Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"
Total Male Optimization "People who say it can't be done shouldn't interrupt those that are doing it"
Two other lessons I recently learned..
1) Training too much is not better
With this protocol, I really fell in love with having a consistent weight training routine. And I told myself hey, if I'm gonna have a dysfunctional dick, might as well try to look like a beast. I was training 4-5x/week, with HIIT once, and regular cardio ~3-4x/week.
Looking back, that was too much for me. I dialed back (weights every 2 days, HIIT once, and regular cardio twice) and feel much better.
Overtraining is not good for testosterone.
I looked into it, and learned that it made sense. When there is excessive inflammation (whatever the cause), our body creates cortisol to fight it, and uses a portion of our pregnenolone to do so. Pregnenolone being a distant precursor to testosterone: less preg = less T. Interesting stuff
2) Eat balanced
The TMO says we can eat whatever from that list, and my dumbass took it way too litterally. All summer I didn't eat much vegetables, pretty much only chicken, cheese, cream, bacon and bell pepper. That was my go-to meal twice a day.
That's super taxing on the liver. We know PFS impacts the liver, so I should've given it a chance by eating balanced. My naturopath suggested I take a liver friendly diet for a few weeks, and the improvements are huge. I'm still within TMO, I eat a ton of greens, white fish, small portions of chicken, watermelon, pears. Made a huge difference in my mental and sleep.
Not necessarly advising people to do that, it was probably simply what I personnaly needed after eating unbalances for so long. I am an odd case since that B, but once I fix my methylation I should be back on the normal PFS schoolbus with you guys. I would just recommend to eat balanced from the get go.
Damn that was way longer than expected. Anyway, if it can dissuade the new guys from making the same mistake!
Much love lozers
Yeah, one thing the juice feast taught me for sure was just how important it is to get in your fruits and veggies for this condition. I know they're not the high GI carbs most desired for backloading, but I beast out on fruit on backloading nights anyway, in addition to the usual potatoes and white rice. Also, organ meats I think should really be included more often than normal. They're so chock full of good shit, I can feel a noticeable improvement in mood and energy when I eat liver or "ancestral blends" with heart and liver added to the beef.
Also totally agree with you on overtraining. It's easy to get overzealous with all this, and if you're like me, you sometimes feel like you should be doing something every moment of the day to combat your situation...but it's important to keep in mind all the work that's going on under the surface with muscle repair and growth, even when sleeping! We are hitting our targets even when we dont know it. Took me a while too, to comprehend that and stop doing HIIT, with 8 sprint sessions, 5-6 days a week, and weights every single day...Our overzealousness can easily result in higher cortisol/lower T, and trigger crashes.
Wow you were doing 8 HIIT sprints 5-6 times a week? Yeah that's no good haha. I love regular cardio but I reduced it for the same reasons.
Organ blends seem like a lot of fun, I was thinking of trying some when the B vitamin bullshit is behind me. Which brand do you take? Mofo?
Yeah, I was totally overdoing it with the exercise at first. Felt good the first couple of weeks but then I realized I was dragging a lot, and then had a semi-crash with the weird neurological symptoms, anxiety/derealization, and lethargy immediately following a HIIT/weight lifting spree...I decided from then on I was going to take seriously the science behind cortisol and overexertion, and do weights and HIIT (6 bike sprints now per session) every other day, occasionally taking a day off altogether on the HIIT days.
As for the organ meats, I was referring to the "ancestral blend" of frozen meat/organ meat combination that is sold at the nearby whole foods. It's got liver, heart, and beef mixed together. I occasionally will eat liver too. I am familiar with the Mofo brand of "ancestral" supplements too, however, as I was seriously considering taking their prostate formula back when I was having perineum twitching and wondering what the fuck was going on with it all. Definitely worth taking into consideration your sensitivity to B vits before going crazy with organ meats though.
Good move. But yo just a heads up, I remember reading CD recommends to only do HIIT once or twice a week max. Every other day might be too much.
For sure I have to fix the B stuff before anything. Im losing a bit of mass with this balanced diet but I feel better so fuck trying to look like Arnold.
I can understand though, with the shape you're in, you probably feel inclined to keep it that way. I'm sure you will hit a point in your stability/recovery where you can go back to focusing on maintaining all the bulk with a slightly less "balanced" diet. Something to consider, however, is investing in a juicer so you can still squeeze in all the veggies and fruit nutrition without necessarily impacting your appetite so much, thus leaving more room for bulking up foods. You could maybe strike a balance with the juicer and kind of have the best of both worlds, still making a point to eat more fruit/veggies than you were, since there is something to be said also for the insoluble fiber that is discarded by juicing.
You're right on the HIIT. My schedule is still being tweaked, but that is the only issue. I'm going to map out the "rest" days on a calendar going forward, since the odd number of days in a week makes it tricky to keep track of in your head when you're trying to do 2 days of HIIT every week max. One week it will be one rest day (meaning one day of no HIIT or weights), and the subsequent week will have 2 rest days. Will see how that goes...so far have avoided any crashes for over a month and I'm just so happy to be able to say that. While that doesn't mean I'm cured by any means, it's nice to be in medium/high gear all the time. Hope it sticks...
Thanks, but you know I would become an out of shape obese in a heartbeat if it meant recovering tomorrow lol. Anyone with PFS would honestly.
Good call for the juicer, that's a good idea. Yeah a balance with regular fruits would be best to keep some fibers. I might rebalance the diet when I get better yeah. I can't wait to be done with that B-stuff to pick up where I left, I was making serious progress. Life was simpler when I didn't have a particular problem and I could just grind on the protocol head down.
Keep it up man you seem to be doing good