drop linearly with more frequent use. Cavity reductions up to 80% at 5–10g taken 3x times daily. Treat it as a virtually free dessert.

Compression socks on any flight over three hours

Clot risk reducer. Sitting still at altitude slows venous return as blood pools in the legs. Graduated compression pumps it back. Aisle seat & move hourly.

Stress & Repair

Keep your balls cool for fertility

If you’re aiming to get pregnant, taper the sauna use (or at the very least – use the ice pack). Infertile men who stopped hot tub and sauna exposure had a 5x total motile sperm count increase. Takes 3–4 months to restore.

670nm morning red light for eyesight

3 minutes of morning red light produced a ~17% improvement in color contrast sensitivity in adults over 40. Timing matters – identical protocol at midday did nothing.

GHK-Cu + red light for hair

GHK-Cu reactivates dormant follicles & suppresses low-grade inflammation on the scalp. Red and near-infrared light hit the follicle’s mitochondria to turn up energy production. Apply topically + 15 min daily.

Sun on skin for libido & mood

UVA releases nitric oxide → vasodilation across the skin → blood flow improves. More skin exposed = more effect.

Every reason why the sun is the ideal pharmacy.

Sleep Architecture

Pinealon for restorative sleep & vivid dreams

Single best tool used to date for improving deep sleep. Supports brain redox state, mitochondrial function & neuroprotection. Start @ 1 mg (oral dose).

10% OFF with PHYS10

Chicken lamp for evening light

Warm, low color temperature light after sunset. Minimal melatonin disruption. High ROI, cost-efficient ($10) sleep investment.

Warm shower before bed for faster sleep onset

Warm water pulls blood to the skin → cools body temperature → less time to get into a deep sleep phase. 30 min before bed.

Tart cherry juice + 2 kiwis for sleep efficiency

If you’re craving a late snack, at least feed the tryptophan → serotonin → melatonin pipeline. Cherry blocks the tryptophan-wasting enzyme. Kiwi supplies melatonin precursors. 60 min before bed.

Swap glycine for collagen at night

Solution to “magnesium glycinate / glycine makes me wired”.

Glycine to stop peeing at night

Acts as the inhibitory brake on bladder reflex. Improves sleep latency. Cools body temperature. 3g 60 min before bed.

Epitalon (AEDG) for circadian reset/jet lag

Restores melatonin production/timing. Supports the morning cortisol pulse. Excellent tool for jet lag. Start @ 3 mg (oral dose) in the AM. Avoid N-acetyl Epitalon form.

10% OFF with PHYS10

Left side sleeping for digestion

Stomach & its acid sit left. Left side sleeping keeps the esophageal junction above the acid pool for smoother late night digestion.

Wedge pillow for acid reflux & snoring

Elevate the head of the bed to use gravity against nocturnal reflux.

Mouth taping for sleep quality & jawline definition

Forces nasal breathing. Reduces snoring. Improves restorative sleep. 3M micropore = stays on + cost-efficient.

Stick one foot outside the blanket

Keep one foot out = drop into sleep quicker. Foot veins are close to the surface so heat transfers away more easily.

Weighted blanket for reducing nighttime anxiety

Weighted blankets beat light ones for insomnia, time to fall asleep, & total sleep time. Raises parasympathetic tone. Reduces cortisol response at sleep onset. 10–15% of body weight.

Scandinavian sleep method for couples’ sleeping

Two separate duvets/blankets in one bed. Removes the blanket theft and thermal mismatch.

Loop earplugs for noise reduction

Reusable. Comfortable. Discreet. Durable. Also great for daytime focus around a noisy house & sleeping. Owned mine for 4+ yrs now – still in the same condition I got them in.

Placebo your sleep

You slept well last night. Trust.

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Non-Physiological

Become an anti-digital hoarder

• Newsletter unread for 6 months → unsubscribe

• Service unused for 4 months → cancel

• App unopened for 3 months → delete

• Tab unopened for a week → close

Each open loop = small ongoing withdrawal chipping away at your finite resource pool

Digital fasts: 24 hours weekly + 48 hours monthly

Most effective form of spiritual autophagy. Few better feelings in the modern landscape than the sensitized dopaminergic system. Live like it’s 2005 a few days out of the month. This is the path to get there.

Cycle a third place

Pick a local, independently owned spot where you’re a regular. Avoid chains. Somewhere your presence is valued and your absence is noticed. A life without one is the modern driver behind most adult loneliness.

Marriage as a long conversation

Pick someone you want to keep talking to for decades.

Don’t just love her. You need to like her too.

We’re loading up much more in the next few months → a few in-depth highly specific protocols plus n = 1 experimentation on several compounds/peptides/bioregulators.

Keep crushing the summer out there & stay tuned for those.

The best is yet to come.

Your friend,
Phys

Cinnamon has evolved into the most adulterated product on a grocery shelf.

In 2023, lead-tainted cinnamon in applesauce pouches poisoned more than 500 kids across 44 states.

Fast forward to October 2025, the FDA expanded its recall of cinnamon products — most of which carry enough lead in a quarter-teaspoon (0.7 g) to blow past a full day’s “safe” intake.

In December 2025, more cinnamon brands were recalled in 14 states.

The unfortunate reality about this market is there are no federal limits for heavy metals in cinnamon products. So naturally fraud has become a rampant issue in the last decade.

That means you are the quality control.

Here’s how to mitigate those risks and navigate the shelf the right way.

1. Buy sticks, not ground

Ground cinnamon carries ~10x the lead of sticks because powder can be cut with lead-chromate pigment or filler while an intact stick can’t.

Not all whole sticks are equal but relatively they’ll be less contaminated & you’ll get much less variability across brands.

2. Skip the discount, bulk & international-market brands

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In Consumer Reports’ 2024 testing, 10 of the 12 high-lead products were either lesser-known or bulk/bargain brands sold mainly in small international markets.

Good news: a few common grocery brands dominated the clean list.

3. Favor brands that publish adequate lab results

Look for third-party testing & a stated single origin.

Specialty importers that publish batch certificates of analysis (COAs) are the gold standard.

Reminder: Having the testing is one thing. Proving safe levels across the common heavy metals tested (i.e. lead, cadmium, & mercury) is ultimately what we’re after (so don’t neglect that part).

A third-party test will resemble something like the below from Red Ape Cinnamon.

4. “Organic” won’t save you

Organic certification only covers pesticides and not metals.

One 2025 analysis found organic turmeric was higher across most heavy metals tested (aluminum, arsenic, lead, chromium, strontium & nickel) than conventional.

Independent organic-cinnamon tests tend to show the same pattern.

5. Check the color: tan-to-brown is ideal

Lead chromate is a yellow-orange pigment added to dull cassia cinnamon to fake premium color.

Bright red or any unnaturally vivid powder is a sign of adulteration.

A dull grey means the bark was cut with soil or root, which shows up in testing as high aluminum, silicon, and titanium.

For sticks, a good way to verify the authenticity instead is by the layer test.

6. “Cassia” isn’t a cinnamon type

Cassia just means “not Ceylon”. It’s a catch-all for a few different barks. The only shared trait is that they aren’t true Ceylon (Cinnamomum verum).

Know which is which.

7. Be strictest with kids

The 2023 outbreak poisoned 500+ kids across 3 major cinnamon applesauce brands.

For kids, this whole list compresses to three big rules:

1. Choose sticks

2. Opt for verified brands

3. Consume small amounts ( ~½ tsp max)

8. Cap at 1 tsp daily

For standard grocery-bought cassia, the limiter is coumarin — a potent liver toxin.

Switch over to Ceylon and you dodge the coumarin toxicity well…but introduce higher potential lead & cadmium levels.

Red Ape’s most recent third-party testing even shows ~12x greater lead level in their ground ceylon compared with their ground cassia.

That’s why we recommend limiting overall consumption to no more than 1 tsp daily regardless of what brand or type you select.

Some quick, practical insight for you guys this week.

If you’re interested in other ways to navigate health markets, check these deeper dives out:

Shop diligently & stay after it, friends.

Phys

Every 3–4 months, the same health topics get recycled across the major social platforms. Last week it was another classic.

Should the skinny fat dude cut or bulk?

Only fitting we give it a proper analysis.

I couldn’t care less whether he should put on size or cut down first. I’m focused on what nearly every quote post and reply missed: what factors should determine the path for you.

A focus on the variables that matter and a nuance-heavy counter to the reductionism of short-form content.

The mirror test is fine as a proxy, but it’s a single input. And it’s one that’s become increasingly distorted by our online generation comparing our own backstage selves to everyone else’s front-stage selves — a cocktail for chronic inadequacy.

The result is a deep delusion: social media-induced body dysmorphia of unprecedented levels.

Let this be the antidote to that.

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What’s the point of cutting anyways?

Before hitting the should you question, let’s address why we even do it in the first place because it’s easy to lose the plot.

How Not to Run a Cut

The body-dysmorphic culture has psyop’d a tremendous amount of dudes into believing the goal of a deficit phase is to do your best Machinist impression.

If you’re not stepping on a bodybuilding stage:

1. Avoid the extreme low levels. For most men, that starts below 10% body fat, and the lower you push beyond that, the more you’ll start to feel like sh*t.

2. Never cut > 1% body weight/week. All this does is wreck physical & cognitive performance. The logbook will reflect…among many others things.

3. Keep fats within 20–30% of total calorie range on average. Use the lower end when you refeed / need more carbs for training performance. Use the upper end especially when libido & mood are starting to take a hit.

Violate these three rules & expect a typical pattern to develop:

☒ Libido nosedives.
☒ Testosterone tanks.
☒ Morning wood vanishes.
☒ Legs feel like cinder blocks.
☒ Afternoon energy levels crash.
☒ Thyroid function dysregulates.
☒ Irritability hits an all-time high.
☒ Immune function & training recovery suck.
☒ LDL-C & apo(B) skyrockets (as compensation).

All of this is your body sending signals: “you have better things to focus on than your drive, mood, sexual & hormonal function – go figure out that energy deficit problem first. Until then, the foot is off the gas & we’re going into preservation mode.”

The Protective Nature of Subcutaneous Fat

Up until a certain point, subcutaneous fat is actually a *protective* metabolic organ.

Yes, really.

Subcutaneous thigh fat acts as a metabolic sink. It soaks up circulating fatty acids before they get stored in your liver, muscle, or pancreas instead.

Dip below a certain level & those metabolic benefits diminish.

Why We Cut

The whole point of trimming body fat before a gain phase is to enhance fuel partitioning & metabolic flexibility.

And that means…?

Holding excess fat (especially visceral fat) drives insulin resistance – when your cells stop responding cleanly to insulin’s signal. The nutrients you eat get shuttled toward fat storage instead of muscle. A proper cut limits that.

As you lose fat, you restore insulin sensitivity. The same calories start flowing preferentially toward lean tissue and muscle/liver glycogen rather than fat stores.

All this allows for is an improved anabolic response and more efficient ability to stack lean mass in the future.

The Factors

3 Governing Principles

1. Think in systems & ratios

   Contextualize everything. Avoid single value metrics. No cut/bulk decision should ever be based on a single assessment. Use what’s available to you and what makes sense cost-wise for you.

2. Establish your own elite baseline ASAP

   As you get older, having a baseline of what your highest potential “good” feels & looks like becomes more critical. Get your baselines down across these below measures as soon as possible. It’s never too late.

3. Every marker is relative to your baseline.

   A weak HRV, free testosterone level, or insulin sensitivity for you is probably good for someone else. What matters is the direction and rate of change against your own history. There’s one competition worth focusing on — it’s last week vs. this week you. That’s it.

Category 1: Quantifiable Biomarkers

A. Body Composition

Body Fat %

✔ Ideal target: 10–12% (< 10% becomes net negative)
✔ Method honesty: DEXA = gold standard. Calipers = just need skilled hands. InBody scale = add 3–5% of whatever is returned (InBody is generous) + fine as a directional tool.
✔ Cut if ≥ 15% | Bulk at 10% w/ strong markers elsewhere

Waist-to-Height Ratio

✔ Ideal target: < 0.45
✔ Why it matters: Most cost-efficient visceral-fat proxy there is (a tape measure).
✔ Cut if pushing past 0.5 as weight rises → mass is being added….just the wrong kind.

Visceral Fat

✔ Ideal target: DEXA VAT < 0.25 lb (use waist-to-height as your proxy if you can’t get a DEXA)
✔ Why it matters: Primary driver of leptin/insulin sensitivity. High VAT behind even a lean-ish physique is the dominant skinny fat marker.
✔ Cut if elevated regardless of what the mirror test suggests. VAT is a cut signal even at a decent BF %.

Android-to-Gynoid Ratio (Regional Fat Distribution)

✔ Ideal target: Well-balanced peripheral storage = android (midsection) vs. gynoid (hips/thighs) ratio leaning low (~0.6–0.9)
✔ Why it matters: Where fat is stored reflects hormonal & metabolic status → ab-dominant points to a visceral/cortisol/insulin problem. A higher ratio at low BF usually means a low T-to-E2 ratio. The A/G ratio also tracks closely with visceral fat levels.

✔ Cut if android-dominant. Additional context: if regional fat persists at otherwise lean BF → look upstream to hormones — Cluster C

Rate of Weight Change

✔ Optimal: Lean gain = 0.25–0.5% BW/week up | Controlled cut = 0.5–1% BW/week down
✔ Why it matters: Another underrated indicator. Cut too quickly → nuke libido/mood/androgen levels. | Bulk too quickly → pile on excess subcutaneous/visceral fat stores (without the additional logbook benefit).
✔ Adjust if faster up (excess fat) or faster down (muscle loss)

Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI)

✔ Optimal: ~22–24 = well-developed natural | ~25 = natural ceiling
✔ How to calculate:

✔ Bulk if low FFMI with modest body fat→ runway and frame to fill

What this cluster tells you:

✔ Leans CUT → BF > ~15% + waist-to-height > 0.5 + visceral fat > 0.5 lb + scale weight rises faster than ~0.5% BW/week

✔ Leans BULK → BF sitting in the 10–12% zone + visceral fat < 0.25 lb + waist-to-height < 0.45 + FFMI ~18–24

✔ Common trap → Identical-looking physiques can vary significantly. A lean guy with a low FFMI has opportunity to grow. A skinny-fat guy at the same weight with a high waist-to-height usually needs to recomp or cut first.

B. Metabolic

Blood biomarkers measuring fuel partitioning status— most critical cluster for this entire decision.

Triglyceride / HDL ratio

✔ Ideal target: < 1.0
✔ Why it matters: S-tier proxy for insulin sensitivity.
✔ Cut if > 2.0 → priority is to improve fuel partitioning since it’s shifted toward a storage tendency.

Fasting Insulin

✔ Ideal target: 2–5 µIU/mL
✔ Why it matters: Earliest indicator of cardiometabolic state. Flags high insulin resistance 8–10 yrs before glucose budges.
✔ Cut if moving past ~6–8 µIU/mL → cells are losing insulin sensitivity → nutrients partitioning to fat.

HOMA-IR

✔ Ideal target: < 0.8
✔ Why it matters: Combines fasting insulin + blood glucose into the most validated insulin-sensitivity index.
✔ Cut if > 1.5 → Indication of poor leptin sensitivity & carrying more fat than your cells can handle.

Fasting Glucose

✔ Ideal target: 75–85 mg/dL
✔ Why it matters: Cheap & on every basic metabolic panel, but a lagging signal. Use in context. Will stay normal well after insulin sensitivity weakens.
✔ Cut if consistently > 95–100 (especially paired w/ elevated fasting insulin)

HbA1c

✔ Ideal target: < 5.2%
✔ Why it matters: 3-month glucose average.
✔ Cut if > 5.4% → Chronic glycemic load too high. Always interpret alongside HOMA-IR & Trig/HDL ratio as it can read mildly elevated in very lean, high-RBC-turnover athletes.

CGM-Derived Glucose Variability

✔ Ideal target: A gradual gradient, stable curve. Most readings 70–120 mg/dL. Minimal spikes > 140.
✔ Why it matters: Only marker here showing your real-time response to actual meals and training. A nice tool to experiment with different carb sources at least once – Dexcom G7 is one I’ve had great success with.
✔ Cut if frequent large spikes + slow returns to baseline (glucose intolerance under your current load).

What this cluster tells you:

✔ Leans CUT → Fasting insulin > 6 + HOMA-IR > 1.5 + TG:HDL > 2.0 + high glucose variability widening. Represents a storage-dominant, insulin-resistant state. Caloric surplus at this point adds fat.

✔ Leans BULK → Fasting insulin 2–5 + HOMA-IR < 0.8 + TG:HDL < 1.5 + stable CGM readings. Maximized insulin-sensitive. Green light for a surplus. Exact state where fuel partitioning is locked in & calories drive lean tissue growth.

✔ Common trap → A skinny fat can look lean-ish and still have pre-diabetic metabolic biomarkers = fasting insulin of 12 + HOMA-IR of 2.5. This requires a cut/recomp despite not looking fat. On the other hand, a bigger lean-mass athlete with elite cardiometabolic markers will have set better conditions to bulk than his body comp stats may suggest.

C. Hormonal

Tells you whether you’ve already cut too far or have room to push.

Total Testosterone

✔ Ideal target: 700–1,100 ng/dL for a young male (20–35 yrs) → 700 = ideal floor & 600 = hard stop
✔ Why it matters: Nosedives under chronic energy deficit.
✔ Increase refeed frequency if dropping below 700. Stop cutting if below 600. Excess deficit puts male sex hormones on preservation mode.

Free Testosterone

✔ Ideal target: 18–25 ng/dL
✔ Why it matters: More meaningful than total T. Bioavailable fraction reaching androgen receptors. Can be low even when total looks fine if SHBG is high.
✔ Stop cutting if low despite acceptable total. Common pattern = cutting too quickly → high-SHBG signature → low bioavailable T.

SHBG

✔ Ideal target: ~20–40 nmol/L
✔ Why it matters: Rises with aggressive cutting (> 1.0% of BW). Binds up free T more easily.
✔ Flag if elevated + rising during a cut. Bioavailable T is getting drained.

Estradiol (Sensitive E2)

✔ Ideal target: 20–35 pg/mL (sensitive assay)
✔ Why it matters: Reflects aromatization of testosterone. Too low is associated with reduced libido, easily irritated mood, joint discomfort, impaired recovery, & decreased anabolic signaling. Often declines during prolonged energy restriction as testosterone falls.
✔ Stop cutting / increase calories if falling below ~20 pg/mL alongside declining testosterone. Suggests endocrine suppression from insufficient energy availability.

Testosterone / Estradiol Ratio

✔ Ideal target: 20–35 : 1 (using Total Testosterone [ng/dL] ÷ Estradiol [pg/mL])
✔ Why it matters: A solid T level with disproportionately high E2 usually means excess aromatization. A high ratio during a cut often means E2 falling faster than testosterone. The ratio should always be interpreted alongside the individual hormone values.
✔ Flag if the ratio rises quickly. Common trend among healthy men on extreme cuts is both T & E2 dropping, but E2 proportionally more leading to a ratio rise → indicates that energy availability is becoming too low rather than an improvement in androgen status.

LH & FSH

✔ Ideal target: 2–6 IU/L
✔ Why it matters: LH = stimulates testosterone production. FSH = supports sperm production. Distinguishes why T is low → low LH + low T = your brain has throttled the signal (energy-deficit driven) = “cut too hard” indication.
✔ Stop cutting if low LH + low T. Indicates centralized suppression from low energy availability. Slowly reverse out of the deficit.

Free T3, TSH, Free T4

✔ Ideal targets:
➜ Free T3 = 3.5–4.5 pg/mL
➜ TSH = 0.8–2.0 mIU/L
➜ Free T4 = 1.2–1.6 ng/dL
✔ Why it matters: Earliest endocrine adaptation to a sustained energy deficit is a free T3 drop → downregulates to conserve energy in a deficit.
✔ Stop cutting if Free T3 falling + low afternoon energy + constantly cold + flat feeling during training.

Energy Availability (EA)

✔ Ideal target: > 45 kcal/kg fat-free mass/day → avoid dropping below 30 for more than 5-day period
✔ Why it matters: One of the easiest, most underrated values to guide a bioindividualized deficit period. Upstream cause behind most of this cluster tanking.
✔ Stop cutting if chronically < 30 (RED-S territory). Energy availability falls → hormones tank next → drastic decreases in performance & recovery follows.

What this cluster tells you:

✔ Leans STOP CUTTING / REFEED → EA < 30 + total T < 700 ng/dL + free T < 15 ng/dL + rising SHBG + LH suppressed + Free T3 < 3.0 pg/mL. Represents preservation mode. The deeper the hole, the harder the dig out.

✔ Leans ROOM TO CUT or BULK → EA > 45 + total T > 700 ng/dL + free T > 15 ng/dL + LH/FSH 2–8 IU/L + Free T3 3.5–4.5 pg/mL

✔ Common trap → Low androgen levels get blamed on age, genetics, or minutiae factors. Go upstream first before leaning on TRT – circadian regulation + sunlight + poor sleep efficiency + allostatic load + thyroid status + gut function + possibly self-inflicted energy deficit (or excess body fat). A lean, over-trained, heavily deficit’d guy with low T typically needs to rule out energy availability before touching exogenous hormones/peptides.

D. Lipids & Cardiovascular

Contextualize among metabolic biomarkers always – great indicators on whether you’re too deep in a deficit or carrying excess fat.

ApoB

✔ Ideal target: < 80 mg/dL (optimal < 60 for long-term arterial aging)
✔ Why it matters: Best marker of atherogenic particle burden. More predictive of cardiovascular risk than LDL-C alone.
✔ Cut if elevated alongside high TG + low HDL (the insulin-resistance dyslipidemia pattern → metabolic cut needed)

LDL-C

✔ Ideal target: 70–100 mg/dL
✔ Why it matters: Meaningful only in context. Don’t get fixated on this one. Always interpret alongside ApoB, Trig/HDL, & metabolic biomarkers.
✔ Flag if persistently >120 mg/dL while bulking. Prioritize improving micronutrient-dense food selection, sunlight exposure, increasing food-first fiber intake, movement after meals, and reducing the combined high fat/high carb meals (Standard American Diet) before adding more calories.

HDL-C

✔ Ideal target: > 55 mg/dL
✔ Why it matters: Declines as body fat, leptin/insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, & metabolic stress increase. Falling HDL during a bulk = early sign of fat gain outpacing lean mass gain.
✔ Cut if chronically low (<45 mg/dL) + high TG (>100 mg/dL)

Triglycerides

✔ Ideal target: < 80 mg/dL
✔ Why it matters: The most diet-responsive lipid. Worsens when calories exceed your ability to store nutrients efficiently.
✔ Cut if consistently >120 mg/dL. High triglycerides means poor fuel partitioning & metabolic inefficiency.

hs-CRP

✔ Ideal target: <1.0 mg/L
✔ Why it matters: Marker of systemic inflammation. Needs to be taken into context. High values could mean excess body fat gain, poor recovery, inadequate sleep efficiency, or overtraining.
✔ Investigate alongside other metabolic/hormonal markers before continuing either cut/bulk periods if consistently >2.0 mg/L.

What this cluster tells you:

✔ Leans CUT → ApoB >90 mg/dL + triglycerides >120 mg/dL + HDL <45 mg/dL + TG:HDL >2.0 + hs-CRP >2.0 mg/L. Any surplus is no longer partitioning efficiently. Nutrients are being stored as body fat while cardiometabolic risk increases.

✔ Leans BULK → ApoB <80 mg/dL + triglycerides <80 mg/dL + HDL >55 mg/dL + TG:HDL <1.5 + hs-CRP <1.0 mg/L. Metabolic optimal zone. Strong leptin/insulin sensitivity, low systemic inflammation, & adequate lipid transport. All make up conditions supporting productive lean mass gain.

✔ Common trap → Don’t get caught up over LDL-C. A mildly elevated LDL-C with low ApoB, low triglycerides, high HDL, and low hs-CRP is a much different phenotype than elevated LDL-C accompanied by high ApoB, rising triglycerides, and falling HDL. System of measures > single value.

Where do you get this all tested?

You can try ordering these 17 biomarkers at a normal physician’s office.

But not easily, anyway.

I found this out the hard way. I left my last annual physical with a $497 blood draw bill (still only tested 9 of these markers), two & a half hours of my life chewed up, and the stellar insight to stop taking creatine because of…elevated creatinine levels.

That’s the legacy system we’re working with. Built for average & allergic to root cause.

The other end of the spectrum isn’t better. Concierge medicine practices run for $10,000 to $40,000 per year. Great testing & services at unreasonable costs.

The gap here is why I’ve run Superpower for two years now. The highest ROI biomarker service built specifically for you — the elite practitioner.

➥ 100+ biomarkers in a single blood draw — all the above ones included
➥ One draw at any Quest location near you
➥ Results in 3 days
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➥ $199 a year
➥ HSA/FSA eligible
➥ Cancel anytime

And now, BTP readers get an additional 10% off through the link below.

You can’t dial in what you don’t measure. So start testing and stop guessing.

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E. Recovery & Autonomic (Wearable-Derived)

Measures how your nervous system is adapting to training & catches an over-zealous deficit weeks in advance of other metrics.

Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

✔ Ideal target: <55 bpm
✔ Why it matters: Simplest & cheapest daily autonomic indicator of accumulated physiological stress. As recovery capacity diminishes, sympathetic activity rises, parasympathetic drive draws down, & RHR spikes before any noticeable performance hit.
✔ Reduce training volume / implement refeed if RHR drifts up 5–10 bpm above your baseline for days (deficit + training load outpacing recovery)

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

✔ Ideal target: Highly relative metrics → stable or increasing relative to your rolling 30-day baseline. One of the worst measures to compare against the population…so don’t do it.
✔ Why it matters: Best marker of autonomic recovery → balance between sympathetic (”fight or flight”) & parasympathetic (”rest and digest”) nervous systems.
✔ Reduce training volume / increase calories / leverage deload week if HRV remains >10–20% below baseline for 3–5 consecutive days.

Sleep Architecture

✔ Ideal targets (in order of relative importance):
➜ Quality: Deep Sleep = 20–25%. REM = 20–30%.
➜ Efficiency: >85%
➜ Consistency: In bed by 10 PM → optimal GH bolus. Wake up ~sunrise.
➜ Duration: 6.5–9 hrs (highly bioindividual)

✔ Why it matters: Aggressive cuts will torch sleep (waking at 2–3 AM + overly active orexin signaling + hunger + chronically elevated cortisol baseline + low glycogen). Leads to poor follow on days of fuel partitioning and tissue repair.
✔ Stop cutting if deep/REM both fall off and you’re consistently waking through the night.

What this cluster tells you:

✔ Leans PAUSE CUTTING / BACK OFF → RHR up + HRV suppressed multi-day + sleep fragmenting. Execute a refeed, training pullback, or deficit pause.

✔ Leans ROOM TO PUSH → RHR and HRV stable to baseline + sleep / training recovery solid.

✔ Common trap → These metrics are only meaningful as a multi-day trend against your own baseline. Tracking the trend (relative to both YOU & TIME) > taking a snapshot in time.

Category 2: Unquantifiable Indicators

F. Drive & Libido

Dynamic behavioral expression of testosterone, estradiol, & central nervous system energy availability.

Morning Wood Frequency

✔ Baseline: Near-daily spontaneous morning erections.
✔ Why it matters: The canary in the cardiometabolic disease coal mine. A sensitive, leading signal of integrated androgen function, vascular status, nitric oxide signaling, & parasympathetic dominance during sleep.
✔ Stop cutting if frequency drops to absent for multiple consecutive days → signal of central energy conservation & early HPG-axis downregulation.

Spontaneous Libido

✔ Baseline: Consistent, unprovoked sex drive.
✔ Why it matters: Tracks blood flow + androgen signaling + estradiol sufficiency + dopaminergic sensitivity in real time. Often the first signal to decline under chronic energy deficit or high stress.
✔ Stop cutting if libido becomes absent despite adequate sleep or even consistent high UV conditions aren’t unlocking horniness → body signaling you have better things to worry about than your seed.

Drive & Initiative

✔ Baseline: Waking up with a fire that burns until the early evening.
✔ Why it matters: Reflects central dopaminergic tone & androgenic signaling in the brain. It’s less about sex hormones in isolation and more about behavioral output of the anabolic state.
✔ Stop cutting if persistently apathetic, passive, or avoidant → indicates systemic energy conservation overriding performance orientation.

G. Energy, Mood & Cognitive State

Real-time proxy for thyroid output, glucose stability, & allostatic load.

Thermal Regulation

✔ Baseline: Warm extremities & comfortable across moderate environments.
✔ Why it matters: Reflects thyroid-mediated metabolic rate & peripheral circulation. Decline a leading indicator to eventual reduced Free T3.
✔ Stop cutting if persistent cold intolerance (especially hands/feet) → metabolic downshift is occurring.

Afternoon Energy Stability

✔ Baseline: Steady intellectual horsepower & energy through 2–4 PM window.
✔ Why it matters: Valid test of glucose regulation & cortisol rhythm integrity. Energy crashes in the afternoon = early insulin sensitivity issues or deficit stress adding up.
✔ Stop cutting if consistent afternoon drained feeling & brain fog → clear sign of inadequate substrate availability. If body fat is elevated alongside slogging energy – allow it to be a signal to BEGIN a cut.

Mood Stability & Irritability Threshold

✔ Baseline: Emotionally stable in traffic or when someone is chewing loudly next to you.
✔ Why it matters: Reflects autonomic balance & cortisol reactivity. Energy deficits lower stress tolerance threshold.
✔ Stop cutting if irritability or emotional volatility hit new all-time highs every few days → allostatic load exceeding recovery capacity.

Cognitive Clarity

✔ Baseline: Easy to sustain focus for 60+ min.
✔ Why it matters: Since the brain is a high-energy demand organ, cognitive slowdown is an earlier signal of under-fueling before sh*t physical performance.
✔ Stop cutting if easily losing focus, no mental stamina, or dragging cognitively.

H. Training Felt-Sense

How neuromuscular output expresses when recovery, glycogen, & CNS readiness shift.

Logbook & Strength Perception (Grip / Load Feel)

✔ Baseline: Grip strength feels consistent & compound lifts are predictable relative to maintenance state.
✔ Why it matters: Logbook is the elite output metric. As CNS fatigue adds up, loads feel heavier & grip falls off before the logbook reflects.
✔ Implement a refeed if multiple sessions where normal working weights feel disproportionately heavy.

Pump & Muscular Fullness

✔ Baseline: Consistent fullness under training stimulus.
✔ Why it matters: Direct proxy for glycogen storage, intracellular hydration, & ideal insulin-mediated nutrient partitioning. An early sign of depleted glycogen stores.
✔ Stop cutting if not even high UV conditions + a high carb refeed day + 8g L-citrulline pre-workout can’t effectively counter flatness & loss of pump.

Joint, Tendon & Connective Tissue Recovery

✔ Baseline: Excellent mobility. No joint soreness. Minimal stiffness & quick recovery.
✔ Why it matters: Low energy availability + tanked E2 + overtraining stress amount to reduced collagen turnover & joint lubrication.
✔ Lower training volume if joints are achier than normal or tendons aren’t recovering well post-training.

I. Appetite, Hunger & Satiety Rhythms

Peripheral endocrine signaling of leptin, ghrelin, & central energy perception.

Satiety Response per Meal

✔ Baseline: Micronutrient-dense, high protein, high fiber meals satisfy for predictable duration.
✔ Why it matters: Satiety is the best qualitative proxy for effective leptin / insulin signaling, gastric emptying, & gut-brain feedback loop function.
✔ Stop cutting if even the most micronutrient dense meals fail to hit satiety cues.

Food Preoccupation

✔ Baseline: Food is contextual infrastructure for your daily performance & not dominating your frontal lobe.
✔ Why it matters: Increasing food salience reflects neuroendocrine adaptation to energy scarcity (dopaminergic reward reweighting).
✔ Stop cutting if food has become the mission. Living meal-to-meal with constant food thoughts dominating attention.

Hunger Intensity & Rhythms

✔ Baseline: Predictable & stable hunger rhythms throughout the day.
✔ Why it matters: Reflects leptin signaling integrity and hypothalamic energy sensing. True physiological hunger increases as energy availability drops (adaptive thermogenesis).
✔ Implement refeed if hunger becomes intrusive or sleep-disrupting daily → leptin is suppressed & the deficit reached an unsustainably high physiological tax.

None of these will be clear cut down the line.

Some will be wildly beneficial in determining your overall physiological state.
Some will be neutral conditions for you.
Some will be near useless for you.

Welcome to the story of the bioindividualized self.

Pay particular attention to daily rhythms.
Leverage the easy-to-measure, low hanging, high ROI signals.
Use blood biomarkers (hormonal + cardiometabolic) as often as possible.

A few additional resources I highly encourage you to leverage to support the path to your prime physique & an elite cardiometabolic condition:

Stay after it & until next time,
Phys

Welcome to the Phys Recipe Series. You get three things: the ingredients, the deliberate step-by-step with photos, and the full nutritional breakdown.
Nothing more. Nothing less.

A staple summer side dish of the Phys household that tastes as good as it looks. Micronutrient-dense. High-volume. A near freebie calorically.

Sweet corn, cherry tomatoes, baby bok choy, scallions, and fresh herbs with a touch of sharp lime vinaigrette.

In case you missed the first installment of the series:

At a Glance

Yield: ~6 cups (serves 2 as a generous side)
Prep Time: 15 min
Cook Time: 15 min
Total Time: ~25 min

Most of the prep happens while the corn steams. Timers overlap so total time runs shorter than the parts added up.

Ingredients You’ll Need

For the salad (serves 2 as a side):

• 2 ears sweet corn, shucked

• 2 pints cherry tomatoes (mixed-color if you can get them)

• 1 head baby bok choy (or 5–6 leaves), sliced into thin ribbons

• 1 bunch scallions, light green and white parts, chopped fine

• 1 Tbsp fresh oregano, chopped

• 2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

• 2 Tbsp fine mineral-rich, microplastic-free spring salt (for the corn water, but most gets discarded)

For the lime vinaigrette:

• 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

• Juice of 2 limes (~⅓ cup)

• 1 garlic clove, grated (Microplane if you have one)

• 1½ tsp rice vinegar

• ¾ tsp fine salt, plus a finishing pinch

• ¼ tsp black pepper

Step-by-Step

1. Boil the corn. Fill a large pot with water, add the 2 Tbsp salt, and bring to a boil. Add the shucked corn, return to a boil, then cut the heat, cover, and let it sit 10 minutes. It finishes cooking in the residual heat.

   

2. Chop everything while the corn steams. Halve the cherry tomatoes, slice the bok choy into thin ribbons (stems and all), chop the scallions fine, and mince the oregano and parsley. Pile it all into a large bowl.

   

3. Cut the corn off the cob while warm. Pull the corn from the pot, stand each ear in the bowl or on the board, and run a knife down to strip the kernels. Add them to the vegetables while still hot. Residual heat blooms the aromatics and lightly wilts the greens without cooking them flat — this is the one move that makes the dish.
   

4. Blend the vinaigrette. Add the olive oil, lime juice, grated garlic, rice vinegar, salt, and pepper directly to the bowl. No need to make a separate jar. Fewer dishes, plus the dressing picks up the warm corn starch as you stir.
   

5. Toss and finish. Stir until everything’s coated and the juices pool at the bottom. Taste, add a finishing pinch of salt if it needs it, and serve.

Nutrition Breakdown (per serving)

Approximate values for 1 serving. Recipe serves 2 as a side.

Macros

✔ Calories: 280 kcal
✔ Protein: 7g
✔ Total Carbs: 38g
✔ Fiber: 7g
✔ Net Carbs: 31g
✔ Fat: 14g

Notable Micronutrients

✔ Vitamin C (~55mg) — tomatoes, bok choy, and lime
✔ Vitamin A (~600mcg) — bok choy and tomatoes
✔ Vitamin K (~90mcg) — bok choy and parsley
✔ Potassium (~700mg) — corn and tomatoes
✔ Sodium (~450mg) — from the ¾ tsp dressing salt; the 2 Tbsp in the corn water mostly goes down the drain

Final Notes

1. Treat it as a veggie side: As built, it’s ~7g protein (from the corn). Pair it next to a lean source of protein (grilled chicken, cod, shrimp, or steak) and clean carb source (rice, potatoes) and you’ve got the micronutrient dense version of a bro meal.

2. Don’t fade the dressing: Use an organic, polyphenol-dense, single-source, EVOO. The micronutrients (carotenoids) in the tomatoes & bok choy are fat-soluble, so the fat in the dressing enhances absorption.

Every successful summer shred has a few staple high-volume dishes you keep coming back to. This is one of them I’ve adopted recently.

It’s micronutrient dense. It’s cost-efficient. And it keeps you feeling fuller longer mitigating your chances of raiding the pantry at 9 PM.

As promised, we’ll be running plenty of these easy-to-prep meals in the future (without spamming you with ads & 8 miles of scrolling to get to an ingredient list).

If you like what we do here, remember to support the BTP publication while you’re here. You fuel each week.

Subscribe now

Until the next one, stay after it. And we’ll see you next week.

Your friend,
Phys

If there was ever a time to load up on health products for the year, this is the week.

To save your valuable time & coin, I scoured, vetted & curated the ultimate list of top Amazon Prime Day deals to take advantage of this week (23 —25 June). As always, I’m only putting out products I use & trust.

Before you get into this year’s deals, reminder to review the guidelines we laid out how to navigate the Wild Wild West of the Amazon health marketplace – what scams to avoid, how to validate price history, & other tactics to save when browsing this week (or any time).

Here are the top 37 Phys approved deals for this year’s Amazon Prime Day.

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Protein

Powders

Levels Grass Fed Whey

My top preference for a grass-fed whey without artificial additives. Mixes easily & goes well in overnight oats and Greek yogurt parfaits.

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LEGION Whey+ Isolate

Top-tier isolate so it’s lactose-light and digests the best on this list. My pick on days I want to go easy on the gut. Naturally sweetened. Fully transparent label.

$47.23 $61.99 — save 24%

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Jocko Fuel Whey

Most cost efficient option with built-in digestive enzymes and probiotics. No added sugar. “Good” (*winks*…IYKY) post-lift protein option that doesn’t sit heavy.

$35.96 $44.95 — save 20%

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GHOST Whey

By far the best tasting protein on our list. Great flavor selection to diversify the homemade ice cream/Creami lineup.

$43.99 $54.99 — save 20%

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Bars

ALOHA Organic Protein Bars

A low sugar/no stevia or erythritol bar option. Shockingly good texture & taste for a minimal ingredient bar.

$20.36 $23.95 — save 15%

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Equip Prime Bars — Grass-Fed Beef Protein

Equip makes premier products across the board. A whole-food protein bar made from grass-fed beef, collagen, & tallow instead of the usual isolate-and-fiber-syrup formula.

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Pre-Workout & Energy

Gorilla Mind Pre-Workout

One of only a few pre-workouts I consistently come back to. Well-dosed and tastes exceptional (not too sweet).

$47.99 $59.99 — save 20%

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REDCON1 Total War

Efficaciously dosed & a budget pick with an insane deal this week. Tough to beat per serving.

$19.99 $44.99 — save 56%

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C4 Energy Drink (12-pack)

An all-time classic. But even better from the can. The grab-and-go option for days I skip the powder. Usually keep a couple in the gym bag as a just in case.

$21.36 $27.99 — save 24%

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Daily Stack Supplements

Nutricost Creatine Monohydrate

For you. For your sister. For your father. For your grandma. Everyone can benefit from the purest form of creatine. 5—10g daily, each & every day.

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Qunol Mega Ubiquinol CoQ10

Ubiquinol is the pre-reduced form so your body skips the conversion step regular CoQ10 forces on it. I run it for mitochondrial & cardiovascular support. Especially high ROI if you’re > 40 or on a statin.

Find out why ubiquinol is the superior form of CoQ10 here:

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NOW Foods NAC with Selenium

Direct precursor to glutathione (the master antioxidant) which is why it turns up in everything from liver to lung research. I cycle NAC for detox capacity & overall recovery load.

Also a critical & proven tool for the nicotine exit protocol:

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Carlson Cod Liver Oil

Preferred natural method of DHA/EPA. Omega-3s plus naturally occurring vitamins A & D in one liquid. Norwegian-sourced & clean. Lemon makes a teaspoon actually go down easy.

$26.66 $31.37 — save 15%

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Objective Nutrients Thiamax — Vitamin B1 (TTFD)

TTFD is a fat-soluble form of B1 that crosses into cells & the brain, unlike standard thiamine. If you run on stress, carbs, and caffeine you burn through B1 fast. Been using this during my most recent cutting phase and can notice a clear difference in afternoon energy & mental clarity. Zero fillers.

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Electrolytes & Minerals

Zeal Electrolyte Powder

Solid electrolyte ratios & incredible value for a ~zero calorie electrolyte powder. I use it for training & sipping throughout the workout to keep electrolyte & hydration dialed in.

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Transparent Labs Hydrate

My cleaner electrolyte pick with added taurine & coconut water powder. No sugar or dyes. Third-party tested. Great for cardio & lifting days alike.

$23.99 $29.99 — save 20%

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Jigsaw Health Adrenal Cocktail

Whole-food vitamin C from acerola plus potassium & minerals — the “adrenal cocktail” people use to steady energy and handle allostatic stress loads. Usually reserve this one for the winter mornings or post-sauna. Food-form C behaves differently than synthetic ascorbic acid.

$24.35 $39.97 — save 39%

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Sleep & Recovery Supplements

Centenarius Premium Glycine Powder

3—5g before bed is the vivid dreams elixir. Regulates core body temperature down & improves sleep onset. The highest quality glycine out there & you’ll taste the (sweet) difference.

$23.99 $29.99 — save 20%

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Solaray Magnesium Glycinate

High chance you’re deficient in it (especially if you’re in stressful conditions often). Best budget pick I found this week among the select few brands I trust for high quality magnesium.

Check out the complete guide to magnesium supplementation here:

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PreSleep Natural Sleep Powder

A melatonin-free sleep stack combining my basic sleep stack — magnesium + glycine + L-theanine. Win-win-win.

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Nutricost Taurine Powder

We are going to be talking about taurine next year the way most talk about creatine today. One of the most underrated aminos that supports cell hydration, calcium handling in muscle, & has a calming effect on GABA/glutamate balance. Bulk powder makes it pennies/serving.

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Nutricost L-Theanine

Ol’ calming reliable at even small doses of 200mg (& particularly powerful when you trend up to 1g). Smooths the jitters when stacked with coffee and takes the edge off a wired but tired monkey brain at night.

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NOW Foods Inositol Powder

One of my favorite current tools for reducing nighttime anxiety & racing thoughts. 3g in the evening sublingual has been the sweet spot to calm the monkey brain. Powder form makes the higher effective doses affordable.

Find out why this is the most overlooked supplement you’re not using:

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Gut Health Supplements

Revive MD Fiber

A good-tasting psyllium-based fiber. Great in Greek yogurt parfaits. Feeds your gut bacteria. Improves digestion. Stabilizes post-meal glucose spikes.

$20.99 $27.99 — save 25%

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Doctor’s Best PepZin GI

Zinc-L-carnosine is a compound supporting the gut lining. Not a general “gut health” supplement. My go-to (alongside oral BPC-157 & glutamine) when my stomach needs repair support.

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Nutricost Zinc Carnosine

Same active compound as PepZin GI at a higher dose & lower price. More of a value pick once you know zinc-carnosine works for your gut.

$15.96 $19.95 — save 20%

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Health Environment Products

BestQool Red Light Therapy Panel

I’ve had my BestQool for over 2 yrs now and it’s still functioning perfectly. This one is just large enough to use on any sore areas post-training (usually the legs) and on my face. Best value for a reliable red/NIR panel in a sea of scam/overpriced products.

$152.61 $189.00 — save 19%

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Loop Experience 2 Earplugs

Reusable. Comfortable. Discreet. Durable. I enjoy them for focus around a noisy house & sleeping. Owned mine for 4+ yrs now and they’re still in the same condition I got them in.

$27.95 $34.95 — save 20%

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Breathe Right Nasal Strips — Extra Strength

An elite nighttime sleep quality hack — nasal breathing improves sleep quality and is the cheapest snoring fix I’ve found. Mechanically opens your nasal passages so you breathe through your nose.

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runquiz Amber Incandescent Bulbs

Now that they’re back on the market — a no-brainer switch. Swap these into the lamps you use after sunset. Cheap circadian hygiene hack.

$19.19 $23.99 — save 20%

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Sleep ZM Blue Light Blocking Glasses

The cheapest, most effective circadian hack to improving overall sleep quality → amber/red lenses block isolated blue light from screens. I put them on a couple hours before bed & pair them with the f.lux app & amber bulbs.

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Training Gear

Lacuffy Walking Pad (6% Incline)

No excuse to not hit 15k steps/day with this (& a standing desk). Walk on it during calls & while reading. The most underrated lever for the last few pounds of any legitimate cut phase.

$94.99 $117.99 — save 19%

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Abiarst Ab Roller Wheel

When performed properly, ab rollouts will cook your core muscles. And you can do it at home anytime. Easy add to the home office training gear arsenal.

More on how to efficiently build an elite set of abs:

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UUJOME Hand Grippers (Adjustable Set)

Easy at your desk style training for forearm work. Zonkfest meetings become productive forearm training sessions.

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Biomarkers

iHealth Smart Blood Pressure Monitor

Blood pressure is the canary in the cardiovascular coal mine. No excuse not to track it at home and you’ll catch problems years before a routine visit would. This cuff is Bluetooth-synced & fits well for most.

$27.99 $49.98 — save 44%

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Kitchen Optimizers

Ninja Air Fryer & Toaster Oven Combo

Highest ROI kitchen gear I own. Elite deal at half price this week. The easy way to avoid some of the common toxic elements in the typical air fryers. 10-in-1 type & it’s big enough to meal prep potatoes/sweet potatoes for the week.

$199.99 $399.99 — save 50%

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Ninja CREAMi

Hands down the greatest nutrition hack I’ve adopted in the last couple years. The tool behind every great high protein dessert. And I’ve been using it way more than I initially expected. You’ll wonder how you ever operated without it.

$169.99 $219.99 — save 23%

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Etekcity Food Kitchen Scale

High chance you’re underestimating portions by eye. Have now had mine for 3+ yrs. Reliable. Durable. Simple & gets the job done…your cutting phase will thank you.

$9.99 $13.99 — save 29%

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VocVoi Stainless Steel Pan

Time to toss the toxic nonstick pans. Learning the art of cooking with stainless steel takes ~1 week. After that, it’s clockwork and a high ROI health investment.

$28.47 $39.99 — save 29%

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Evoloop Rapid Egg Cooker

My convenient (lazy) method to hit my daily egg intake if I need to meal prep or I don’t want to pan fry.

$23.99 $29.99 — save 20%

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Oliva Dorado Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The purest & best-tasting extra virgin olive oil I’ve ever used. Single-origin, early-harvest, polyphenol-rich. Will never go back to another brand. It is that good.

$38.40 $48.00 — save 20%

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OLD BAY Seasoning

The S-tier way to make high-protein dishes much less boring (eggs, fish, chicken, shrimp). Don’t neglect the king of seasonings.

The proper way to leverage Old Bay:

$7.62 $10.91 — save 30%

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Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free Rolled Oats

The key to gluten-free overnight oats. Ditch the Quaker slop.

$10.17 $11.96 — save 15%

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Skin & Low-Tox Personal Care

Native Body Wash

Clean body wash without the sulfates, parabens, silicones, or dyes most brands lean on. Minimal ingredient (12) formulas & still manages to work well/smell great.