Elite health does not exist without regularity.

Live with a consistently timed system and your bodily rhythms stay synced.
Live without one and your metabolism starts to fail you.

And the metabolic effect isn’t insignificant.

An identical 75 g carb drink raised 3-hour blood sugar levels 62 mg/dL higher at 7 PM than at 7 AM. The same person drank the same drink on the same day with a wildly different metabolic response.

The circadian–metabolic connection is real. And the highest ROI levers that control it are non-negotiable for dialing in cardiometabolic health.

Here are 9 of the best (& completely free) ones you can implement today.

1) Get bright light early

In Harmsen et al. (2026), 13 individuals spent five days in a daylit office (RED) versus a standard office lit, windowless one (BLUE). With daylight, they:

• Burned more fat

• Produced more melatonin that evening

• Spent 51% of the day in the normal glucose range (vs. 43%)

Those who got 45+ minutes of bright morning light (6–9 AM) for three weeks:

• Lost more body fat

• Reported lower appetite

• Improved mood

Get outside within the first hour of waking each & every day.

2) Make breakfast your biggest meal

In Jakubowicz et al. (2013), 93 women had the same 1,400 cal intake for 12 weeks. The big breakfast group:

• Lost more than double the weight (−19 lb vs. −8 lb) & twice the waist size (−3.3 in vs. −1.5 in)

• Improved insulin sensitivity ~3x as much (+163% vs. +56%)

• Measured ghrelin 24% lower

• Dropped triglycerides 34% (big dinner group’s ROSE 15%)

When 420 adults ran the same 20-week weight-loss program (same calorie intake + same activity levels + same sleep, the early lunchers (those who ate their main meal before 3 PM) lost significantly more than those who ate it later.

Adopt the daylight, calorie front-loaded diet → big breakfast + medium lunch + small dinner.

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3) Eat at the same times every day

In Farshchi et al. (2005), a regular eating pattern across a two-week period produced:

• Higher thermic effect of food (greater energy expenditure)

• Lower insulin response

• Better fasting LDL-C

Even a slight delay in eating schedule can have a metabolic cost. Shifting the same lunch from 1 PM to 4:30 PM raised the glucose response by 46%.

Pick your meal times and hold them constant (weekends included).

4) Stop eating 2—3 hours before bed

Glucose tolerance was 17% worse at night than it was in the morning.

Vujović et al. (2022) showed this in a controlled setting when they fed 16 adults identical meals → one on an early schedule and the other shifted 4 hours later.

Eating late:

• Increased hunger

• Lowered 24-hour leptin (satiety)

• Reduced energy expenditure while awake

• Shifted fat-tissue gene expression toward storing fat (& mitigated fat loss)

Invert it and early eating windows prove to be more metabolically efficient. In Jamshed et al. (2022), 90 adults did the same fat loss program eating at either 7 AM–3 PM (eTRE) or across 12+ hours (CON). The early group lost 13.9 lb vs 8.8 lb in 14 weeks and reduced diastolic blood pressure an extra 4 mmHg.

Finish your last meal 2–3 hours before bed.

5) Keep your nights dark

20 healthy young adults slept under two conditions: 1) dim overhead room light (100 lux) or 2) near-darkness (3 lux). The lit group’s:

• Heart rate stayed higher all night

• Woke up more insulin resistant

When you scale this phenomenon out to ~85k adults over an 8-yr period, those with the brightest nights had a 53% higher risk of type 2 diabetes than those with dark nights.

Blackout shades. Sleep mask. Red incandescent bulbs for the bedroom.

6) Sleep on a fixed schedule

A point sleep reductionists (“you need 8 hrs”) have missed in the last few decades: sleep regularity is as important as sleep quality (& far more than duration alone).

Scheer et al. (2009) showed that when sleep and meals are pushed out of sync:

• Post-meal glucose rose up to 21%

• Leptin fell 17%

• 3 of 8 healthy subjects produced prediabetic glucose responses

Mistimed sleep also burns less. Sleeping during the day instead of at night reduces caloric burn during sleep by up to 16%.

And when two groups got the same amount of sleep restriction, the mistimed group lost 47% of their insulin sensitivity vs. 34% in the group that slept at the right time.

Keep consistent bedtime & wake times within 30—45 min (including weekends). If working night shift, eat during daylight hours.

7) Draw bloods at the same time of day

Cardiometabolic & hormonal biomarkers vary widely across any given day.

Across a ~13k adults, AM draws averaged 97 vs. 92 mg/dL for afternoon draws. Diabetic readings even showed up half as often in the afternoon & dysregulated fasting glucose 3x less often.

Important to keep insulin sensitivity variation in mind for any glucose tolerance testing as well. When Jarrett et al. (1972) administered the same glucose tolerance test at 9 AM, 3 PM, & 8 PM, afternoon & evening glucose came back significantly higher.

Lipids, thyroid markers, androgens, & glucocorticoids all swing internal to the day too.

Avoid the variation & consistently draw while fasted first thing in the morning.

8) Front load protein

I’m sure it’s sunk in by now, but in case not: skipping breakfast is a great way to spin your wheels if you’re trying to add lean muscle (glucose sink) over time.

The same total protein split 30/30/30 g (EVEN) across three meals instead of 10/15/65 g (SKEW) produced 25% more muscle protein synthesis over 24 hours.

The TREAT trial showed this exactly. Those who skipped breakfast for 12 weeks lost significantly more arm & leg lean mass than those eating three regularly timed meals.

Get the early morning 30+ g bolus upon waking.

9) Train the early chronotype

Across ~64k nurses followed for eight years, definite night owls had a 19% higher risk for type 2 diabetes even after accounting for diet, weight, & activity.

“But what if I’m a natural night owl?”

Here’s the good news: with the right inputs, chronotypes are highly trainable.

All it took for 22 night owls was three weeks of earlier morning light, dark evenings, fixed sleep times, & no dinner after 7 PM. They shifted their internal clocks two hours earlier with 1) no lost sleep, 2) lower depression & stress scores, and 3) better morning reaction time & grip strength.

Three big takeaways for you this week:

1. Circadian regulation is the bedrock of all health systems.

2. Inputs matter. But timing matters equally as much.

3. The best stacks remain in nature & virtually free.

See you guys next week.

— Phys

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

The ideal diet for your genetics, environment, lifestyle, & training isn’t the ideal diet for mine (or any one else’s).

The best diet 10 yrs ago isn’t even the best one for you today.

That’s why I’m answering the requests to “post a day’s worth of meals” instead with a decade’s worth of principles governing my nutritional mental models & systems.

Take the ones that fit your bioindividualized blueprint. Toss the ones that don’t. Simple.

Foundations

1. Principles over prescriptions.

First principles unlock the nutritional system built around your own bio-context. As any of those factors shift (inevitably), you’re better suited to adapt.

2. Earn the right to optimize.

If a dude heating up Marie Calendar’s microwave lunches daily was discussing his supplement stack with you, you’d laugh at him, think he was a clown, & immediately dismiss.

So why not treat the online biohacker endorsing mitochondrial peptides who can’t run a 7 min mile any differently?

Master the 80% before chasing the 20%.

3. No single macro is the villain.

First it was the fat causing heart disease. Then the sugar & carbs causing metabolic unhealth. Then protein causing kidney disease. Every few years a new scapegoat. The consistent pattern driving chronic disease today: over macro’d & under micro’d.

Solution: Keep all three macros. Shift the quality, pairing, & context.

4. Use restriction as a tool.

Peating, fruit’ing til noon, & carnivore can be useful acute diet tactics. Long term though, they make poor defaults & aren’t sustainable.

Even the loudest voices evolve. Paul Saladino moved from strict carnivore to an animal-based diet built around fruit & honey. Peter Attia shifted away from years of fasting & keto.

5. Calories without cofactors aren’t nutrition.

Food converts to our body’s energy currency (ATP) when the metabolic pathways are equipped properly. Miss the cofactors and surplus food creates spillover reactive oxygen species (poor redox balance).

Feed the mitochondria first.

6. Balancing > maxxing.

Nutrients work in pairs. Max one and you starve other supporting ones.

Thiamine (B1) needs magnesium to activate.
Vitamin D needs magnesium to convert & K2 to route calcium into bone.
Zinc needs copper.
Iron needs copper & vitamin C to move.
Calcium needs magnesium, D, & K2.
Sodium needs potassium.
Iodine needs selenium.
Methionine needs glycine.
Folate needs B12.
Biotin competes with B5 & lipoic acid for the same transporter.
Carbs need B1.

Think in micronutritional webs. Fade the RDAs.

7. Food first, supplements last (but not supplements never).

Nutrient-dense, low-toxicity food grown in (or animals raised on) fertile soil is priority. Supplements need to address specific gaps in the cleanest form temporarily. Then come off once nutritional diet, light diet, & circadian rhythm are repaired.

8. Make the dense choice the default choice.

Stock the fridge with seasonal fruit, vegetables, eggs, & cultured dairy.
Store the freezer with ruminant meat, wild fish, & shellfish.
Fill the pantry with rice, potatoes, sprouted oats, & honey.
Toss the bioengineered, hyperpalatable snacks.

Health as an environmental system > willpower as a finite resource.

9. Cook 90% of your meals.

“Healthy” restaurant meals routinely have 20–40 g of fat.

A prime example: You think you’re fine when you add the harmless Brussels. 30 g of fat from a handful that you could’ve otherwise cooked at home for < 5 g.

90% still leaves 2 flex meals/week. Eat out. Stay social.

Breaking bread is a nutrient. Neuroticism is an anti-nutrient.

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Energy & Body Composition

10. Never fuel past demand.

Mitochondria can only burn so much. Overfeed them = the excess is directed into fat stores. When building muscle, keep the surplus subtle: +100–300 kcal/day.

11. Calories count (& so does processing).

Energy balance is real. Delivery speed is equally real.

In the cleanest ultraprocessed food trial to date, two meals matched on 12 nutritional variables produced identical glucose curves, but the UPF drove 60% more insulin & 20% less carb burning.

Full breakdown on this trial:

12. Cut no faster than 1% of bodyweight per week.

When elite athletes were randomized to lose 0.7% vs. 1.4% of BW/week, lean mass rose 2% in the slow group (& 1% in the fast group. Free T4 dropped 11% only in the fast group.

The cost of a fat loss phase that lasts too long/is too quick is paid in muscle loss, libido nuking, metabolic disruption, & hormonal imbalance.

Macronutrients

13. Carbs are fuel to be scaled with thiamine.

Carb oxidation burns through B1 faster than fat oxidation does. Refined carbs strip B1 (& other critical B vitamins), yet keep the calories. The downfall of high-calorie, Western malnutrition.

Favor potatoes, sweet potatoes, seasonal fruit, honey, white & black rice that come with the proper cofactors.

14. Match carbs to training.

Glucose is the fuel for high-intensity work. Keep carbs high around peri-workout periods.

Training days: 1.8–2.7 g/lb (4–6 g/kg)
Rest days: 0.9–1.4 g/lb (2–3 g/kg)

For hard resistance training sessions, 20–30 g of fast-digesting carbs plus 500—800 mg of sodium intra-workout blunts the cortisol rise & spares muscle.

When fat loss plateaus & performance, libido, or body temperature drop, use a single refeed day (personal preference to leverage every 8—10 days):

• Carbs → 2.8–3.6 g/lb (6–8 g/kg)

• Protein → 0.90 g/lb (2 g/kg)

• Fat → ≤ 0.2 g/lb (≤ 0.4 g/kg).

15. Set protein by target bodyweight.

Maintenance/Recomp: 0.7 g/lb (1.5 g/kg)
Muscle Gain: 0.8–1 g/lb (1.8–2.2 g/kg)
Fat Loss: 1–1.2 g/lb (2.2–2.6 g/kg)

More is NOT better. Excess protein displaces the carbs that support thyroid output & training.

16. Balance glycine against methionine.

Glycine balances methionine-dense muscle meat. Aim for 10 g of collagen per 100 g of other protein and 15 g of total glycine per day. Source from bone broth, stew meats, oxtail, skin-on poultry, fish skin, & gelatin before powders.

For sleep, 3—4 g of glycine at night. If paradoxical response to glycine, switch to collagen.

17. Keep fat at 20–30% of calories.

Fat is essential, but should be intentional. Maintain 20% as the floor.

Men on low-fat diets (averaging ~20% of calories) had 10–15% lower total testosterone with free T & DHT falling too. Go lower & you also compromise fat-soluble vitamin absorption. Lean closer to 30% if hormonal optimization is the priority.

If hormones are in check & looking to optimize cardiometabolic condition, go near the floor while carbs restore clean glucose oxidation. Fats blunt glucose burning FAR more than glucose blunts fat burning.

18. Let apoB set your saturated fat intake.

Cutting saturated fat for 2+ years reduced cardiovascular events & showed greater reductions brought greater benefit.

Test apoB → apoB outperformed LDL-C as a risk marker in 9 of 9 discordance studies. Weigh it against your genetic risk, other cardiometabolic health markers, hormonal profile, & bioindividualized nutritional context.

19. The real villain is industrial fat paired with refined carbs.

Industrialized slop (pizza, fried foods, preserved shelf foods) gets blamed as “high carb.” When they’re really the lethal trifecta of high fat, high carb (stripped of fiber), & high additive. That exact combination is most metabolically inefficient: carbs & fats compete → fat suppresses glucose oxidation → dietary fat stores almost effortlessly.

Lean toward separating high-fat & high-carb meals (without neuroticism). Steak with potatoes & yogurt with berries are fine.

Eliminate the energy-dense, fast to eat, & highly palatable: seed oils, refined flour, HFCS, emulsifiers, gums, dyes, phosphate additives, & free-glutamate flavor enhancers.

Fats, Cooking, & Hydration

20. Extra-virgin olive oil first.

Use EVOO as your primary fat, then coconut oil, butter, ghee, or tallow in modest amounts. Avoid refined, industrial, or deodorized oils.

21. Not all PUFA are equal.

Corn, canola, soybean, sunflower, & safflower oils are linoleic-acid heavy that add oxidative load & degrade redox balance.

Losing body fat mobilizes PUFA stored for years. So cut slowly & cover vitamin E (seafood, kiwi, citrus, butternut squash). Marine PUFA serves an entirely different function.

22. Seafood first for AA, EPA, and DHA.

Physiologically essential fats: arachidonic acid (AA), docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), with eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) in balance.

Get AA from egg yolks & DHA/EPA from seafood.

When increasing omega-3 intake (especially after years of seed oil intake), support the remodeling with vitamin E, magnesium, & taurine.

23. Cook wet & low by default.

Steaming, poaching, simmering, & stewing produce far fewer advanced glycation end-products than searing & frying. Keep proteins and fats less damaged. Preserve water in your food.

24. Eat your hydration.

Ripe fruit, milk, broths, stews, gelled collagen-dense foods, stewed fruit, & mineral water hydrate at the cellular level. Chugging plain water on a dry, salty, potassium-poor diet doesn’t fix intracellular hydration.

Start with a warm liquid on waking. End with warm milk, honey, salted fruit, & glycine at night (especially during winter).

Homage to the great one who we learned this one from.

V. Core Foods

25. Eat whole eggs.

Yolks deliver choline, biotin, fat-soluble vitamins, & arachidonic acid. Target ≥350 mg of choline daily (3 yolks).

Cook the whites. Raw whites or adding extra whites deliver avidin, which binds biotin & blocks its absorption.

26. Make shellfish a staple with occasional nose-to-tail foods.

Oysters, mussels, clams, shrimp, & octopus are micronutrient multivitamins → dense in zinc, copper, B12, selenium, iodine. Roe adds preformed DHA. Heart supplies CoQ10 & mitochondrial cofactors. Rotate in organ meats.

27. Keep calcium ahead of phosphorus.

Target 1–1.5 g of calcium daily from 3 dairy servings. Keep calcium-to-phosphorus ~2:1. Chronically high phosphorus raises parathyroid hormone → pulls calcium from bone.

Fermented dairy adds K2. If you’re reacting to dairy poorly, shift the form to fermented, A2, goat, or cooked cheese.

28. Cycle produce seasonally & opt for sugar in a matrix.

Sugar alone = calories without cofactors
Sugar in fruit/honey = fuel with potassium, polyphenols, fiber, & micronutrients

Cycle fruits & vegetables according to their season.

29. Grains, legumes, tubers, & fruit all fit.

Sprouted oats, white rice, potatoes, & well-cooked legumes are legitimate fuels. Only should be cut with a valid reason.

Limit soy, corn, & wheat.

Favor resistant starch: cook potatoes & rice → cool them → reheat to feed your colonic fermenters.

30. Keep plants by bioindividual digestibility.

Several cups of veggies/day across colors with some dark greens and raw vitamin-C produce. Raw carrots, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, asparagus, & stewed apple/pear are easy defaults.

If you react poorly: cook, peel, or ferment before you remove it.

31. Spices are daily pharmacology.

Food-dose compounds with strong evidence behind them:

• Saffron: Effective for mild-to-moderate depression. Comparable to synthetic antidepressants at 30 mg/day.

• Ceylon cinnamon: Improves insulin sensitivity. Lowers fasting glucose & HbA1c. Source it carefully as heavy metals are a real problem.

• Ginger: Supports digestion. Speeds gastric emptying. Settles nausea.

• Mustard seed: Just a pinch of mustard powder on cooked broccoli made sulforaphane over 4x more bioavailable.

• Rosemary, thyme, oregano: Rosemary-thyme marinade cut carcinogenic heterocyclic amines in grilled steak by 87%.

• Garlic: Lowered blood pressure by ~8/5 mmHg in hypertensives across 12 trials. Crush it and let it sit ~10 minutes before heating to form allicin.

• Black seed: Thymoquinone to support glucose, lipids, & gut.

• Capsaicin: A chili-spiked lunch raised GLP-1 & improved satiety.

• Cacao: 500 mg/day of cocoa flavanols cut cardiovascular death by 27%.

• Peppermint: Oil/tea is an elite tool for IBS symptoms.

VI. Micronutrients

32. Scale B1 to your carbs.

Go food first (always): yeast extract spreads, sunflower seeds, flaxseed, macadamias, pistachios, trout, mussels, lentils.

If supplementing, start with minimum viable dose, increase only once the effects are noticeably stable, & choose the most bioavailable source → TTFD.

Do not be “maxxing” B1 since it taxes its enzymatic partners: B5, biotin, B12, CoQ10, glutathione, molybdenum, & copper.

33. Saturate magnesium.

Target 4–6 mg/lb (9–13 mg/kg) of total elemental magnesium from food plus supplementation.

RDA is way too low for modern life: chronic stress, mineral-depleted soil, blue light-isolated environments, nnEMF concentrations, & the thousands of enzymes running on magnesium.

Start at 100–200 mg elemental with each meal, incrementally increase over time, & take the larger dose before bed.

Glycinate, acetyl-taurate, pidolate, & malate are the optimal forms. Read labels in elemental terms → full guide on that here.

34. Run potassium at twice your sodium.

Target ≥ 5,000 mg of potassium from potatoes, fruit, coconut water, dates, & avocado at a 2:1 ratio to sodium.

Most “salt-sensitive” blood pressure cases are really potassium or magnesium deficiencies. Raise potassium before you cut high-quality sodium intake.

35. Keep A, D, & K2 together.

A—D—K2 direct calcium traffic into bone (away from arteries & soft tissue). Best sourced from pasture-raised egg yolks, dairy fat, fermented foods, greens, & sunlight. Never megadose D without K2 & magnesium. Pulse vitamin A throughout the week rather than stacking daily large doses.

36. Balance copper, zinc, & iron.

Oysters (the sea’s multivitamin) win. Shellfish & cacao fill copper gap.

High isolated zinc drains copper.

Avoid iron-fortified foods & iron pills → free iron creates redox imbalance. Keep ferritin in the lower part of the reference range. If elevated, donate blood 1–2x/yr.

Low ferritin often means missing copper, vitamin C, B12, or folate.

Balance zinc-to-copper ratio to ~10:1. Don’t bolus the 50 mg zinc supplement.

37. Pair iodine with selenium.

Thyroid hormone conversion & glutathione systems both depend on the pair. Seafood, eggs, & dairy supply both.

1—2 Brazil nuts every other day = adequate selenium pulse.

38. Building antioxidants beats buying them.

Your endogenous system outperforms any pill.

Glycine, cysteine, & glutamate build glutathione.
Copper, zinc, & manganese fuels superoxide dismutase.
Selenium runs glutathione peroxidase.
Polyphenols act as NRF2 nudges.

Get vitamin C from whole-food matrices like bell peppers, kiwi, & citrus and extracts like camu camu & acerola cherry rather than isolated ascorbic acid.

VII. Gut

39. Defend your stomach acid.

Acid is a nutrient-access & infection barrier.

Low acid impairs protein digestion, pancreatic enzyme release, and pathogen killing, setting up SIBO and dysbiosis.

Support it with the proper electrolyte balance (sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride, calcium), zinc, B1, protein-forward meals, & bitters/apple cider vinegar. Avoid PPIs.

40. Eat a minimum of 50–60 g of fiber.

That’s a minimum target for most males. The Hadza ate ~100 g/day while the average American eats 20.

If low, build up by ~5 g per week to let your microbiome adapt.

Diversifying whole-food sources from fruit, cooled potatoes/rice/sprouted oats, cooked roots feeds a broader microbial range than any fiber supplement powder ever will alone.

Partially hydrolyzed guar gum is the gentlest on-ramp available.

Feed the mucus layer too: gelatin, stewed apple pectin, zinc, vitamins A & D.

41. Eat fermented foods before meals.

Kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, & properly made pickles, daily or near-daily. Eat them before the meal so stomach acid doesn’t wipe out the dose.

Ferments seed new strains. Fiber feeds them. Antimicrobial foods (garlic, ginger, oregano, black seed, coconut oil) mitigate upper GI overgrowth.

If showing histamine symptoms, try fresher, shorter ferments before abandoning altogether.

Timing & Behavior

42. Make breakfast your biggest meal.

Adopt the circadian-guided, daylight diet → big breakfast, medium lunch, small dinner.

Insulin sensitivity peaks early. In a crossover trial, skipping breakfast (NoB) increased post-meal glucose levels, impaired the insulin response, & lowered GLP-1 levels.

If you fast, skip dinner (never breakfast).

43. Eat slowly & avoid the soft food diet.

Satiety hormones need time. That’s why eating the same meal over 30 minutes instead of 5 produced significantly higher endogenous GLP-1 & PYY responses.

Texture matters as much as speed. If a food dissolves with barely any chewing, it’s partially pre-digested & hits your system before satiety signals react.

44. Walk after meals.

Activating muscle fibers pulls glucose out of the blood & lowers total glucose output without needing extra insulin.

10 min is all it takes. Simple.

45. Build meals that close nutrient holes.

If for nothing else, track meals for a few weeks to find your micronutrient gaps. Adjust based on bioindividual needs. Supplement the gaps. Build the nutritional intuition.

46. Coffee is net positive.

3—4 cups/day tracks with the largest drops in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.

Limit on an empty stomach. Be done by 11 AM. 400 mg of caffeine six hours before bed cut sleep by more than an hour. And reduced deep sleep.

If it makes you anxious, pair each dose with 2—3x as much L-theanine, 3—5 g inositol, & 100—200 mg elemental magnesium. Coffee + tea >> energy drinks + caffeine pills.

Cycle off with a taper quarterly. A short reset turns two cups back into jet fuel. Deprivation begets sensitization.

47. Treat alcohol as a drain.

Alcohol drains B1, B6, B12, magnesium, vitamin C, & zinc. The liver prioritizes clearing it so fat oxidation slows and shifts the NAD+/NADH balance toward storage. It also fragments sleep & dysregulates the daily cortisol rhythm.

Light

48. Light is a nutrient.

Infrared is absorbed by our mitochondria supporting electron flow and local melatonin production. Only 5% of melatonin comes from the pineal gland. Most made in the mitochondria as an antioxidant.

Red/NIR also improves glucose metabolism.

Aim for 2 hours of outdoor light across the day. Weight it toward sunrise & sunset (low-angle = infrared rich). Eat lunch outside. Get midday UV for vitamin D. Supplement with red/infrared devices.

49. Minimize isolated blue light.

Blue light without accompanying red & infrared suppresses melatonin, drives leptin resistance, encourages circadian dysmorphia, & dysregulates glucocorticoid rhythms.

Bright days → Get morning & evening outdoor light.
Dark nights → Dim & red-shift your evenings. Black out the bedroom.

Supplement Floor

50. Calm the excitatory load.

Chronic stress, social jet lag, blue light, & poor sleep (low SWS & REM + poor efficiency) unfavorably tilt the GABA/glutamate balance to excitation. Why the wired but tired phenotype is so prevalent today.

A practical calming stack:

◆ 500–1,000 mg L-theanine
◆ 200—300 mg elemental magnesium (via glycinate or pidolate)
◆ 2—4 g taurine
◆ 6—8 g inositol

51. Dose creatine to objective.

General: 0.045 g/lb (0.1 g/kg) daily.
Cognitive benefits: 10 g daily.
Acute sleep debt: a single 0.16 g/lb (0.35 g/kg) dose.

Opt for monohydrate form (don’t fall for the “enhanced” deliveries).
30 min before training with carbs & electrolytes.

If there’s absolutely nothing else you extract from this one, take this away: embrace the first principle & systems-based thinking health approach (always be stiff arming reductionist dogma).

Stay elite & see you guys next week.

— Phys

If you found this one useful for improving your life, here are some others you’ll find practical:

For years we explained ultraprocessed food’s neurohormonal chokehold on us with reductionism.

It tastes better.
We eat it faster.
It doesn’t satiate us.

Last week, a Virginia Tech team finally published one of the cleanest ultraprocessed food experiments taking this regurgitated logic off the table.

The 30-Second Version

• Setup: Two 300-calorie meals. One ultraprocessed & one whole-food, matched within ~2% on 12 different nutritional variables.

• Glucose: Identical across the 3 hours.

• Insulin: 60% higher after the UPF meal with a ~40% higher peak

• Fuel burning: The UPF meal blunted the switch from fat to carbs. 20% fewer carbs were burned despite more insulin.

• Brain: The bigger someone’s metabolic disruption, the stronger their reward-center response to UPF food pictures.

• Value: People bid the same money for both food types, but their brains encoded value in opposing directions.

Two Different Meals with the Same Label

The researchers took 57 adults whose typical diets consisted of ~55% ultraprocessed calories (exactly the US average).

Every morning, each individual consumed both meals inside a sealed room that measured every breath for 4 hours to track what fuel substrate the body was using. Blood was drawn 8 times and they also did an fMRI brain scan.

What were the two meals?

• Whole food meal: hard-boiled eggs, banana, cheese, dried cranberries, sea salt

• UPF meal: deli turkey, instant mashed potatoes, chocolate chip cookie, frosted wheat cereal, veggie chips, white bread, PB&J

The cool part about this was they matched the two meals within 98.4% on 12 variables: weight, calories, energy density, carbs, available carbs, fat, protein, glycemic index, glycemic load, fiber, sodium, & water.

The cherry on top of why this was so well-designed. They even matched variables that are usually attributed to why hyper-palatable foods are more easily consumed:

• Taste: Liking & wanting were identical.

• Appetite: No differences in hunger or satiety at any point.

• Eating speed: UPF meal was eaten slower.

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The Post-Meal Responses

Minute 20: Blood glucose rose faster after the whole-food meal: 123 vs. 113 mg/dL.

Minute 40: Both meals peak around 130–135 mg/dL. Over the 3 hour testing period, total glucose exposure was identical.

But where it gets fascinating for us is with insulin.

The UPF meal peaked at 40% higher (56 vs. 40 µIU/mL), then stayed elevated at minutes 40, 60, 90, & 120. Overall insulin exposure was ~60% higher.

Both a clear signal of reduced insulin sensitivity.

Minutes 40–80: Elite functioning mitochondria are defined by metabolic flexibility & measured by the respiratory exchange ratio (RER).

Simply stated: Someone who is metabolically flexible…when glucose hits their cells, it shifts from a fat burning preference to a carb burning one with minimal friction.

• Whole-food meal: We get a clean pivot. RER jumps to 0.88 by minute 40. Fat burning drops 45% as the body shifts to carbs as the preferred fuel source (from 0.09 to 0.05 g/min).

• UPF meal: A delayed, blunted pivot. RER peaks lower & later. Carb burning comes in 20% lower & fat burning stays steady.

Both meals viewed thru the lens of RER.

Both meals viewed thru the lens of carb & fat oxidation.

So when we put it altogether: More insulin → fewer carbs burned → incoming glucose not being used as fuel → being pushed toward adipose storage instead

Why It Happens

Most forms of hyperpalability engineering can be summarized like this.

UPFs soak up saliva fast. Combine carbs with fats that lubricate everything into a smooth, fluid-like mass before you swallow.

Most absorption & gut-to-brain signaling happen while it’s already halfway digested.

So you get a gut-brain axis that’s hacked: the same nutrients with a different delivery speed & different neurohormonal response.

How Gain Happens in the Brain

As Big Food continues their hunt for vectors to outmaneuver our neurohormonal signaling, especially in the GLP-1 mimetic era, it’s worth spending a minute on flavor-nutrient learning.

It’s the idea that the brain learns what a food is worth partly from what happens after you eat it. Nutrient signals go from the gut to the the brain’s reward center (striatum). Over dozens of meals, these signals program you with the foods you want.

Finding #1: The bigger the metabolic hack, the stronger the pull toward UPFs.

Those with the largest gap in carb burning between the two meals had relatively stronger reward responses to pictures of ultraprocessed foods.

Simply stated: The more a UPF meal distorted someone’s fuel metabolism, the more their reward circuitry tilted toward UPF cues.

Finding #2: Processing alone (nutrients held constant) shifted how the brain computes food value.

When the subjects were asked to bid real money on 28 foods, what they submitted were nearly identical: $2.85 for whole foods vs $3.05 for UPFs.

But their brains disagreed. In the fusiform gyrus, value went in opposite directions:

• Whole foods: more brain activity + higher bid

• UPFs: more brain activity + lower bid

The fusiform gyrus houses the brain’s fusiform food area → a brain region governed by glucose, insulin, & ghrelin.

Practical Takeaways

1. Environment is king: To clean your pantry & fridge is to clear the food noise. Route your walks away from the craving spots. Raise the barrier to the vice.

2. Think past macros alone:

   1. IIFYM was always a misleading, nuance-deficient nutritional strategy.

   2. The soft food diet has done much more than hijack our palettes. It’s also altered our maxilofacial structure. A good heuristic at this point: If a food dissolves with barely any chewing (puffed, extruded, crisped, instant), it’s partially pre-digested & disadvantageous to the entire metabolic conversion process.

3. Always contextualize: Glucose was identical in the study. But now you know insulin ran 60% higher. If you were to throw on a Dexcom CGM and test yourself, you’d never pick up on this. Point here is to add fasting insulin & track ALL metabolic biomarkers to your bloodwork.

Hands-down the highest quality study we’ve had in this area since Kevin Hall & his team locked people in an NIH ward in 2019.

With a little more understanding on how food engineering (hijacking) happens, we can program our own systems & environment to be a little harder to hack.

Stay vigilant and stay after it.

See you guys next week.

— Phys

It’s insane the number of people walking around who look perfectly healthy with excessively high blood pressure.

Lean. Train 4–5x/week. Eat well. Sleep well. Then show up to a PCP for the first time in a few years…145/110.

I’ve seen it often enough that it completely dismantles the premise of “I feel fine” as a biomarker.

Half of all US adults & 30% of all guys under 40 have been diagnosed with hypertension. And those with elevated BP before 40 had a 67% higher risk of an eventual cardiovascular event.

Now for the most comprehensive guide around to make sure you never end up in this very avoidable (& reversible) position.

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Blood Pressure Explained in 30 Sec

• Systolic (top number) = pressure in the pipes when the heart squeezes

• Diastolic (bottom number) = pressure when the heart relaxes between beats

3 things dictate the BP values:

1. Pump → how hard & fast the heart works (sympathetic drive + stimulants + stress load)

2. Pipes → how tight & stiff the arteries are (nitric oxide + vessel lining health)

3. Fluid → how much blood volume is in the system (kidneys + sodium + potassium)

Functional Optimal Ranges

Opt into optimal (not the standard 120/80).

• Whelton 2020 (JAMA Cardiology): 1.4k adults with zero risk factors followed 14.5 years.

  • Every +10 mmHg → 53% higher risk

  • SBP 120–129 (considered “normal”) → 4.6x the risk of SBP 90–99

• Ji 2021 (Circulation): 27.5k adults. Women’s risk rises at lower BP than men’s.

How to Properly Measure

Step 1: Get a cuff

Pick one up on Amazon. Usually on sale for 40–50% off around Prime Days & holidays. They’re cheap. Non-invasive. Easy to store.

And they might just save your life.

• Check that the model is validated: validatebp.org

• My two cost-effective picks:

  • iHealth Track

  • Zewa Premium

Step 2: Never lean on a wearable

Watches aren’t reliable for blood pressure. Apple’s hypertension feature analyzes pulse waveforms over 30 days & sends a “possible hypertension” alert…without ever providing actual values.

Apple’s FDA validation data is trash (Sept 2025):

• Overall → Flagged only 41% of people who actually had hypertension

• Stage 1 → Missed 70%

• Stage 2 → Missed 46%

• Least accurate in people < 60 & with BMI < 30

Step 3: Measure it right

Before:

• No caffeine, nicotine, or exercise for 30 min

• Empty your bladder (a full one can add ~10 mmHg)

• Sit calmly for 5 min. No phone (seriously). Opt for a book.

During:

• Back supported, feet flat, legs uncrossed (crossed legs can add ~5 mmHg)

• Bare upper arm, resting on a table at heart level

• Cuff sized to your arm (too tight gives a false high)

• No talking (can add ~10 mmHg)

Step 4: Track it over time

• Baseline week: 2 readings → 1 min apart → every morning (before coffee & food) & every evening for 7 days → average the first week

• Maintenance: 1—2x/week post first week initialization. Repeat baseline week after starting any new intervention

• Log: Each reading in a simple sheet.

Step 5: Track proxies

Contextualize it with the rest of your metabolic picture: The 14 Metabolic Health Biomarkers

Then track these alongside it:

• E2: Estradiol supports NO production in the vessel lining

• Morning Wood + Getting Hard: Early vascular warning sign. Penile arteries are smaller than coronary arteries so they show damage first. Guys in their 40s with ED had a 50-fold higher risk of heart disease.

• Resting Heart Rate: Rising RHR trend = worsening cardio engine. Every +10 bpm → 9% higher all-cause mortality

• HRV: Falling trend = losing parasympathetic tone

Alright so you get an elevated blood pressure reading. Now what do you do?

Tactics to Reduce Blood Pressure

#1: Reduce visceral fat

Why it works

Highest ROI lever available.

Visceral fat (aromatase factory) → secretes excess estrogen, leptin, & fatty acids → leptin & insulin resistance → kidneys hold onto sodium & excess water

Best evidence

• Chandra 2014 (Dallas Heart Study): Visceral fat predicted a 22% higher risk of new hypertension. Subq fat failed to do the same.

• Neter 2003 (Hypertension): 25 RCTs & 4.8k+ people. −1 mmHg SBP per 2.2 lbs lost. Losing more than ~11 lbs → −6.6/−5.1 mmHg.

• 2023 weight-loss meta-analysis: 35 studies & 3,200+ people. A BMI drop of 3+ points reduced SBP by 8.5 mmHg.

Protocol

• First move if you’re over 15% (male) & 25% (female)

• Get an initial DEXA scan (~$150)

• Alternative: Track waist-to-height ratio as a proxy. Aim for under 0.5 → waist less than half your height

• The full playbook on reducing body fat below 15%:

#2: Cut hyper-palatable food intake

Why it works

Hyperpalatable foods are easier to overindulge because they were engineered to push beyond your natural fullness signals.

Sodium in ultra-processed foods lacks adjacent minerals & cofactors for ideal energy metabolism.

Best evidence

• Krost 2026 (European Heart Journal): 101k+ people over 10.5 yr median follow-up. By category of increased risk of hypertension: flavor (37%), coloring agents (55%), sweeteners (42%), sugar varieties (19%).

  

• Harnack 2017 (Circulation): 71% of sodium came from processing & restaurants. Home cooking added 5.6%.

Protocol

• Cook 80%+ of your meals at home → higher quality sodium via minimally processed foods

• Sodium label heuristic: sodium (mg) should be below calories value

#3: Dial potassium:sodium ratio to 1–2:1

Why it works

Reductionism led us to seeing sodium as a univariately negative factor related to blood pressure, but it’s really a ratio game.

Low potassium + high sodium → kidneys hoard sodium → sodium holds water → higher pressure

Balanced K:Na ratio → kidneys dump sodium & water → artery walls relax

Best evidence

Gijsbers 2015 (J Hum Hypertens): Adding 3g potassium/day for 4 weeks:

• SBP → −3.9 mmHg

• DBP → −1.6 mmHg

Adding 3g sodium instead:

• SBP → +7.5 mmHg

• DBP → +2.7 mmHg

• Neal 2021 (NEJM): ~21k people in 600 rural Chinese villages. Swapped regular salt for a 75/25 NaCl/KCl blend:

  • Reduced stroke risk by 14%

  • Reduced major cardiovascular events by 13%

  • Reduced mortality by 12%

• Ding 2024 (J Hum Hypertens): Salt substitution lowered SBP by 3.3 mmHg. Sodium reduction explained only 12–39%. Potassium addition drove much of it.

• Aburto 2013 (BMJ): 22 RCTs across 1.6k people. Greater potassium intake → −3.49/−1.96 mmHg. At 3,500–4,700 mg/day → −7.16 SBP.

Protocol

• Increase potassium intake before cutting back high quality sodium intake

• Target 5,000 mg potassium/day from food minimum

• Leverage high K+ foods: sun-dried tomatoes, beet greens, yams, wild caught salmon, potato (w/ skin on), white beans, cooked spinach, avocado, fufu.

• Get your Na from micronutrient/cofactor dense foods: sardines, anchovies, oysters, mussels, olives, sauerkraut, kimchi, bone broth, feta, nori seaweed

#4: Toss the Zyns

Why it works

One of the greatest psyops in the health space was believing there was minimal cardiovascular cost to spamming Zyns.

Pop a Zyn → elevates oxidative stress levels → reduces NO production from the vessel lining → arteries stiffen & lose their ability to relax

Best evidence

• Mallock-Ohnesorg 2024 (Front Pharmacol): A 6 mg pouch raised BP & arterial stiffness within ~10 minutes. Pouches also increased heart rate linearly with dose: +12 bpm (20 mg) & +25 bpm (30 mg).

Protocol

• Now’s the time for the smooth offramp:

#5: Nattokinase

Why it works

If there’s a supplement to add to every cardiovascular stack, it’s nattokinase.

As you age, blood thickens & clots more readily raising high BP risk, CVD, & poor nutrient delivery.

Beats standard blood thinners like warfarin or aspirin → possesses a unique dual mechanism: it prevents new clots & dissolves existing ones.

Best evidence

• Kim 2008 (Hypertension Research): 86 adults with elevated BP. 2,000 FU/day for 8 weeks.

  • SBP → −5.6 mmHg

  • DBP → −2.8 mmHg

Protocol

• Never combine with anticoagulants or antiplatelets (warfarin, DOACs, aspirin, clopidogrel)

• Full breakdown on brands to opt for, dosing, & timing:

#6: Fasted Z2/Z3 morning cardio

Why it works

Cardio (fasted or not) is a must across any legitimate protocol. Higher stroke volume → lower heart rate → more NO from the vessel lining → lower resting sympathetic tone

Fasting AM cardio becomes a non-negotiable for lowering BP levels.

Insulin is lowest after an overnight fast → enables superior fat mobilization (fat = desired fuel substrate) → enhanced metabolic flexibility & leptin/insulin sensitivity (psychological bonus of building morning consistency)

Best evidence

• Edwards 2023 (BJSM): Meta-analysis of 270 RCTs & 15.8k people. Cardio training: −4.5/−2.5 mmHg. Reductions by mode: Running: -7.0 SBP, Cycling −6.9 SBP, Walking~−2.9 SBP.

• Vieira 2016 (Br J Nutr): Fasted aerobic sessions burned significantly more fat than fed sessions.

Protocol

• Fasted Z2 most mornings for 30–60 min = lowest-hanging fruit

• Cardiovascular adaptation = build up to Z3 (up to low Z4) for 2–3 days/week

• Minimum 200 min/week in Z2/Z3 for reliable blood pressure reduction

• Higher your BP = the more frequency and volume needed

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Once you see the enshittification cycle, you can’t unsee it.

We covered the process and how you can avoid playing the game, but the time has come for us to conduct a deeper investigation on who’s actually been selling out.

The ship has sailed on many. But not everyone. Some have held their ground quite well over time. Some others, the jury is still out.

So consider this a watch list of brands to keep an eye as they look to optimize margins over the next 3–5 years.

1. Nature’s Bounty (actively being sold to Yellow Wood Partners, 2026)

Origin: Arthur Rudolph started it on Long Island in 1971. Eventually grew into America’s default supplement source.

Deal: Ownership changed hands 3x in a decade. KKR bought it in 2017. Nestlé paid $5.75 billion for it in 2021. Now, Nestlé is selling it to private equity firm Yellow Wood.

Brands included in the sale → Nature’s Bounty, Puritan’s Pride, Osteo Bi-Flex, Ester-C, & Nuun.

Phys Take: Private equity to conglomerate and back to PE in under a decade. The irony here is Piping Rock, the family company the Rudolphs started next, is now buying up brands the conglomerate firms dump.

2. Nuun (actively being sold to Yellow Wood Partners, 2026)

Origin: A Seattle brand that made the fizzy, sugar-free electrolyte tablet popular.

Deal: Nestlé snagged it initially in 2021. Now five years later, it’s part of the same Yellow Wood sale as Nature’s Bounty.

Phys Take: Nothing has visibly changed yet. But they’ve now sold twice in five years. Something to keep on your radar for quality purposes.

3. Driscoll’s (not a sellout but…we’re not buying)

Origin: Founded in 1904 by the Reiter and Driscoll families growing berries in California. Started with the Sweetbriar strawberry found on a Shasta County ranch.

Deal: It was never sold, but it’s become the middleman in recent years.

Driscoll’s owns the patented plant genetics & contracts the growing out to more than 900 independent growers. Now controls ~90% of the raspberry market and the New York Times recently reported it’s the second-highest-earning brand in U.S. supermarkets, behind only Coca-Cola.

An August 2026 investigation laid out how they notoriously outsource any blame when needed and grow next to nothing themselves at this point.

An exceptional synopsis on the situation:

Phys Take: No single company should control this much of a food supply, especially one tied to consumer health. Whenever possible, I’m leveraging berries in season from the local farmers in my region. When it’s not feasible, I opt for organic frozen berries picked ripe, immediately frozen, & end up costing less.

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4. Jamieson Wellness (actively being acquired by Kirin, 2026)

Origin: A 104-year-old Toronto based brand and Canada’s #1 supplement brand.

Deal: Kirin, the Japanese beer company, is buying it for C$2.5 billion. The sale also includes Youtheory, Progressive, & Iron Vegan.

Kirin is expanding into health because Japan’s beer market keeps shrinking at a rough rate of 3% annually for the last decade.

Phys Take: Consider it a watch list addition for our Canadian friends. When a brewer diversifies into the supplement landscape to offset falling beer sales, high chance they’re looking to grow at a rapid rate. Another popular brand to keep an eye on if it’s your go-to.

5. Thorne (acquired by Procter & Gamble, 2026)

Origin: Started as a small, local health operation in Seattle. For the last 4 decades, Thorne has had explosive growth & built a strong reputation among healthcare practitioners & athletes.

Deal: Private equity firm L Catterton took it private for $680 million in 2023. Now, P&G just paid $3.8 billion.

Phys Take: There’s no decline at this point. Even since 2023. But P&G just paid a 6x markup. Do the math…it needs to earn that back somehow. The three big moves I’m watching closely in the next year: 1) any formula shifts & sourcing disclosures, 2) $/serving (manipulation done via serving size most common), and 3) whether the robust practitioner network holds on or decides to give way to the big-box retail soon to come.

6. Grüns (acquired by Unilever, 2026)

Origin: A gummy “greens” startup founded in August 2023 by former private equity investor Chad Janis. Scaled the brand from a Stanford dorm room to what it is today.

Deal: Unilever bought it earlier in 2026 for $1.2 billion.

Phys Take: I’m a hard no on gummy supplement products as it is → underdosed, overpriced, & poor bioavailability due to thermal degradation of the intended compounds. This reinforces the rule even further.

7. 23andMe (acquired by TTAM Research Institute, 2025)

Origin: Co-founded in 2006 by Anne Wojcicki. Offers saliva-based, genetic DNA testing for ancestry.

Deal: Went public in 2021. Underwent a major data breach of 6.9 million people in 2023. Went bankrupt in 2025. Then sold its assets, including customers’ DNA data, for $305 million to a nonprofit led by Wojcicki herself. More than two dozen states sued to block the sale.

Phys Take: The situation has been nothing short of a disaster and has single-handedly tarnished the reputation of the entire DNA testing space. Ugly. And if you care about your personal data privacy, you’ll steer clear of most large-scale DNA testing services. At least for the time being.

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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.

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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.

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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