Why “Busy” Is the Most Dangerous Lie Men Tell Themselves with Ben Brown

Ben We have things that are vying for attention at all hours. We have food, and access to high calorically dense, highly processed, refined food at all hours of the day. And so my point in all of that is this level of emotional, psychological, physiological stimulus is.

Ben Significantly more than it ever has, right? Than humans have ever been exposed to the degree that it is detrimental to our physiology, to our biochemistry, and that's where we need the modern day medicine, in some capacity, to offset the detriment of the lifestyle that we live.

Speaker [00:01:00] Welcome to the Modern Masculinity Podcast, where we delve into the depths of what it means to be a man in today's world, and we explore the real-life challenges and triumphs that you and I face every single day. My name is Hector Sanya Steon, and I come with no answers—only questions—for some of the most wise, insightful, and grounded men that I know.

Speaker So get settled in. You're listening to Modern Masculinity.

Hector Ben, welcome back to the Modern Masculinity Podcast. It's great to have you back.

Ben Well, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me back.

Hector Take us into your world. You mentioned that you are, right as soon as we finish up, you're rushing off into dad duty. And so I know you're like Clark Kent, wearing a number of hats and outfits.

Hector What roles and responsibilities do you find yourself playing most these days?

Ben [00:02:00] So I have a 16-year-old—so I have two girls and a boy. I have a 16-year-old girl, 14-year-old girl, and 10-year-old boy. And I obviously run a business that requires quite a lot of attention. And then my wife has recently started a business.

Ben And so she's kind of cranking away and grinding on that. And we have a myriad of responsibilities, obviously with the family and businesses and kids. And so, between driving duties—fortunately my oldest now drives, which is wild and somewhat stressful, although we're sort of easing into it.

Ben She only crashed into the house just once so far. So not too bad.

Ben But it's funny, I feel like I'm describing these circumstances more and more frequently with guys like you, with colleagues, with peers, with clients, with other parents in this crazy season of life because it really is just a wild time.

Ben [00:03:00] There's just a lot of moving pieces. There's the kids’ sports, the extracurriculars. So my oldest, despite the fact that she drives, she has dance and she has theater and she has musical practice, and then she has friends over, or she wants us to drop them off somewhere.

Ben My middle is a competitive volleyball player and she has club volleyball practice multiple days per week. She and my wife were just in Vegas for a tournament. And then my wife's taking both girls to New York City next weekend, and then the following weekend they're in Salt Lake City for another volleyball tournament.

Ben I'm spearheading my son's athletics. Our rugby season just ended and now we're in soccer season.

Ben [00:04:00] And so it's just like there's this endless flow of family duties, which is wonderful, and responsibilities. But then layering in your business obligations and being a small business owner, the fact that sometimes it's just really hard to turn it off, and so you're kind of working all of the time—and how to find any proverbial balance there, Hector.

Ben And then, you know, what else is happening in this season of life? I mean, I'm 46 and so it's like kids are not cheap. You have financial stressors, you have aging parents, you have your own health that you're trying to prioritize, and the changes that happen for both men and women. So we have perimenopause, and then for men, what we call andropause, which is less recognized, but it's still a decline in hormone function.

Ben And that's a lot of the guys that I work with. And so there's a few things going on.

Hector Yeah, and that's just like within our own walls, right? And so it's like, it makes me realize how much I need to shut out all of the nonsense that's going on around us because there's so much going on.

Hector There's so much that we can't focus on. And it's funny you talk about all of the different sports that you're going through. This is my first little league season, and it's nothing compared to what you guys are in—it's nothing. It's so far from travel. It's so far from competitive stuff, but I am just like, I'm so overwhelmed.

Hector [00:05:00] I joked on the show before that I had to create an AI agent to help me figure out all the things I need to do just to get my kid in—just to start the season. I had to create a checklist of all the different things that needed to be filled out and signed up for, and all those different things.

Ben That's a good idea. Yeah, but no, for real. And you know what? It's different. It's always different, like the seasons. It's never not “busy,” and it's probably the word I hate the most because it doesn't really mean anything. We're all busy, but they're all perceived stressors, right?

Ben And I feel very blessed to be able to have these “hass,” right? Like if these are the worst things—the most stressful things that we have the opportunity and the privilege to experience—well then life is pretty damn good. So I say all of this with the full transparency of like: this is not a bad thing. This is a wonderful season of life, but it's still perceived stress, and with that comes a number of challenges.

Hector [00:06:00] Well, it's an interesting thing to think about because I think a lot of guys will hit this season at some point, right? They have kids and then, however long it is—I tried to hold off, but it took me seven years to get pulled into it.

Hector And what's interesting is that now the secondary effects are that I've got less time for me. Less time, the routines shift. And then also, habits are being tested because now we're sort of being forced to eat at the ball field, we're going out with the grandparents after dinner.

Hector And so just all of the routines and all of the things that were stable are now getting shaken up. And I'm sort of now realizing, oh, here's why you're burnt out. Like you're shoveling Buffalo Wild Wings two or three times more a month than you were previously, or just all these things that we're doing for our kids—as we should—but it doesn't mean that we can't take care of ourselves amidst that, right? Like, that's just not gonna come on its own.

Ben [00:07:00] That's always the proverbial trade-off, right? It's like we justify putting ourselves on the back burner because obviously our family is our priority. And it's easy to rationalize: “Well, my kids need me. My significant other needs me. The team needs me. The school needs me. The church needs me—whatever committee that I'm on needs me.”

Ben And I'm gonna put all of those things first, but that ends up—and we frame it as sort of this selfless position of giving—when in my mind it's actually quite selfish.

Ben Put differently: if I focused on me and my nutrition habits or my exercise above someone else's needs, that might be framed as selfish. And again, I would say that's actually just the opposite because if we truly are committed to showing up as our best, then we know we need to be fueling ourselves effectively—leading with confidence, teaching our kids how to make better decisions given the circumstances, showing up with energy, and truly being able to commit to everyone who is relying on us.

Ben And so those are a lot of the conversations that I have with clients around: okay, well, if you're not happy eating out all of the time, you're not happy with what it's doing to your energy or your waistline, then what can we do to put yourself in a position where you are, in fact, committing to eating better, exercising more—structuring or creating more of a schedule that's conducive toward following through with those commitments?

Hector [00:09:00] Yeah, it's interesting. My son is playing baseball, and so my parents are coming down to watch the games, and so we're seeing them more often. And I love my parents, and I've talked about them a lot on the show. They're great parents and they're wonderful grandparents and I'm so grateful for them.

Hector But it's just so interesting because to them, the idea that food is like a fuel—that idea is sort of just coming online, and I don't think it's my dad yet. Like, I don't think they've totally registered: the whole “you are what you eat.” Like, no—that's actually true. It's not just sort of a saying.

Hector And so there's the mindset or perspective that needs to come online first. And then it seems like the habits sort of follow—and both of those don't always come at the same exact time.

Hector And what's interesting now is that things are advancing so quickly with medicine and peptides and all supplements, right? Like, some people are just now kind of catching on to supplements, but we're even beyond that.

Hector And so the decisions that we make throughout the day are really having an impact on our results. And I also think that we used to have to barter for like eight hours of energy—how do I have eight hours of energy to get me through work so I can get home and plop on the couch and redo for the next day? And that was sort of one way.

Hector And now that's not quite enough anymore for a lot of guys out there because they put in their eight hours at work and then they come home and they need to do another, rightfully so. They need to be on for another X amount of hours while they're at home.

Ben [00:11:00] Yeah, listen, there's nothing easy about it. It's seemingly challenging, and that's where it's about setting yourself up for success. But you're right: depending on the season of life and with kids, it's like you need to be on—especially if you want to be present and involved and show up as a committed parent or leader.

Ben And that requires you to, like we said, prioritize yourself. It requires you to have the energy to be able to do that—to fuel yourself effectively, to know how to fuel yourself, to get good quality sleep—all of the foundational pillars around nutrition and exercise and lifestyle.

Ben To say nothing of the potential opportunities to leverage modern-day medicine and perhaps supplementation to improve that process.

Ben I think that's relevant, and we can certainly talk more about it, but I also think it's about looking at: is it improving the process, or is it just a requisite to be proactive against the modern-day lifestyle that we're living? Does that make sense?

Hector Tell me more about that part—the prerequisite part.

Ben [00:12:00] Yeah. So essentially, the lifestyle that we live now is very different than humans have ever lived before, right? The fact that we are literally stimulated from sun up until sundown and beyond.

Ben We're stimulated from the time we wake up until the time that we go to bed—which is usually before sunup and usually well after sundown. We have artificial lights, we have blue lights, we have camera screens, we have phone screens. We're obviously doing this virtually.

Ben We have things that are vying for attention at all hours. We have food, and access to high-calorically dense, highly processed, refined food at all hours of the day.

Ben And so my point in all of that is this level of emotional, psychological, physiological stimulus is significantly more than it ever has—than humans have ever been exposed to—to the degree that it is detrimental to our physiology, to our biochemistry.

Ben And that's where we need the modern-day medicine, in some capacity, might need the modern-day medicine to offset the detriment of the lifestyle that we live.

Hector [00:13:00] Right. So the reality is that we're not going to get away from the plastics. We're not going to get away from the processed foods completely. And so it's really about establishing clear decisions—clear habits—that are proactive against those things.

Hector Because if you just take the default, then you're gonna end up with things that are not necessarily in your best interest.

Ben Yeah. It's just looking at the trade-offs all of the time. And I think life is very much about trade-offs. But with respect to our health these days, I agree with you.

Ben I don't know that it's relevant anymore to suggest moving off of the grid and living on a farm or growing all of your own food, and maybe homeschooling or doing these things that would potentially be healthier for us—maybe physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Ben But again, what are the trade-offs there in the modern-day lifestyle that we live?

Ben And so if we're not willing or able to do that, then what do we need to do to make it work?

Hector [00:14:00] Yeah. I think one of the problems that a lot of people experience is there's so much noise out there. There's so many things that you can do. It's sort of this analysis paralysis—or I call it like the 31 flavors problem—where if you just give me three options on what kind of ice cream—and it's probably not a great example for this conversation—it's much easier to pick from chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, as opposed to I go into Cold Stone, there are 31 flavors, and I'm inundated with options and choices and I don't know which one is the right one.

Hector I see people doing that sort of with health in the sense of: “Oh, there's so many things I could try.” And maybe it's just an easy excuse to not do it.

Hector But my question that's wrapped up in that is: is there a signal in that noise that you think is worth people paying attention to, or things that have an outsized impact in terms of the results that people can get from some of the things that are out there?

Ben Is there a signal in the noise? Maybe you could just reframe the question for me.

Hector [00:15:00] Yeah. I think there's so many things that are in the news—so many things that you could try: fad diets, peptides, GLP X, Y, Z. There's so many things that are out there and coming about. Are there things that are worth guys spending time looking into, or things that are actually working or being effective?

Ben [00:16:00] Yeah. So I think you make a great point. And listen: we have more information at our fingertips than ever before in human history, and it lends itself to more confusion than ever before about what we actually should be doing, could be doing, what works, what doesn't work, what the latest influencer suggests, what's sexy, what's not.

Ben And so it's worth acknowledging that we have evidence for certain things. We have very clear, calculated, unequivocal evidence to suggest that exercise is great for us—and we need a certain amount of exercise and we need certain types of exercise.

Ben We have evidence to suggest that we need to eat nutrient-dense foods, and we need to eat a certain amount of protein, and we need to manage our calorie intake. We need to create some semblance of a caloric deficit if we're trying to lose weight and a caloric surplus of some degree if we're trying to gain muscle mass.

Ben We need to get enough sleep and recovery and quality sleep at the right times. We need to manage stress and surround ourselves with people in a community that is gonna be supportive and uplifting and positive.

Ben And so we have these foundational pillars at play that I think most people overlook—especially because we kind of want to focus on what's fun or sexy.

Ben It's like: okay, yeah, I get it—I need to manage my calories—but wouldn't it just be easier if I just followed some diet or cut out an entire food group, or took these supplements or just went on a GLP so I just wasn't hungry, or just intermittent fasted, right?

Ben And so all of those things contribute to why the foundational pillars work. In other words, every single diet that we have available to us is, in some way, shape, or form, helping us control for our calorie intake. There's just a lot of different ways to do that.

Ben And so I think what's most important for people to acknowledge first and foremost is not to put the cart before the horse and make sure that they are, in fact, focusing on those foundational pillars.

Ben Like, if we're truly being honest with ourselves here, right? I'm mid-forties. I work with a lot of hard-charging guys and some badass women too.

Ben In medicine now there's the GLP, there's the other peptides that can help support inflammation and weight loss. It's a very timely and popular topic. So a lot of people are asking questions around: “Well, is this something that I should be doing?”

Ben And I think a more important question to ask is: how impactful might that be relative to all of the other things that you are or are not doing?

Ben Because if you're not managing your calorie intake, if you're not exercising enough, if you're not prioritizing sleep, rest, and recovery, if you don't have control over your schedule and you're prioritizing your exercise within your day—if you're not happy with your significant other, your spouse, your job, your relationships, the people that you surround yourself with—well then we've got bigger fish to fry.

Ben And I can assure you that you adding peptides or hormone replacement therapy probably isn't going to be the biggest needle mover.

Hector [00:19:00] Yeah, I think as you're saying that—because I'm such a… I am like, before the early adopters, I'm like the crazy weirdos. I remember back in 2011, 2012, something like that, one of my mentors at the time—I had just started doing bulletproof-style coffee and I just started putting butter and coconut oil in my coffee.

Hector And for the longest time he was like, “What? You're putting butter in your coffee?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And he's like, “How much?” And I was like, “Like this.” And he's like, “Butter?” And I was like, “Yeah.”

Hector It became this whole joke between us, but he was so shocked by the idea of doing bulletproof-style coffee. And I look back on that now, and there are stores that are sort of dedicated to that.

Hector So I say all that because I kind of downplayed it in the sense of like, oh, you're right—it is not about the method. It is about the principle.

Hector But what I can get behind now is that if it's easier to get to the principle… Another thing—like with counting calories—I've talked a little about on the show: I was using AI a lot to track my macros and track my calories. I would have a scale and ask ChatGPT at the time, or whatever I was using: “This many grams of chicken—how many calories is this?”

Hector And I was able to really make some progress because before doing all of that stuff was painful and arduous.

Hector And so now some of these things—perhaps if we can not get romantic about the method by which we do it, but if we can see the principle behind it—then at least we can better discern which of these methods are better for us to utilize.

Ben [00:21:00] Yeah. So here's what's fantastic about the age that we're living in: if we can agree that those foundational principles reign supreme, then there's a lot of different ways to get there—which I think is most important for people.

Ben So it's not to say that peptides aren't for you because that might very well be the gateway. It could very well be.

Ben Listen: my testosterone levels are low. Because my testosterone levels are low, I'm experiencing very low motivation to want to go exercise and to eat better and to improve my lifestyle behaviors. And so by virtue of me undergoing therapeutic testosterone replacement, that's the inertia that I need to improve my motivation—my intrinsic drive—to then want to start eating healthier and starting to feel better and wanting to exercise more. And it becomes this very feed-forward cycle.

Ben So I don't think that any of the things that I mentioned—whether it's restrictive dieting, whether it's peptides itself, whether it's GLP peptides, whether it's testosterone replacement therapy, or some newfangled dieting methodology—I don't think any of it's bad. I think it's all actually good in that it helps the individual get closer to what it is that they actually want and how they're gonna get there, and most importantly, how they're gonna stay there.

Ben Because I've had a lot of people come through our community where perhaps they've done very well for a short period of time on carnivore or keto, right? And they've gleaned some important nuggets from that dieting methodology. They've also acknowledged several components that don't actually work for them.

Ben And I believe that's just as powerful. And when you can collect enough of those nuggets from enough different avenues, you really start to develop your own personal operating system—which is ultimately what we're all about.

Ben You have to be able to figure out what the path looks like for you. No one can tell you how to do that. Now, I can help guide you because I've guided a lot of people before in a number of different ways, and I know where obstacles lie because I've traveled those paths before, Hector.

Ben But at the end of the day, you still gotta carry the pack. You still gotta do the work. You're still gonna hit some roadblocks and obstacles and crevices, if you will.

Ben But at least you're equipping yourself with more and more tools to be able to get to the top of the proverbial mountain.

Hector [00:24:00] So is that, you think, the principle that people are missing the most?

Hector Because if everybody sort of understood the principles, I feel like we'd be in a much different place societally. But is that what a lot of people end up missing—that they're going to need to create something bespoke for themselves, that there is no one-size-fits-all, that eventually even this program is gonna have its limitations when it comes to its impact on that person?

Ben [00:25:00] I genuinely think that people are missing the inherent level of ownership and responsibility that comes with making change—and the discomfort that is going to be experienced along the way.

Ben And this is what's so challenging about losing weight, gaining muscle, changing your body composition, improving your health: there's no clear-cut… It's never just “tell me what to do.” That just doesn't work.

Ben And so it has to be something that becomes—I've mentioned the word intrinsic motivation—but it has to become motivation from within. Something that you ultimately enjoy doing: enjoy creating. The process of changing your behaviors. The process of—Not to be cliche—changing your identity, to the tune of ultimately becoming someone different: someone that enjoys being physically active and eating healthy food and going to the ball game and bringing their own cooler bag because you like those foods, they make you feel good, and the other foods don't.

Ben Because you're taking a certain level of personal responsibility. You're also setting an example for your family. It's part of your non-negotiables and sort of that baseline level of standards that you hold yourself to.

Ben And so I think if people could commit more to that level of ownership and responsibility—of like: this isn't about the diet or not; it's about showing up at my best, even on the worst possible days, and determining what are my non-negotiables.

Hector [00:26:00] Yeah, I'm reminded of James Clear's Atomic Habits book where he talks about that's really the battle that you're on when you're establishing habits—that the habits is a byproduct of the identity shift. And it makes total sense that whether we're trying to improve our relationships or our finances or our health, the identity is sort of going to be the hinge that everything else swings on.

Ben [00:27:00] I had a… so I got a message. I reached out and was just checking in with a client. I've got a husband-wife client combo that I work with—wonderful people. They're making great results. They're both down, whatever, 25, 30, 35 pounds respectively between her and him.

Ben It was her birthday yesterday. And I messaged her and I asked how the week's going. She kind of alluded to: she said, “I'm gonna take this week off. I'm not gonna track my food. I haven't been training. I'm not getting my steps in.”

Ben And I kind of cringed a little bit because I think it's a perfect example of: we're not there yet, despite the fact that she's made great progress. She just hasn't embraced the identity of like: if this isn't your on or you're off, this is just something that you are.

Ben “I'm someone who gets a certain amount of steps every day. Even on my most stressful days. I'm someone who trains multiple days per week because I enjoy the training process. I'm someone that genuinely makes healthier food choices because it makes me feel good.”

Ben It's not: “I'm giving myself a break because it's my birthday,” or because it's a holiday, or because I'm traveling, or because of all of the reasons that we have.

Ben And so fundamentally, it becomes this very important mindset shift whereby that no longer becomes part of the equation.

Ben It's just: I am someone who does these things because it's important to me. It's part of who I am. Does that make sense?

Hector [00:28:00] Yeah, totally. And in doing that though, as you're saying that, my own brain is sort of wrapping around like: are you ready to make that decision? Are you ready?

Hector But I also think that I come at things with sort of an all-or-nothing mentality—or at least that's the default.

Ben I think most hard-chargers do, and that is, in my opinion—and if I might challenge you for a second—I think that's part of the problem, right? Because it does become this very, what we call dichotomous behavior.

Ben It's this black or white—this all-or-nothing perspective: either I'm in or I'm out. And we don't learn how to live in the gray.

Ben We don't learn what we call unconditional permission to just do better—to just be pretty good all of the time versus great sometimes. That's a quote that I use a lot.

Ben And what would that look like for you? Because oftentimes we're like: okay, you know what? This week hasn't been going great, so screw it. I'll just restart things on Monday. I'll just find the most restrictive diet that I can.

Ben And it's pushing back against that so that we can infuse the pretty good consistently that's gonna make the biggest change over the longest time horizon.

Hector [00:30:00] Yeah. And I think it requires a lot of honesty or humility, or I'm not sure. Because as you said that, it's like: to accept being pretty good at something, it bumps up against that identity shift where I want to be the best.

Ben Okay, but if you're not all in, what are you doing?

Ben And so if objectively—if we're tracking things—what is more likely to score higher and to drive better results?

Ben If I could diet at 2,000 calories and be aggressive and make great progress over a three-week period, and then I say screw it and I go off the rails and I eat at 3,500 or 4,000 calories for a period of time—just to gain the weight back and get frustrated and keep playing that yo-yo game…

Ben Or I could eat consistently at 2,700 calories and still be in a modest deficit and see the weight change week over week, while still being able to eat some of the things that I would otherwise consider to be off-limits, to have more flexibility and freedom to enjoy things with my family, to have my date night, maybe to have a cocktail here and there.

Ben And that's where, psychologically speaking, people are a lot more likely to be able to be consistent. So we're not white-knuckling it. We don't have the black-or-white mentality. And objectively, when you think about it, it actually makes a lot more sense. And because of all of those things, you're a lot more likely to be consistent with it.

Hector [00:32:00] Yeah. It's a really interesting… I don't even know if I'm having this epiphany, because it's one of those things where like, you know it, but how much these decisions lean back on how we view ourselves and our identity and the programming and the mindset that lies underneath it.

Hector Because once that sort of gets into place, the rest of these downstream things become a lot easier.

Ben Like I said, I think the biggest obstacles are just people not taking ownership or responsibility over their behaviors and making—whether they realize it or not—excuses or rationalizing why they can't do all of the things.

Ben And if we can accept that for a lot of people what they think they need to do is, in and of itself, probably not realistic or sustainable, then it also gives us permission to acknowledge: well, what would be realistic and sustainable for me?

Ben And even if that meant that there was room for improvement, it probably would help me make more progress more consistently than to keep playing this on-again, off-again game.

Hector [00:33:00] Yeah, and I think how we perceive ourselves is so critical. I had a friend in a mastermind that I'm in talk about how a big shift for them happened when they started to see themselves as an athlete.

Hector They had never had that identity, and thus their habits and their workouts and the things that they did sort of followed. But it was when they started to see themselves as this new… they sort of included this in their identity—it was so much easier to make those harder decisions, to do the things, because it's like: this is what that person does.

Hector And it seems like that's ultimately what we're trying to get. And I would imagine that there are some different techniques or strategies or hacks or whatever it is to get there, but ultimately, that's what we're trying to do: get ourselves to that place so that way we can do it—like you said, there's no “day off.” It's like we're gonna do it until…

Ben Yeah. Listen, I think that's what has to happen. That's my experience, at least, over the past 20-plus years. And again, it's not easy, but it's also not hard. It's just inherently the level of commitment that you're willing to apply.

Hector [00:34:00] Yeah. I am sort of curious though—we've talked about supplements, GLP, peptides. Are there things that you find yourself prescribing or recommending, or advising more today than, say, three, five, ten years ago?

Ben What I do advise and recommend much more now at this stage of life with the clients that I work with is comprehensive blood work, first and foremost.

Ben I think that without question, there's a lot that we can get done just by focusing on the foundational pillars. And I come from a background—so like you, I've always been very ahead of the curve. I was studying functional medicine in 2006, studying diagnostic testing, adrenal function, organic acid profiles, looking at gut health, parasites—all of this kind of digging into supplementation.

Ben And so I realized early on the value of diagnostic testing, almost to a fault. And so I kind of swayed the other direction: just get someone moving consistently, get them eating better, managing their calorie intake, improving their sleep behaviors—you can make massive change.

Ben But over the past few years, I really started to butt up against the fact that our physiology does, in some way, shape, or form, start to change. And it's not just like the second we turn 40, we get this shift, but it very much progressively is this slow change over time.

Ben In terms of losing lean muscle tissue, especially if you're not consistently strength training; it's an accumulation of visceral body fat—that body fat that surrounds, deep around our organs. It's the impact of stressors over time. It's when you have kids and the sleep debt that accrues, and how all of these things contribute to hormonal decline, and increase in inflammation—of inflammatory mediators in the body—and of blood sugar dysregulation, and so on and so forth.

Ben And so my suggestion—and how we work with most clients—is we'll run comprehensive labs. We partner directly with the telehealth company and clinicians to do this, but it's just getting a deep dive under the hood to look at: okay, what is actually going on?

Ben Now, it goes without saying that we're gonna work on improving all of the things that I've already talked about. But beyond that, how can we provide some additional support to the system—and where do we need it?

Ben Do we need it in terms of managing inflammation and joint health? Do we need it in terms of supporting gut health, thyroid function, insulin and blood sugar management, cardiovascular health and cardiovascular risk factors, and then ultimately hormonal health?

Ben Then looking at testosterone and estrogen and DHEA and progesterone. And, oh, by the way, for most guys, it's also free testosterone and SHBG, which stands for Sex Hormone Binding Globulin, because despite the fact that we could be doing everything right foundationally, if any one—or all—of those things are off, it's going to significantly impact how much progress you're actually making.

Ben So then we're in a great position to have already improved a lot of those variables—or be in the process—and then be able to apply: alright, here's where supplementation makes sense. Here's where a manipulation in the diet, or the types of foods that we're consuming, make sense.

Ben In other words, for someone that has perhaps more cardiovascular risk factors, it might be a strategic decrease in dietary saturated fat intake.

Hector [00:38:00] Can you illustrate for the guys—whether it be yourself or clients that you've worked with—things that either weren't obvious that they saw through blood work and you were able to make some changes and big differences? Things that… I guess that's probably the biggest thing that blood work does, right? By being able to see these diagnostics, you're able to see under the hood and identify things that you wouldn't otherwise just be able to do by feel.

Ben [00:39:00] Yeah. Well that's—and especially if you've got someone who's going down the keto or carnivore route, but they have, whether it's a genetic predisposition to hypercholesterolemia, or high LDLs, or ApoB, or a couple other markers that I'm spacing on at the moment—it lends itself to: “Hey man, eating a high-fat diet probably is not the best idea for you,” because of what's clearly visible on the labs and what we know from the research relative to elevated levels of these numbers.

Ben And these aren't numbers that your typical medical professional will run. These are much more comprehensive and based much more in optimal ranges than your typical “normal”—again, conventional lab ranges.

Ben And I think that's a really important component to understand: the vast majority of standard insurance-based labs run the bare minimum of stuff to basically say: listen, you're not in a diseased state yet, you're “normal,” and therefore we don't need to prescribe or treat anything—to keep you alive, essentially.

Ben We're not optimizing for health. We're not being overly proactive to make sure you're looking and feeling your best. It has nothing to do with that. We're just making sure you're not gonna be in disease state.

Ben And by the way, the norms are based on the standard American population. If you've looked around recently, the standard American population is fat, sick, and diseased. And so we don't have a very strong baseline to compare our numbers to if we're someone who genuinely wants to look and feel their best.

Ben And so that's where we really want to do our diligence beyond the spectrum of norms and really look to optimal lab values.

Ben And that's kind of how we approach the process to then be able to say: okay, in addition to potentially making tweaks to the foods that you're consuming, we can look at hormone optimization and say: are your estrogen, progesterone, testosterone levels low? Why could they be low? Is there things that we can do from a nutrition, lifestyle, supplementation standpoint to make sure we're improving them?

Ben For example, we'll have guys with low levels of testosterone, but they might have sleep apnea.

Ben And so depending on where their numbers are, if we can fix their sleep through losing weight, through improving their nutrition and exercise habits, by getting them on a CPAP, by implementing some strategic supplementation, they can actually start breathing at night, actually start oxygenating the blood.

Ben Then they're automatically gonna start to create the precursors to hormone production, and they can naturally start to correct those testosterone levels. It's an absolute game changer, but it's a perfect example of how the testosterone is simply a downstream player of the lifestyle and nutrition behaviors.

Ben And so that's just one of many factors that we look at.

Hector [00:42:00] Yeah, I think a lot of guys are waking up to it, and they sort of realize that there are all these… there's much more knobs that you can turn to feel better than just the ones that they would tell you at the doctor's office. Because to your point, they're not going for optimal. They're going for: you're not dying right now.

Hector And so that's probably what guys are not listening to this show for. They're going for optimal and they're trying to be and feel their best.

Ben [00:43:00] I think most guys want to go for optimal, and we make it very challenging in the transactional world that we live in with the healthcare model that we have.

Ben And even with the misinformation or the massive amounts of information in social media—with how disjointed every aspect of the healthcare process is—it's like: I get supplements from one person, and I see my doctor over here, but I have a different specialist over here. And then I have a nutritionist, but I have a personal trainer, and then I've got a functional medicine guy.

Ben And my experience over the past 20-plus years has been around creating as much of a cohesive plan, team, and strategy as possible, because I've been very disappointed with everything that I've just explained.

Ben I'll refer out a client to a medical professional for blood work and they don't even run the appropriate tests. There's no follow-up or follow-through. The person will show up at abysmal numbers, but because they're in the normal range, they're told they're “fine” and to just, quote unquote, eat better and exercise more.

Ben There's no actual follow-up and follow-through with the practitioner, even when they do get a client on a medication, or something, to make sure that the numbers—that they're actually benefiting from it.

Ben So it's just a myriad of so many things that I had to essentially put all of this stuff together in our own business to say: listen, this is gonna be very much a team approach. We're gonna take care of every aspect of the process for you—to the degree that we're gonna cover nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, accountability, supplementation, medication, and all of the support and structure and consistency and accountability along the way.

Hector [00:44:00] Are you leveraging AI at all? What's been your experience with that and what you are doing?

Ben I leverage AI from a content creation standpoint every single day—from a communication articulation, thought formation—almost like a confidant to just bounce ideas off of and give me the opportunity to verbalize and think through things and then get what I perceive to be some valuable feedback, assuming we're prompting with the right prompts.

Ben I don't utilize AI in my practice as of yet, virtually any capacity outside of perhaps note-taking summaries, some tools that I've built for my clients to leverage around their nutrition and exercise. But what about you?

Hector [00:45:00] Like I said, I found a lot of benefit in tracking both workouts and calories—recipes or asking for things. I realized that I was drinking a tea that had all of the great things—turmeric and all this sort of stuff—but I was probably mistiming it and not including a couple of things to actually get the most out of it.

Hector And so AI sort of straightened me out and said: why don't you drink it this part of the day and add in a little pepper and get a lot more?

Hector So those sort of things have been helpful. I haven't uploaded my blood work or anything like that, but I've heard a number of people say that they've gotten a lot of benefit.

Ben I'd be very careful uploading blood work into AI unless you have a very clear framework or structure for it to base its analysis on. Otherwise it's not uncommon to get a ton of misinformation.

Hector I would totally see that. I think we're not out of the woods yet. We still need humans in the mix. So that's refreshing to hear.

Hector I got two questions for you. The first is: if people want to get more info on you, stay connected, find out about what's going on in your world—where's the best place for people to go?

Ben [00:47:00] Yeah. Our website is bodysystems.com, and people are welcome to reach out to me directly. ben@bodysystems.com is my email.

Ben I'm pretty active right now—somewhat reluctantly—but I'm pretty active on social media, on Instagram. It's @bodysystemscoaching. I think that would probably be the best place to follow along, to get the flavor of the type of information that I put out, who I'm speaking to, kind of a bit more about what we do.

Ben I try and give as much valuable nuggets of information as possible through Instagram. And so that would be the best place.

Hector Sweet. And we will link all that up as always.

Hector And I'm sure I asked you last time, but I'll ask you again: in your opinion, Ben, what is your definition of modern masculinity?

Ben [00:48:00] I think that there's a tremendous responsibility—and I probably said something similar to this last time—but I think that we have a tremendous responsibility as men at this day and age, especially at this juncture of life, to lead.

Ben Despite—I think that there's a lot of pressure to be a guy at this day and age, and to represent what masculinity means.

Ben But I think that there's just a tremendous responsibility to lead with confidence and clarity and control, to set an example for our family, for our loved ones, for our community.

Ben And I think that it also begs being a servant in some way, shape, or form. And you can interpret that however you want, but giving back.

Ben As we alluded to early in the conversation, Hector, I feel very blessed and privileged to have the type of problems—if you can call it that—that I have on a daily basis.

Ben And with that said, I feel a tremendous responsibility to be able to give back in every way that I can. And for me right now, what I do—helping other men live their best lives—is sort of the definition of that, to say nothing of teaching at the university and just trying to help others be as healthy, happy, humble humans as they can possibly be.