[00:00:00.200] - Chris
Wow. How many of you have listened to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast? I can't tell you that reaction how much that means to us. Welcome back to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:11.520] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. This new camera angle makes my arms look smaller than yours.
[00:00:21.230] - Chris
I'm noticing that, and I really appreciate it. I thought you did that on purpose.
[00:00:24.300] - Brandon
No, I don't. I didn't, and I am not happy with it.
[00:00:28.940] - Chris
Are we on? Are we live?
[00:00:30.000] - Brandon
Oh, man, we've been live.
[00:00:31.130] - Chris
Oh, bro.
[00:00:32.030] - Brandon
Okay. That's why I made the joke. I won't tell anybody about it.
[00:00:35.100] - Chris
Well, so it's been a while since we've talked about fitness and wellness and health and that stuff. It's part of what you and I focus on, a priority for you and I. We ebb and flow, both of us do.
[00:00:47.490] - Brandon
Oh, yeah. We're humans.
[00:00:48.900] - Chris
Why do I think it's relevant? I think you and I are just like every other person in the restoration industry in that we travel a crap ton. For us, being on the West Coast, and some of the listeners will relate to this, When we routinely fly over the East Coast and back. Last week, I had a turnaround. I came back from Austin, so Texas time, to Oregon for about 30 hours. Then I left to go back to Kent, Ohio, East Coast time, and I was literally on the ground for 26 hours. Then I popped back to Oregon time. This is brutal. I imagine a lot of people relate to that, whether you're a cat person, you're some corporate It's a separate restoration company executive, regional this or that, whatever you can relate to. We're all, I think in this industry, subject perhaps to a little more stress than other industry verticals and just the variability, the chaos of the industry, whatever. Health, it's important. You can address that with Red Bulls and cigarettes or you can do some other things. Anyway, I just thought it'd be fun and perhaps helpful or useful for us just to give an update.
[00:01:58.100] - Chris
What are we doing right now? Is Is there anything that either one of us has discovered that is helping in a material way or whatever? I mean, you had a rando back injury here, what, about six weeks ago, eight weeks ago, was it?
[00:02:11.400] - Brandon
Yeah, it's just like I've got this Achilles heel in my S5 L1 or whatever, down low. People have heard me whine about it before, but basically, I have a disk degenerate.
[00:02:24.620] - Chris
You jumped out of a plane one too many times.
[00:02:26.410] - Brandon
Too many times, jacked up my back, and so the disks are stuck. It's just a weak spot. Anyways, I had a resurgent. I blew a disk out. Excuse me, I had a bulging disk in February. That was on the back of getting sick for some ungod awful amount of time, which was just solely weird. Then started to get back on the horse after that. Then, yeah, like eight. No, it's only been-Yeah, I guess it's only been two or three weeks. When we moved. When we moved at the beginning of the month, I just heard that dumb thing again, which got me super infuriated. But One of the things that happened is that I decided for some other non-related reasons to go back to the gym versus a home gym. Home gym is all free weights. It's all dumbbells, barbells, which is my preferred resistance training method because you get all the other axillary muscles that help support that. It's just a more robust workout.
[00:03:25.100] - Chris
Sure.
[00:03:25.680] - Brandon
But the downside is when you hurt yourself, it's It's the not being able to isolate the exercise.
[00:03:34.360] - Chris
Your muscles are unsupported.
[00:03:35.630] - Brandon
Yeah. It's like you run into a lot of problems. You really have to reduce weight load and all the things. And so, thankfully, because I had moved to a formal gym, and I'm going now to one that's like they heavily emphasize gear. I mean, it's a great gym, dude, is that I had all this equipment that I could isolate the muscles that I wanted to continue to make progress on while while I was still protecting my back. Specifically, what I can get in trouble with is lifting and moving the weights into position, not the actual exercise itself.
[00:04:09.860] - Chris
Sure. Hefting the dumbbells up for incline, dumbbell press or whatever.
[00:04:14.660] - Brandon
It's not my favorite workout, but it's been so effective that it's helped my mind a lot. I've remained way more optimistic. Normally, when I get a serious injury, it's hard for me to remain optimistic. I'm remaining super I'm optimistic and I've made gains. I'm able to have really what's been the equivalent of a really strong resistance training session, but I've been really well protected. I'm going slow adding plates, I'm doing all the things, but I've had really great workouts. The other thing that I did, too, is I used to be non-committal on when in the day I would work out. In fact, I leaned towards an afternoon, and I just realized how much more times I was coming up with a reason why I can't work out that evening, and then I switched to morning. My alarm goes off at 4: 15, which I know for some people, it's just nutty. It goes off at 4: 15, and by 4: 35 or so, I'm in the truck headed to the gym. I don't know what has happened, dude, but for the last... I'm going on week three, week four. I love getting up and going to the gym.
[00:05:23.480] - Brandon
It sounds nutty, but for whatever reason, when I was afternoon, I would get some anxiety around it the day prior. Oh, yeah. Just, I got to make sure, I got to remember. But dude, now the alarm goes off and my system knows you're going to grab your cup of coffee, you're going to jump in the truck, put your running shoes on, put your Airpods in and get busy. Then now, I think I was telling you this yesterday, there's four or five guys that are in the gym at 4: 45 with me. They're for real, bro.
[00:05:55.680] - Chris
Anybody who's showing up to the gym at 4: 45 is for real, bro.
[00:05:58.980] - Brandon
It's for real. There's a couple of young bucks in there, but there's one dude that's probably got me by 10 years. He's a pure specimen. I was telling you, his working set is 3: 10 on a bench press. No one near him. Bunkers. No grunting. He's just fucking thrown up 310 smooth as ice, dude. Anyways, well, now, and I laugh about it because none of them give two shits. But now in my mind, I have this perception of the dudes are going to be there at 4: 45, and if I'm not in there, they're going to be like, Yeah, I knew he was a punk. So between shifting the morning and going back to a gym where there's other people, and again, nobody cares. They're doing the same shit I am where they only care about themselves. But there's just some layer of accountability. Honestly, my favorite part of the day is when my alarm goes off at 4: 15 because I know I'm about to go in and do something that majority of the population won't do. Most people aren't awake yet. I'm already achieving in a small % of people, and I haven't even made it to the office yet.
[00:07:06.240] - Chris
That's pretty fun. The way I feel it is, I'm starting the day by controlling myself. That's it. I'm really getting past the bullshit, and I'm getting into something that I know I need and I know I want, but I am trying to avoid. Yeah. Overcoming that avoidance, I did that this morning. After our conversation, you and I hung out yesterday and went on a hike. That was rad. That was one of the things you mentioned was just that morning routine. I was like, Man, I know what you're talking about. I felt that. I liked that. It worked so awesome. I stopped doing it. I stopped. Part of my issue is it's this dance, right? Because if I'm going to get up at 4: 30, I got to get to bed at a certain time. Sometimes it's hard for me to get to sleep. Just naturally, for me to get to sleep at, say, 9: 30, especially I have teenagers in my home and it's still summer. It'll probably be a little easier when the kids are back to school because they start heading towards bed around 9: 30, 10: 00. There's not as much activity in the house, but gosh, the kids are up till 11 o'clock during the summers.
[00:08:13.800] - Chris
Anyway, but I did it this morning. I managed to do it and taken a little gummy before bed helps a little bit, to be honest. But yeah, so I got up and I just felt awesome. Another thing, too, that I changed recently is I've always been pretty disciplined with with the training in the gym and stuff. But lately, I've been feeling overwhelmed. We have so much in motion at floodlight. It's all the things we're working on. I just feel like my workouts were taken forever. I had that RP hypertrophy app that I've been following, and I loved that for a season. But a lot of my workouts were going like an hour 10. Oh, yeah. An hour 15. I just like, I get it. Some of you hardcore people out there, you're like, Oh, you only do an hour 15.
[00:08:58.910] - Brandon
It's like, well... I'm in here three hours.
[00:09:00.690] - Chris
Yeah. I just felt overwhelmed by it, especially because I'd go 4: 30, five o'clock whenever we wrap up at the office, and now all of a sudden it's 6: 15, it's 6: 30 before I'm getting home, then we're doing dinner by 7: 00. Then it's like the night's gone, right? If I want to go with my wife to walk the dog in the evening, it's like all that stuff just gets thrown off the plate. Then if I I don't want to hang out in the sauna with one of my buddies. They happen to be there. Hey, you want a sauna time? I don't have time for any of that. I just switched to dude. I totally like Simplified. I basically do push. I have this A/B schedule, and I do it four times a week. I just do push, then I do a pull, then I take Wednesday off, and then I do push-pull on Thursday, Friday.
[00:09:53.980] - Brandon
Because you incorporate legs in your push-pull.
[00:09:56.180] - Chris
I do full body, but I'll just do on Mondays, I'll do squat push movements. Then on my pull movements, I'll really focus on the hamstrings and glutes. I show up and I do what I want to, and I just do it as hard as I can. I'll go into two reps in reserve. Sometimes I'll go to failure on my final set. I know I'd probably be better off having this progressive overload program and stuff like that. But I'm just like, it's good I'm in here four days a week.
[00:10:30.000] - Brandon
A hundred %.
[00:10:31.540] - Chris
Maybe I'm in maintenance mode, I don't know, but it has felt so freeing to just show up and be like, All right, I'm really tired. I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm not going to go hard into the pain. I'm going to go hard, and then I'm going to leave. A lot of times, my workouts have been like 45 minutes. Then every once in a while, I run into my buddy, Jared or Tim or whatever, Hey, let's do façada. Then I have time. Then I can take 20 minutes and still be home within an hour or so. That's It's been really... I like the freedom of that.
[00:11:02.240] - Brandon
Yeah, I do too. I'm push-pull legs, and I'm currently going six days. I had to bump up creatine, which I want to talk about. Oh, sure. Yeah, because I've had a really interesting experience.
[00:11:14.200] - Chris
What do you think you've noticed about that? There's this whole thing lately.
[00:11:17.430] - Brandon
Yeah, there's- Rhonda Patrick, Andrew Huberman, Peter Atia, Joe Rogans brought it up.
[00:11:25.180] - Chris
Everybody's talking about creatine. I swear, I swear to you, I have no less than five creatine gummy companies, advertising my Facebook feed, my Instagram feed.
[00:11:33.460] - Brandon
So clearly you're a user. Yeah, that's right. Oh, bro. I need to do gummies for travel.
[00:11:37.660] - Chris
Dude, I am a big fan of gummies. But you got to make sure you get stuff that doesn't have a ton of bullshit, like a ton of sugar. Of course, there was a There's a report that came out that a lot of these gummies that people are putting out don't actually have... The standard dosage is five grams. That the four gummies or whatever you got to eat for that. There's a lot of brands out there that they've tested that don't have that. Oh, wow. You think you're getting five grams and you might get two. Oh, wow. You got to get the good stuff.
[00:12:03.210] - Brandon
But anyways. That is... I have threatened to be consistent with creatine for off and on pretty much my whole life. I know I've been bugging you about it for a while. Yeah, you've obviously been religious about it. I was really into it for a short period. Most of my muscle I put on during a one-year stent while I was deployed. In between movement in and out of theater, we had several runs where it was like, you just are spending a god awful amount of time waiting. When we would do that, we just lifted our faces off and we were supplementing-And you were 20 something. Everywhere we could. We were in our late 20s and we're lifting like three hours a day, heavily isolated movements. You're doing like, biceps would be like five, six different X. I mean, it was obnoxious. But I was on creatine that whole time because you had to, because there was no way to lift for 3 hours a day and be recovered by the next But all our gains were in 45-day sprints. We would just go in and go nuts all out for 45 days, and then we'd move north or move into an operational space or whatever.
[00:13:11.720] - Brandon
Anyways, I know that there's value in it, but I just have been inconsistent. Just a couple of weeks ago, I started taking the minimum, the five grams, because I need it. The way creatine works, you got to obviously build it up into your muscles. Then you just keep those reserves topped off, essentially, and that's how your body's using. That's a really shitty example, but it's good enough. Sure. Well, all this research that's coming out has moot because it's always been about what happens in muscle with creatine. It's probably the most tested, supported, scientifically sound supplement there is.
[00:13:49.200] - Chris
One of the few that actually has been proven to work.
[00:13:51.410] - Brandon
That's proven. It's just like you just do it. If you want recovery from consistent workouts, take creatine. It just does what you need it to. That's where the 5 grams comes from because your muscle just can't use more than that, and so you're just wasting your money, essentially. When they're looking at muscle, interaction of muscle and creatine, and what's happened, and I don't know for certain, but essentially neuroscientists somehow got- Some new research. Yeah, they started talking and thinking about creatine from the perspective of, well, wait a minute, and I don't remember the science, but essentially there's something that happens from that's good for a process that happens inside the brain. The idea is that they've decided and determined that, okay, yeah, it's great for muscle up to that five-gram mark, but then everything after five grams is actually being used by your brain, and it's immediate. Whereas you have to load for muscles to use it and build up that reserve, your brain can use it that day, the moment it gets access to it, essentially. Again, I'm not like, Watch Huberman or Daira, the CEO, just did one with her, and she's rad.
[00:15:09.880] - Brandon
Anyways, I decided to do it. I've been running 15 grams a day, and so I go do my workout first thing in the morning, and then when I get back to the house, I take my supplements and I do a big thing of water and my 15 grams. I told you, Hey, if it's placebo, I'm cool with it, but there is a noticeable difference in my brain energy since I've been taking the 15 grams a day. In my experience, I think it's true. I think that the brain is able to use it effectively as an energizer source. It's essentially what it is. It's way better than caffeine or anything else. Not that I don't drink too much caffeine because I do. But it just has... I'm having a more consistent energy throughout the day. Now, let me be clear because I was just whining about it before we started recording. I'm not running around at 11 in energy all the time. Sure. But my experience so far is consistently, I am much better off than I was prior to not taking the 15 grams a day.
[00:16:20.480] - Chris
Something you might try is taking your 5 or 10 in the morning and then doing an afternoon dose. Like an afternoon. Like a lunch dose.
[00:16:29.010] - Brandon
That might-That might be good. Because I have found-Almost like you're burning it up.
[00:16:33.020] - Chris
Yeah, because I started hyperdosing it 15 to 20 grams a day, probably four weeks ago. I think I started four or five weeks ago. I bought some gummies. I've been traveling with the gummies. I find, too, the gummies, they're way more expensive than powder, obviously. But I'm just so more likely... You got to take a lot. Well, I like them. What I'll do is I'll take three or four gummies, which is five grams. I might do that three or four times during the day. Oh, I I'll just take them intermittently because I heard one of those guys, Huberman or somebody else, Rogan, I think just talking about just snacking on them. I've been doing that, and I find it reliably is giving me another hour to two hours of clearing your thinking in my day. Productivity. Yeah, productivity. Whereas I start to maybe slump in the... I was telling you yesterday, I'm so much more a morning guy. By two or three o'clock, I'm really starting to fade in terms of just my Just with hammer down, right? Yeah. I've been finding consistently... The day starts pretty early because we have East Coast clients, right?
[00:17:37.900] - Chris
Yeah. But I'm consistently finding I can go five, six o'clock, and I still got some in the tank when I go home. That's been good.
[00:17:45.540] - Brandon
Well, I think the benefit of that just holistically is it sucks when you're basically juiced by two or three, you go into the reserve tank for another couple hours because by the time then you go home to your family, there's no tank to tap into. So they literally just get the leftover bullshit straps at best. I do feel like this has helped that quite a bit. I have a little bit more juice when I go home. I can be a little bit more engaged and more effective.
[00:18:17.670] - Chris
Same.
[00:18:18.420] - Brandon
Okay, here's the front, dude, that I'm almost ashamed to say this out loud because of how much money it's going to cost me, but I'm about to do the pod bed thing, dude. I don't know. Have Have you heard about this?
[00:18:30.620] - Chris
Bro, I've been thinking about it the same. It's like a, what, four or five grand or something?
[00:18:34.340] - Brandon
Yeah, all in. Those of you that don't know, I was exposed to this through Huberman, probably like most people. I don't think he found it, but he's a substantial backer. The idea is that part of what makes you sleep crappy is a lot of it has to do with temperature. Basically, your body going through these shifts of getting a little too or getting too warm. Then basically your system is waking itself up for you to do what you need to to get back into that right space. That is a thing is temperature has a major impact. Another thing, and I'm going to try to begin in layering all of these things consecutively because I've literally struggled and tried. I'm just going to share what I've tried and what hasn't worked for me yet and where I'm going next. If anybody gives a shit, they'll know. The other thing is eating too near your bedtime. So optimally, they say about three hours. And because your body does things to process the food that basically keeps you awake. You're actively needing to participate in a process which prevents you from going to sleep or getting into rep.
[00:19:49.700] - Chris
Are you a business that's under 5 million in sales, and you're just now getting ready to try and scale your company up and hit some of those targets you've always wanted to hit, but now you've got to build a sales team, or maybe you just You hired your first sales rep, but you don't really know how to manage them. How do you manage, lead, train, develop a sales rep? Floodlight has a solution for you now. So we can actually assign your sales rep a turnkey VP of sales that will help them create a sales blueprint, their own personal sales plan for your market. They'll have weekly one-on-ones with that sales rep to coach, mentor them, hold them accountable to the plan. And they'll also have a monthly owners meeting where they'll meet with you or your general manager and review the progress of that sales rep, their plan to actual results, what performance improvement they're working on with them. Also let them know, Hey, they're doing really well. Maybe we should think of hiring a second sales rep. They're going to have that one-to-one advice for you as an owner or senior leader on the team as well.
[00:20:43.450] - Chris
How great would that be to have a bolt-on sales manager for your one sales rep, and it's only 2,500 bucks a month. If you're interested in talking more about that, reach out. Let's grab some time and let's talk shop. Our floodlight clients this last year in 2024 generated over 250 million in revenue, supported by, advised by an industry expert who's owned and operated a business just like you. So take action. Don't kick the can down the road. Start with our business health and value assessment, and let's unlock the next chapter of your success story.
[00:21:16.880] - Brandon
The other thing that I know most people have heard is screen time. Oh, yeah. And having a screen on right until you go to sleep. Another thing is the how you wake up. So if you're an individual that actually makes it to an alarm, which I rarely ever do, that jarring sound like, get up, get going, instead of an awakening process.
[00:21:43.050] - Chris
Yeah, from the sun comes through the window or something like that.
[00:21:46.280] - Brandon
That too creates this bad cycle where the combination of doing that and then taking in caffeine immediately, you're basically preventing your body from chemically doing what it would normally do to wake you up. Yeah. The problem with that over time is that it basically creates a bad pattern that's not supporting your sleep. Then you get stuck in this loop where I need the caffeine and the thing to wake me up because I have trouble with the cycle.
[00:22:14.200] - Chris
The bed solves for a lot of that.
[00:22:16.370] - Brandon
This bed thing is interesting.
[00:22:19.570] - Chris
I used to have one, by the way.
[00:22:20.940] - Brandon
You did?
[00:22:21.740] - Chris
I had a full-blown pot. I had an Uler. I don't know what that is. So Uler was the original. It's a mattress cover, a full mattress cover, both that has little tubes of water that circulate, temperature-controlled water through the bed. You can cool it all the way down. The lowest I ever got, it was 57 degrees, and it can go all the way up to, I think, 105. You can set alarms. You can set basically to wake up. It slowly warms up your bed to wake you up in the morning, this thing. Oh, yeah. So similar feature set, it broke. It stopped working. This was about three years ago, and this other company had a terrible warranty, whatever. I've just been waiting to maybe get the pod 8 or whatever it is.
[00:23:05.840] - Brandon
Yeah, it's pod 5, I think is the release. It's the newest one. It's the same thing. It's a cover that goes over the mattress. There's several parts that you can buy whatever mix and match. The main thing, though, is this pod thing, and it is you add water, and it essentially, through an app, the bed monitors your temperature. You set what you want it to be. It monitors it, and then it's adjusting all night long to keep you in this very specific range of temperature. Each side is its own. My wife can have her setting that makes sense for her sleep. I I didn't have my side. There's that. Then what they did is they added a comforter with the actual, like a cover. It looks like a normal comforter. Now the same principle.
[00:23:55.940] - Chris
It's got the same water circulation temperature.
[00:23:58.550] - Brandon
Yeah. Now it's It's 360 degrees is in this controlled environment. Then the wake up, and then it's got a sound machine built into it. I need white noise. I'm so bougey. This is so ridiculous. Then there's this alarm function. But what it does is it the same, like you talked about, it changes the temperature up. It begins to vibrate.
[00:24:20.490] - Chris
I was going to say there's vibration.
[00:24:21.810] - Brandon
There's a vibration it begins to send through you. It's just this idea of it starts. If your idea is, I got to get out of by X, this thing starts to do its thing.
[00:24:33.040] - Chris
Yeah, 20, 30 minutes of it.
[00:24:34.320] - Brandon
Bring you back to life, start getting you aware of your surroundings instead of this, or whatever, jarring sound. Anyways, That's a lot of what's happening. I'm so desperate that I'm going to try it. I get it. They have a rad return policy. It's a stupid amount of money. Also, they have a frame. If you get the frame, then it'll do the raising and lowering of your mattress and all that shit, which I don't... The temperature is the main thing. Anyway, so we're going to try it. I am so hopeful, bro, that I will break the five-hour-a-night sleep pattern that I've been on probably for two decades.
[00:25:12.560] - Chris
Well, I can't wait to hear your review of it. If you love it, I'm probably next in line. I remember when we had that mattress cover and it was working.
[00:25:20.220] - Brandon
It was the bestIt was effective when it was.
[00:25:22.940] - Chris
Thing ever. It was just the best thing ever. It's awesome. It's unlike... I mean, there's no other way to sleep that comfortably. Personally, I prefer having a nice warm comfort over the top and then having it cool on my back. That is the best feeling. Of course, there's no other way to do it except to use a system like this. Dude, how are you doing? Where are you at, like food-wise, like diet?
[00:25:47.940] - Brandon
I was starting to get a little burnt out on the carnivore front. I think mainly it's because what I accidentally slipped into was a diet that was pretty heavy in fat, and I didn't I just wasn't super paying attention to that because I just don't want to eat chicken like a million times a day. Bacon, sausage. Yeah, it's all the good carnival meat that I love. You end up finding out that most of it's full of fat. I ended up moving away from that a little bit and more into, I would just call it more of a whole food focus. I'm just trying to make sure that we're meal prepping and cooking so that I know the meat is coming from a good place. I'm not a huge vegetable person. I just think most of them taste gross when they're cooked. The cooking process also takes out a lot of the shit that makes a vegetable worth eating. Sure. I think what I'm going to ultimately do, this is a newer thing, I think I'm going to lean a little bit more in an AG1 or something where I'm taking in a more dense...
[00:26:54.600] - Chris
Greens and minerals and stuff.
[00:26:55.820] - Brandon
Green. Yeah, because really at the end of the day, if you want your vegetables to be giving you a lot of vitamins and minerals that you need. They need to be dark leafy, which is kale and broccoli. To be honest, I am only interested in eating broccoli so many times a week, and kale can fuck off. I don't. For me, in order for this to be, I think I'm going to have to supplement. I'm basically meat and fruit with some greens that get sprinkled in from time to time. But if I'm using an AG1, I probably won't even bother much on the vegetables.
[00:27:28.510] - Chris
Yeah, I've been simplifying. Yeah, I was on the carnival front with you, and I'm trying to allow myself to have fun. We were recently at the Coast, and I swear, okay, those of you have been to the Oregon Coast, Newport has this bayfront, and there is no less than six taffy shops within a three-block radius of the Bayfront. It's unbelievable. I think they're all owned by the same conglomerate because they all have basically the same selection. They've got hand-scooped ice cream. They've got the caramels, the chocolate-covered sea foam, and a whole grip of taffy. Anyway, so my family and I were there, and everybody wants to get ice cream. Historically, I've been that guy. It's like, I'm good. No sugar for me. I was like, Is life about the number of years that we have of it, or is it about the quality of it? Do I want to have a treat? I do want to have a treat every now and then. I've just adopted this principle of win in Rome. When I'm out with people, and if everybody else is ordering a dessert or whatever, I'm going to get a dessert. I'm going to participate.
[00:28:39.760] - Chris
Every other time when it's up to me, I'm going to choose to have. What I've been orienting myself around, really, is just trying to get that whole gram per pound of bodyweight of protein. It's hard. Do it with wholefoods. Yeah, it's hell hard. Although I do some protein shakes. I was telling you yesterday, I try not to do more than one protein shake, but it's really gosh damn convenient. I get these Slate drinks also in my Facebook feed. I freaking get so much of this stuff and Facebook is probably listening to me right now. Oh, yeah. Now I'm going to get served up some new protein snacks. I've had protein Rice Krispy treats. Anyway, I've done all that. I'm trying to get rid of a lot of that processed protein junk. I eat a lot of ground beef, a lot of eggs, a lot of the Costco salmon They have these individually wrapped salmon filets. Super awesome. Costco also has these individually wrapped like line caught cod. Filets, they're just like the perfect size. They're like 26 grams of protein each. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of that and then fruit I'll just usually have a bowl of strawberries and an apple.
[00:29:49.420] - Chris
It's probably the most common thing I do right now. I don't know. It's been working pretty good. I feel pretty good when I'm stick to that diet.
[00:29:55.920] - Brandon
See, I'm with you on the win-in- roam mentality. What was it? Two nights ago, I think. Yeah, two nights ago, my daughter and my wife and I, we went out. First off, we went to a place that's full of food carts, and then they serve beer on top. Oh, boy. I got a really great IPA. You drank your dinner? Oh, yeah. Then I had some Hawaiian vegetables and meat, basically. I'm like, Okay, it's not too bad. I'm beer in. It was really great. There's a great thing when you're trying to maintain some body shape, when you don't drink IPAs every day, they're really delicious when you have one. You're like, Oh, yeah, I fucking love that. Then as we're sitting there, my daughter's like, You know what? You really need some frozen yogurt. Bro, yo, bro. Then we went and got some whatever the newest version of For your is, basically, and it was amazing. You know what? The reality of it is, is I currently work out six gosh damn days a week. The reality of it is, is I'm doing that so that for my, more so than anything, my mental health. Now, granted, the better shape you're in, the better you feel about yourself, it fuels your mental health.
[00:31:07.780] - Brandon
End of story. So mainly the way, the reason I'm doing it is for I want to have a good life with the years that I have left. And I want to mentally, I like the benefit of working out on a consistent basis. It helps everything from my soul to my chest. You know what I mean? And I want to do that forever. And so if I treat eating as if I'm constantly battling some monster, it's super unmotivating.
[00:31:36.840] - Chris
Yeah, like humans, we need some amount of pleasure. It's fun. There's a balance, right? It's like too much pleasure and it creates problems. Too little pleasure creates problems.
[00:31:47.200] - Brandon
I think that way. I really do. I didn't feel guilty. Now, I think when I feel guilty is when I'm supposed to work out four or five, six days a week. I've worked out two, and then I have two nights like that. Yeah, Well, that's when you're in trouble. But if you're consistent, the whole freedom and discipline, that's an example.
[00:32:06.940] - Chris
It's totally it, man.
[00:32:08.030] - Brandon
When you're dialed in and you have one night, there's a reason The Rock has a feed day on Sunday. No, it doesn't make you go backwards.
[00:32:17.040] - Chris
Dude, I have three. My mom is in town.
[00:32:20.700] - Brandon
Oh, boy.
[00:32:21.460] - Chris
There are these this pancake mix. Oh, yeah. At Trader Joe's. Yes. Have I made these for you?
[00:32:28.060] - Brandon
No, but we've bought the Mochi? Oh, yeah.
[00:32:31.040] - Chris
The Purple box?
[00:32:31.920] - Brandon
Yes.
[00:32:32.540] - Chris
Oh, my gosh.
[00:32:33.760] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:32:34.340] - Chris
I have three boxes of that. We're doing a family pancake feed this weekend. Oh, you are? I'm freaking saving up, dude. Oh, yeah. I'm going to have eggs and beef all day to day.
[00:32:42.480] - Brandon
These are the protein ones, though, right? The protein cakes?
[00:32:44.820] - Chris
No, no, no, no.
[00:32:45.960] - Brandon
Oh, I don't know what you're talking about. The ones I'm talking about are the best protein pancakes I've ever had, which is a false sense of security.
[00:32:55.160] - Chris
Because they've also got 50 grams of carbs with it, too, right? Yeah. Okay, so all right. We have two people listening right now. No, I'm sure everybody's listening. It's my wife and Steve. They just can't get enough of this. Can we talk about the TRT? Can we check? Yeah. I've been on Enclomafine. I think I maybe mentioned that in a previous episode, a few months ago when I started that. I still haven't done my blood work. I need to go in and get some blood work. You do. They renewed my prescription. Right now, I do every other day. I'm doing 25 milligrams every other day of Enclomafine citrate, which is important for those of you listening. Is that an No, it's a pill. It's a form of Clomid, but Clomid has some secondary effects that some men experience where it, if I understand this correctly, it raises the female hormone Along with the testosterone too much. Estrogen? Estrogen, yeah. It has an estrogenic effect that can be negative. It create the manboobs and that stuff, apparently. But in clomaphein, citrate has some blocker built into that to where it It doesn't elevate the estrogen in the same way.
[00:34:02.960] - Chris
Anyway, in clomaphein, citrate is this new discovery. Basically, what it does is it signals to the pituitary gland to increase your own testosterone production. Anyways, I've been on that.
[00:34:16.160] - Brandon
Honestly, so just to be clear, you had your levels tested and they were lower than you- Yeah, like 390 or so. Which is bottom end of the health- Bottom end of the spectrum.
[00:34:27.060] - Chris
Not scary problematic, But the low end. I think they say 300 and 900 is the range for somebody my age, and I was definitely on the low end. To be honest, I wasn't necessarily feeling it in any particular way. I just had this feeling of I don't feel like I have quite as much fire. Honestly, I was just feeling like I don't feel the fiery ambition, just that get out of bed and get after it thing. I'm accustomed to feeling. So I thought, well, maybe this would help. I do feel like I've felt a little bit of bump, but the only thing that I've really noticed for certain is I've gained a bunch of weight.
[00:35:07.720] - Brandon
Oh, yeah.
[00:35:08.560] - Chris
I've been told this yesterday. A good weight. It's not fat weight, but I've always been between 195 and 205 pounds, almost my entire life, except for when I trained at State Farm, where I was getting daily per diem for two months straight, living in a hotel across... Here are cheese rolls. I was living in a hotel across the street from Red Lobster. Some None of our cat friends can relate to this. When you're on the road, you eat just where the food is. Anyway, so I ballooned up to 220, actually, at that time for a period of months. But anyway, I'm sitting at 2: 15 right now. I have been for the last two months. Within that month, I started stacking on some weight, and I can see some of it in the mirror. My shoulders got broader. Oh, man. I put weight on, but I'm not necessarily a lot stronger longer. I've just had this really interesting neutral to positive experience with it, but I also haven't started the TRT. I have a couple of friends besides you that are on TRT. I'm just curious what the latest is because you're going on what?
[00:36:16.370] - Chris
A year and a half, two years?
[00:36:18.020] - Brandon
No, I think I'm about to get into my third year.
[00:36:21.480] - Chris
Are you? Okay. Yeah. What's that been like?
[00:36:24.000] - Brandon
When I got tested, what drove me to get tested was what I was experiencing Because, again, there's everything from mental fogginess, energy level, libido, optimism, energy, like to physically do things, your ability to recover from workouts. All of that is all falls under our testosterone levels, free testosterone in our body. What I was struggling with was borderline depression, both a lack of physical and mental energy, and my optimism. Just normal life challenges were beginning to feel a bit overwhelming to me. Mine was all about more the mental health state. Well, I just was mentioning it in passing to an acquaintance of mine who had just... He's a little bit older than me, probably about 10 years, 8 years. He had recently found out that he was extremely low, blah, blah, blah. He was just telling me about his experience and what he had learned because I've always made the dumb connection of TRT treatment is the same as steroids or somehow they're even in the same atmosphere and they're not at all. The way they work and function and what's happening here, but they're not even the same sport. Sure. Anyways, long story short, I went in and had tests done.
[00:37:46.210] - Brandon
I go to a doctor that that's what they specialize as men's hormones, basically treating men. It was low. I think I was like 320-ish, 325, which was low enough that insurance will cover it. Basically, at that point, it's low enough that it could be having a negative effect on your health. I would say it took... So mine's an injection. I do it once per week, and it probably took 30 days, maybe six weeks, to really realize this is changing, this is helping me. Now it's so clear and obvious, I can't come off of it. Sure. That's the thing is for stage setting, the idea is that, let's say your body has a thermostat in it. Because of what you're doing, you say to the thermostat, Hey, I need you to be at 70 degrees. Well, what happens when your system is failing, and this happens with age, it's totally normal and it's going to happen to every man, is your body start that thermostat break to where you're saying that it needs to be 70, and it's telling you it 70. It's 70 in here, and you're like, No, it's not 70 degrees. Let's go to 75.
[00:39:05.000] - Brandon
And your body just keeps telling you, I can't because we're already at the temperature you want it to be, if that makes sense. Sure. It's my ability to produce it is broken, essentially, and that's a permanent thing. Once that happens and you get on the true TRT treatment, your body is now taking a supplement to replace what your body would normally have done on its own because it's just broken thermostat. I have to be on it now until I decide I don't care to have the appropriate levels of testrosheron. But then, in order to not make your body then become even worse at it than it already is, I do a cycle every six months of basically... This is so crazy sounding. It's basically a cycle of a fertility drug. That's a reminder because now, okay, now my body says, Oh, it 70 degrees, and I'm pumping in a something that's telling it it's now 85. And so your body rattles down and down and down because it's like, oh, what the fuck? Why can't we- All this stuff is coming in. All this thing is happening. I'm telling you it should only be... So anyways, you have to counter that with a fertility drug, and I do a cycle of it once every six months, and it just reminds my system, Hey, you need to be making your own still as much as you can.
[00:40:25.920] - Brandon
And the combination of the two allows me to not be on a vial of it a week, basically. I only take like one mil, whatever the measure. Okay, it's changed my life. That simple. I'm unapologetic about it. It's not a joke. The anxiety that I am naturally equipped with is substantially lower when my TRT levels are appropriate. Mental fatigue, same. Yeah, I get tired because I'm working my ass off, but I'm not depressed and lacking hope and the ability to adapt and overcome. All of that has done a 180-degree turn Because I normally sit north now of 700. Like a low test, I'll be 6,97. I tend to want to be in the 900 range. That's where I want to sit. Recovery from a workout, listen, I know there's older men than me that are in way better shape. But I'm going to be 49 years old in November. When I'm in a gym working out with other men that are younger than me, I can absolutely keep my own and I can show up the next day and do it again because I have the ability to recover from a good workout. I was losing traction so fast, dude, and I didn't understand what was happening.
[00:41:38.820] - Brandon
But almost overnight, I would just get caved in from a good workout. Then It would take me days before I even had near enough energy to go act like I was going to do it again. Totally different. Now, it's like as long as I'm taking a good supplement and I've got the things on deck that my body needs, I eat creatine and protein for muscle, synthesization or synthesis. Anyways, as long as I do that, my testosterone level gives me everything I need to to still show up and do what I need to do. Just in transparency, I wasn't having a libido problem with it, and I definitely don't have.
[00:42:18.320] - Chris
You have even less of a problem.
[00:42:19.420] - Brandon
Yeah, there wasn't one before, and now there's no sign of getting close to a problem with that. I think people misunderstand what you get from it, and most people think if they have an ED problem, then they're going to go in for this. Listen, that might be a thing, but the reality of it is this is designed to support mental health inside a man. Men need, just like women need the right hormone balance, men need to have the appropriate levels of testosterone in their system to be equipped to do what men are meant to be doing. That is our energy drug. That's what we need inside. If you at all feel like you're in your late 30s, maybe mid-40s, and you're starting to have some struggle with your outlook on life, your mental energy, mental clarity, your ability to show up and work hard on a day in and day out basis, do yourself a favor and have your free testosterone in your TRT levels tested by a lab. Based on that information, I would tell anybody, if they're less than 400, they should seriously consider doing treatment. It's worthwhile to give it a try.
[00:43:30.000] - Chris
I would just offer, because this in clomapheen citrate, I'm not a doctor, but there's options. Your doctor is not necessarily going to throw you on TRT right away. There's these other things, like in clomapheen citrate, that can potentially stimulate your levels back up as an interim with just a pill. But I agree with you, man. I have seen countless examples. It's becoming popular, right? But at the same time, I just see the net impact of it in people, and it's consistent. It's like people get leaner, people get happier, and they get a boost in their confidence, and they just tend to look more youthful. It's very clear to me that this is almost universally a positive thing. I don't know when eventually I'll go on the TRT. It'll be really interesting to see what my levels are on the dosage I've been on. The next step is for me to go 25 milligrams a day, just daily, taking Sundays off, take one day off a week. I'm curious. I'm like, I don't want to gain any more weight, muscle or otherwise. But it'll be interesting to see what effect that has when I eventually do that.
[00:44:39.670] - Brandon
It'll balance out, though. Like your body is not... It's not just putting on weight to put on weight. It's working towards an equilibrium based on how much you work out and all the things.
[00:44:48.880] - Chris
Our friend Jason. Yeah. I just want to look like him. That guy pulls his shirt off and man, there's just no shred of fat on there.
[00:44:57.680] - Brandon
Yeah, he's our age. Yeah. He's a young buck either.
[00:45:00.980] - Chris
I know. Yeah, good times. Anyway.
[00:45:03.900] - Brandon
Well, for two of you that hung in the pocket on that one, I don't know. Some of you guys care about this stuff. I think, again, the way I think about this is this matters. I can only run companies so well if I'm an internal disaster in terms of my mental, physical well-being. This is part of the juice. This is part of the equation. I can't outsmart my body. It needs to come along for the ride.
[00:45:30.800] - Chris
One thing I'll say that I've been experimenting with is new. It's early days, but exogenous ketones.
[00:45:36.660] - Brandon
Yeah, I've heard some stuff on this. By the way, we got to get close to wrapping up. I got an attorney. Yeah, okay.
[00:45:40.880] - Chris
This is a little tip. I'm on my second batch of Ketone IQ. By the way, it looks like a five-hour energy, and you slam it. It tastes a little bit like cough syrup and a little bit like pickle juice.
[00:45:54.400] - Brandon
What a combo.
[00:45:55.840] - Chris
But somehow it's not salty. I really don't know how to explain it. It's a weird taste. It's It's horrible. It doesn't make you want to puke. It's weird. It's got a weird taste to it, but it's exogenous ketones. So your body produces ketones inside you, but you have to be in ketosis. It's very difficult, most people find, to actually get in ketosis, even if they're eating low carb. Because protein gets converted. You have a bunch of protein gets converted into glucose, and it throws you out of ketosis. Anyway, exogenous ketones, you can take it, and the ketones provide your body energy in the same way as if you were in ketosis. I've been experimenting with bringing one or two of those to work. Sometimes I'll take it in lieu of lunch if I'm trying to just do a little deficit, or if I just can't eat, I don't have time. There's something to this, man. They don't have caffeine. I can have it. Now, some of you drink caffeine until eight o'clock at night. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do coffee after one o'clock, period. But I can have one of these ketone things right before I go home, and it gives me a pop.
[00:46:58.980] - Chris
In a pretty good long, sustainable lift from it. If anybody's been looking for an energy hack beyond just the energy drinks, because this doesn't have all that other bullshit in it. Ketone IQ, it's not cheap, but we consider, what's a couple, three hours worth of energy worth to you as a professional. It's worth it to me. I think they end up being about 3. 50 or so each. But it's like- That's no different. I'd spend that on a coffee. It's very same thing. Anyway. All right. I love it. I hope this was incredibly helpful to all of you. That's going to change your life. We'll see you next time on the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast.
[00:47:39.920] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.
[00:47:44.460] - Chris
If you're enjoying the show, if you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.