Forgot to mention that I have started to listen to custom Spartan + Paragon sleep.
So I will see what paragon sleep can bring.
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I also have a wearable photobiomodulation device that has a sleep mode on it, but I find it too stimulating. I’ve also got some sleep-inducing audios (binaurals etc) that work well, but as I don’t sleep alone I don’t listen to anything without headphones… and I can’t sleep comfortably with earbuds in.
I’ve also experimented with exercise right before sleep, and that’s not ideal for me either. 1-2h before sleep works ok, but ideally earlier than that.
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I found this site awhile back. Perhaps there are things here that you might find intriguing.
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What form of magnesium are you using?
A combo called MagEnhance, which includes, per 3 caps:
- 690mg glycinate
- 1,000mg l-threonate
- 630mg taurate
I’m not sure what the percent of bioavailability is, but this one works for me so it’s what I use. 
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This one tends to have a very high absorption.
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Alright, after many delays (shipping issues, then waiting on lab tests, then a heat wave that kept us inside), today’s the day. First dose of SARMs. We dosed sublingually, he said they don’t taste good. At all. lol.
Wish my lab rat luck. 
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Update: My lab rat has just been working at his desk all morning, as usual, but has been feeling wired. We’ve got a meeting in 45 mins so will be heading out soon, we’ll see how his energy is.
My visceral fat has dropped from 7% to 6% overnight (granted it’s most likely a very tiny change that resulted in rounding down to 6 from 7 rather than any large change, but I’ll take it!) and my overall body fat percentage has dropped to 14.8%.
Too soon to attribute anything, but the only real change is I added 200mg of DIM to my supplement stack yesterday.
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Weight is now at 188lbs, so approaching the goal weight of 180… but of course, body composition is more important than just total weight. So I still have quite a bit more fat to lose, and more muscle to build. I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on caloric restriction, lowering my insulin, and performing steady-state cardio in the form of fast walking and some jogging… only to really prove to myself that it’s the slow train to success.
I think I’ll swing by the gym when I’m out today and get a membership. Time for my lab rat to go lift some heavy things. 
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Was going to ask you since I didn’t find DIM to have much research regarding anti-estrogen effects. For you when you took it what results did you notice with it?
I just started yesterday, so nothing conclusive to report yet.
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My lab rat has a report on his first dose of cardarine. He says “squeak squeak!”, which translates to:
WOW, energy. I’ve had a lot of energy lately, and this boosted it by 20%+… I wasn’t dressed for a run, but I most certainly had the energy for one… Too busy today (doing rat work, you know) to really test it properly, but that was a very energetic walk!
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186lbs, 14.7% bodyfat. And, BMI has dropped from 24 to 23.8 in just 2 days.
That’s including some new muscle mass on my lab rat (he was on the scale with me, of course) which may be from the Ostarine he’s taking.
The only other change has been the 200mg of DIM.
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Back up to 188lbs, though for some reason the scale wouldn’t sync this morning so unfortunately, I have no data on specific metrics. I did some experimenting yesterday (too many) and I’m not sure which variable changed stuff so much.
I walked 10km/6.5 miles yesterday (as usual), ate my usual lunch of 2 small salmon fillets & half a bag of frozen broccoli sauteed in avocado oil, and some cottage cheese.
I changed it up for dinner and had shrimp over salad greens, with some avocado oil ranch dressing from Primal Kitchen (I’ve met Mark Sisson a couple of times, genuinely a super nice and cool guy).
What changed?
- The shrimp salad was different… I generally don’t react well to shrimp, but my wife had cooked up a bunch and it was right there, so I was lazy and used that as my protein instead of shredded chicken or more salmon.
- I added a bit extra keto fudge (just sugar-free chocolate chips, mixed 1:1 with coconut oil, several heaping tablespoons of psyllium husk fiber, some unsweetened shredded coconut, and 1 teaspoon of whatever flavoring I want… this time I went with peppermint as mint chocolate is good) to up the fat intake, at both lunch and dinner…
- I had 2 glasses of Mio sport electrolyte after my walk as I was extra thirsty… it’s sugar-free, but is sweetened with splenda, which is almost as bad, but I had that in an iced coffee on Wednesday and still lost fat there too, so not sure that’s it.
- And finally, I woke up stiff and sore AF yesterday after skipping my glucosamine/MSM supplements the day before as a test, and I didn’t sleep well… so yesterday I took my glucosamine again.
At least 1 of those variables wasn’t good for me. lol. I’ll switch everything back except the glucosamine, as I really hope that’s not it… it’s the only thing that keeps me from waking up from knee and hip pain.
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It’s been a while since I posted an update, so here’s one! I’ve been away on vacation for the past week, and was utterly buried at work before that.
Progress has been slow. I’ve been eating in a caloric deficit and exercising daily (walking 7-10k steps each day, up to 15k on weekends), and the net results are a bit underwhelming. My takeaway from that is the calorie model of fat loss is bull$hit, utter bull$hit. Obviously calories count, but there are other factors that can completely mitigate it.
I knew this already, but it’s (annoyingly) interesting to see it firsthand.
My hormones are out of whack… so I’ve started taking some new supplements:
- Boron, 9mg/day, to lower SHBG, in an attempt to increase my bioavailable testosterone
- Tongkat Ali, 200mg/day, to increase free testosterone some more
I haven’t got my T tested again yet, but when I saw my wife in her bikini at the pool the other day I nearly forgot how to swim… so I’d say something has changed haha.
I’ve also been diving into (not literally, ew) the effects of how a microbiome affects fat loss and metabolism in general. I’ve been studying research papers linked by Dr. William Davis on a specific strain of L. Reuteri about its effects on body composition, and have bought some of that specific probiotic to make custom yogurt. I’ll be getting another strain for additional benefits but that can go in the next batch. To effect a proper change, I’ll need to do a full gut reset… a course of S. Boulardii, a biofilm-busting supplement (TBD), and possibly some combination of high doses of fiber and a herbal laxative like senna… still looking into that part of it. Leaning toward scrapping that part though, as it would probably reduce the effectiveness of the phage strains unless the timing was very carefully managed.
No, I do not expect that to be a fun part of this process haha.
And finally, just because I’m throwing literally everything at this that won’t cause harm (I’ll skip the DNP and Clenbuterol for now…) I’m looking at some stuff to boost brown fat activation. I’ve got some supplement samples on the way, and have just ordered a Cool Fat Burner for myself this morning.
If anyone doesn’t know about BAT and cold thermogenesis (and is interested…), lmk and I’ll toss some links in.
I’m targeting every pathway I can on this as so far I’ve not achieved the results I’ve wanted, despite the math saying I should have hit my goals by now.
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Sounds interesting. Never heard of cold thermogenesis or BAT.
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“normal” fat, or white fat, is generally considered to be a jiggly inert lump that merely serves as triglyceride-based storage… it actually secretes hormones etc too, but that’s for another post…
Brown fat (brown adipose tissue, aka BAT, on the other hand, consumes energy for the purpose of generating heat. Think of it like revving an engine while in neutral… you burn fuel, but no “work” is done. The byproduct of this is heat.
People who are “constitutionally lean”, ie they can seemingly eat whatever and never get fat, even without exercise, have more active BAT than people who gain weight more easily. This allows them to have a higher resting metabolic rate than someone with a similar body composition but less BAT.
My goal, of course, is to increase the amount of BAT I have in my body.
I’m stacking a cold exposure mimetic, which promotes the browning of white fat to produce pockets of brown fat with it, called beige fat (seriously…) with actual cold exposure to get (hopefully) a bit of a boost in the conversion of white fat to brown fat. I don’t have access to a PET scanner, unfortunately, so for this one, I’ll just need to look at other metrics to see if it’s effective for me.
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I think there was a study I saw that taking boron initially raises testosterone, but eventually also raises estrogen. Perhaps it’s from the boron, perhaps from aromatase.
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Interesting! I definitely don’t want that lol. I’m taking DIM to regulate that, as well as Tongkat Ali (Longjack) to further help with T… I mostly want to lower SHBG for now, as that’s binding up most of my T and making it not bioavailable.
I’m really taking a kitchen sink approach to this, and am attacking it from every angle I can. I’ve got some BAT-related stuff in transit (supps and a cooling vest) so I’ll post some updates on those when they arrive and I start using them.
This weekend when I have some time, I’ll fully sterilize the instant pot parts and start a batch of high-CFU probiotic L. Reuteri yogurt.
I’ve yet to even use my gym pass yet; I need to actually make time for that in my day. The gym is 15 mins away, so I’d either need 60 minutes for a body by science lift workout or 90 minutes for a cardio session (round trip travel + workout + changing etc)…
Tough to find that unless I start waking up much earlier haha. Which I suppose is my answer.
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Hey sir do you feel like you results are better or less good when on keto compared to when you had a meal full of carbs?
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