Why Your Workout Is Wasted (And The Simple Fix) with Nate Palmer

Nate [00:00:00] how do you change your diet? How do you change your workouts? How do you change things that like help you regulate yourself and your mental health? And so I've been working on that. Help some of the guys from my, from our dad's band actually last month. They, challenged me 'cause I was like, I'm sad.

Nate I'm having a hard time. And they're like, boo fucking who, like, why don't you do breath work instead, bro?

Hector Fellas, what's going on? I hope this episode finds you well, and as always, I hope this episode leaves you better than when it found you. Today's episode is with Nate Palmer and he's a former guest of the show. A longtime friend, and someone who I look up to in the health and fitness space and has given me so many insights and helped me to, to have the fitness and the health that I have today, and, go back and listen to the first episode with him. If you want to talk, if you wanna learn more about his general philosophies on, health and, and fitness and exercise and workout. Today's episode goes deep in some of these new compounds, these new peptides.

Hector We get into supplements, we talk about all of the new stuff that's coming out, and, all of the things [00:01:00] that is available to guys that if you are not. At least educating on yourself on this. you're leaving yourself behind, you're gonna get left behind. And so, it's just a very educational, informative conversation that, I'm sure you're gonna enjoy.

Hector So, enough of me, y'all. Let's get into today's episode with Nate Palmer. Nate, welcome back to the Modern Masculinity Podcast. It's a what's up honor to have you. I am, I'm, well, I have, I'm excited to have this conversation I mentioned in the intro. if you haven't, heard our first episode with Nate, go back and listen to that, where we get into some of the, basics and I don't know, the basic, the foundation sort of, of what Nate's philosophies are.

Hector Today's gonna be a little bit different, but before we get into sort of supplements and some of the new, hacks and, and things that are going on with, I don't know if medicine's the right word, but. what is real in your world as a, a dad, a man, a, a father, a husband? What, what sort of things are you working through?

Nate Oh, you know, just the, just the usual. Well, like, for me, the, the biggest thing that's kind of all consuming right now is the fact that I have not been [00:02:00] training that much. I have, like, I've been a bad at training since like, may of this year, and I haven't trained Jiujitsu at all, which is like one of my favorite things to do since August 30th.

Nate And so that's been affecting me in a real negative way, but. I've been learning to work through that. Like I feel like looking back my last two decades of my life, I've used physical expression, working out whatever as my primary mental health coping strategy. And having been deprived of that, I let myself turn into a real piece of shit.

Nate And so I'm trying to fix that and actually like, develop some real skills that are not just me, like, you know, battling my inner demons in the gym on a heavy set of. Bulgarian split squats or something.

Hector Yeah, yeah. I've been there for sure. And, and, me too. I, I I think I left it on a comment on your thing.

Hector I, I was rolling with a guy for the first time. He was, everybody's bigger than me, but he was, a little bit bigger than me and he got a little frisky on a Kimora, and usually I just roll out of him, or usually, you know, you get caught and they let you roll out and we keep going, but he [00:03:00] like cranked it.

Hector And I was like, you know, it was the first time, actually the first time since my first roll where I knew I heard a pop and I was like, oh, that's not good. And so, took a few weeks and I, too have, have not had a chance to get back, mostly because I'm just trying to find space in my life to be able to do it.

Hector but, it is a, for me, the biggest thing is I notice I smell worse. I stink. Like if I don't work out, I don't get the sweat out and so I just start like having this like funk come around me and I'm like, all right dude, you need to go sweat that. Sweat that out.

Nate That's fair.

Hector It's probably the coffee too. Caffeine. Yeah.

Nate all the toxins we're absorbing on a daily basis.

Hector Yeah, for sure.

Nate Yeah. But shit is hard though. It's like, when you've developed a habit like Alex, this is ostensibly a very healthy habit, right? Fitness, nutrition, being in shape, being in the gym, like those are healthy things.

Nate What happens when you lose those? Like how do you change your diet? How do you change your workouts? How do you change things that like help you regulate yourself and your mental health? And so I've been working on that. Help some of the guys from my, from our dad's band [00:04:00] actually last month. They, challenged me 'cause I was like, I'm sad.

Nate I'm having a hard time. And they're like, boo fucking who, like, why don't you do breath work instead, bro? And so I've been doing breath work. I've been on like a, like a 35 day streak or something like that. And that's great. It really helps. I feel way better. So I've been doing that. I've been doing physical therapy, but um, it's just been nice to have some sort of practice outside of physical movement that's enabled me to like, regulate myself, be more patient with my kids, be a better partner for my wife, all those things without literally going and burning my energy, working out training in the gym.

Hector Yeah, I think the somatic side of mental health is like, you know, we talk about mental health, but also like the body. Can't be disconnected from that. You know, they, talk about like the body keeps score and, you know, that sort of concept. And I'm the same way. I, when I was going through it I remember I'd wake up and I'd just feel so, like, I'd feel depressed, you know, I just, and maybe it was the excess cortisol or whatever. And it, the only thing that got me [00:05:00] feeling any sense of normalcy was breath work. And so it's, you know, now for me, I'm finally at a place where I'm, my baseline is sort of back and now I can sort of get.

Hector You know, I'm feeling like excited and passionate like invigorated because of it, but I didn't, if guys don't have something to like get the funk out of their body, like they're just walking around with all of those pent up emotions and pent up whatever is still in them.

Nate A hundred percent agree with you on that.

Hector what I love about your approach and just kind of your philosophy on life and, why I've enjoyed our friendship and also sort of following along is that you sort of have a holistic approach to, health, but it's not just, you know, it's not just one thing. supplements has sort of been a part of that, and even more, right?

Hector I don't know if you call it like medicine or injections. Like there's all this, this craze with, you know, all these new. what's the word I'm looking for? They're not protein, weight loss, loss

Nate shots

Hector y Yeah. But it's a, um, peptides. Yeah. Peptides is the word I'm looking for. Right? Cryo

Nate hacking.

Hector Yeah. And a few years ago I would've thought like, all of this is crazy and bullshit and what are you putting into your [00:06:00] body?

Hector But as it's coming around, it's just, it seems like something that's here and it seems like something that, not that we have to deal with, but I think, you've sort of had a, a calculated. Practical approach to it. So I'd love to hear what your journey has been around all those things and sort of how you're integrating that into your life, your clients and such.

Nate Well, I've been hearing about like the BPC five and TB 500 blend, the Wolverine stack for a while. I got a 350 pounder in Juujitsu, landed on me in my shoulder, like my first six months of training they, so I got a grade two sprain, so I was like, well, might as well try it. So I got some BPC and I started injecting it kind of around the site and it was so annoying.

Nate this is so hard to do, give myself shots, whatever. But I think I cut my recovery from like four months down into like six weeks or so, maybe even a little less. And so I was feeling a lot better and I was, like a fan of it. But then like, you know, GLP ones, Ozempic, Reddit, trutti, all these other, like, GLP one inhibitors are.

Nate Super popular right now, and it seems like a lot of people are taking them. You see people like you haven't seen in a while and they've dropped a bunch [00:07:00] of weight. Usually it's like, so they're taking something. And so for a while I was like, that sucks. That's cheating. You know, like what you, like you said, what are you putting in your body?

Nate But like, the more research I do, because I'm, I'm, I'm doing a lot of research on all these different compounds right now, and I'm writing like a little blog about it, so it's called The Truth About Peptides. Anything for sale just, but if you wanna like know what I've learned about stuff, you can check it out.

Nate I've got like 12 up there right now. Try to do a couple week. But I feel like now looking at this stuff, these GLP one and Ozempic and Tirzepatide and everything are the natural progression and evolution in response to a very toxic food environment that we find ourselves in. we currently are still operating with our, like caveman brains where we're like, sugar is good because I might need it for, for the famine that's going to happen in my ice cave.

Nate You know, like that's the brain and the operating system we have. But then we have refrigeration and we have pantries filled with snacks and we [00:08:00] have fast food available to us at any point. And food scientists are in labs right now, like building. Not just food that bypasses your, like, not digestive tract, but like your satiation mechanism.

Nate Like a, a McDonald's hamburger for example, is, is engineered to be able to be consumed in three bites. And people don't realize that that like, that's done intentionally so that you will order more food and eat until you are full, rather than eating out in the appropriate amount of calories. So you'll eat until you're like stuffed, you know, like french fries.

Nate People don't even realize that french fries have sugar on them. it's to give us the, like that real visceral reaction where you really take a, you take like the claw and you grab the french fries and then you stuff them into your mouth. You know, it's not like no one's taking up one french fry and be like, Hmm, that's a nice little taste.

Nate But we're just crushing these things because they've overridden our, brain's natural, like satiety mechanisms. And so not only do we have food scientists in labs coming up with foods that. Like make us like that [00:09:00] we can eat more of faster. That really give us that crunch and that salt and the sweet and those perfect ratios.

Nate But we also have scientists and labs right now who are trying to come up with foods that bypass the GLP one, like drugs responses that slow us down and mute the food noise that we get on a regular basis. So it's this constant battle between like corporations and people looking for profits in.

Nate Like health and you know, fitness essentially. So I think that the GLP ones are just a natural evolution in combat to these foods that are so bad for us and have been engineered in a way to make us overeat. So I'm not necessarily like pushing them, but I'm also like, if people are coming to me and being like, I'm taking these, or should I take this?

Nate I'm not telling them, no, don't do that. that's not a good idea anymore. You know, I'm more like, yeah, great. If you're taking it, let's work on making sure that you don't lose any muscle mass. Let's make sure that you are eating enough protein or if you know, that sort of thing.

Nate So I've [00:10:00] been working with a lot of people who are taking them. I mean, they're getting fabulous results because they are having an easier time with it. But also the people that I'm working with are not losing muscle mass at the same rate that people who are just taking them on their own are, and people also seem to be able to, to take less of them.

Nate And still continue to get good results, which is helpful because I don't want people overloaded on those or really, really highly dependent.

Hector Yeah. I think one of the challenges that, at least for me, and I'm someone who gets pretty nerdy on these sort of things, and it's been, I've had a, you know, put on my nerd hat and glasses quite a bit because you've got things like GLP one and BPCs and you know, whatever way like.

Hector There's obviously some, some specific drugs there. Are there some general buckets that they sort of fall into, whether it's like weight loss or you mentioned the BPC sort of was, you know, in recovery. Are there certain things that, you know, functions, if you will, that these sort of things are accomplishing?

Nate Yeah, so like I would say that like one of the ones like these, GLP ones basically slow down your body's digestive track, which [00:11:00] mutes food noise a little bit. So you don't quite get these sugar cravings. You don't get the hunger signals. You're more full after eating a smaller portion. It makes it very easy to lose weight.

Nate Then a lot of them fall into like the, growth hormone agonist. So they're growth hormone precursors. So growth hormone's, very expensive, and you inject yourself with growth hormone like a lot of bodybuilders do. Your body will stop producing growth hormone. These have kind of bypassed that mechanism by hitting the, enzyme chain before your body releases growth hormone and stimulating that so you release more of your own growth hormone.

Nate So that's your BPCs, that's your cjcs, that's your,  Ilin, that sort of thing. And so like, that's a very, very strong like recovery bucket I would say. So I'm currently trying to cjc Ilin blend just to see what it's like. I was hoping that would help with my back issues. And while I don't necessarily know if, that's doing something or if it's, you know, because I'm throwing all the things at it, it seems to be helping it a little bit.

Nate You know, the thing that I'm noticing most about, it's that my sleep is really good. I fall asleep really fast. I go deep sleep hardcore [00:12:00] for like. Two hours. So I'm getting a lot of a good recovery there. Then there's also kind of like random ones too, like me, like melanin two can help increase the melanin in your skin so you can get a tan and it also makes you super horny.

Nate That's kind of fun, you know, there's a couple of them that do different things. I think the main buckets are the, decreased appetite. the recovery is huge. There's not, there's not one that's like, this one is for building muscle. I mean, like there's a couple that are like muscle building precursors, like IGF one.

Nate but those seem to be more like, mid-tier, peptides. Some of these God tier peptides are like, are the cjcs? The BPCs? Some people will even put, glutathione in there and that's a real big, like anti-inflammatory recovery. But I think like the main thing that we are seeing with these is. like more youthful skin hair.

Nate There's some that will help, like regrow hair. There's some that will help with your skin, like the glow peptide or the, GHKU. The copper peptide are [00:13:00] really good for that. But then you got some that have just like random different benefits, like the melanin. It's really fun. I haven't tried it, but I, I kind of want to,

Hector yeah.

Hector We'll, we'll ask your wife about that one.

Hector Do you put it in the wellness bucket yet? For the longest time I thought it was just sort of a recovery thing or for people, not for people who were like fat, but people who wanted to lose weight. it seems, and I don't know, but it seems like people are taking them more just in terms of general wellness and not necessarily because they have a specific problem.

Nate Yeah. I think that like, you know, without splitting hairs too much and being like, this one is for wellness and this one is not, I would say this goes into kinda like the general biohacking. Like how do we age more gracefully? So really, really heavy in terms of longevity and improved performance and recovery.

Nate Almost similar to, I would like think about supplements. You know, supplements 30 years ago weren't anywhere close to as popular or as large of an industry as they are today. But I think that like number one, if you're waking up in the morning and you're having a protein shake and you're putting creatine in it and some [00:14:00] greens and you got your vitamins and minerals you're taking, you pop a couple pills before you go, like about your day, you're setting yourself up in like a mindset of, I'm a healthy person, I prioritize my fitness level.

Nate And I think that is just exponential if you actually have to give yourself a shot. Now I think that sometimes these, GLP ones are sold as like, eat whatever you want to. This makes it easy to lose weight, which I hate, because I still still think that like now it almost becomes more critical to hit your fitness goals, to hit the gym, to get enough protein.

Nate But I think that if you're giving yourself a shot, generally speaking, that's such a ordeal compared to like popping a pill or making a shake, that you really have to embody that. Like, I am a fit person and health is a large priority for me. And so I feel like if you're taking a shot, like the chances of you eating like a cheeseburger and fries for lunch is way lower.

Hector Yeah. It's really fascinating 'cause I think I saw something on X or whatever where it was just talking about how we're gonna, you know, look up in. [00:15:00] Say 30 or 40 years, and you're gonna see a clear distinction between people who sort of took this stuff seriously, took supplementation seriously, took, you know, whatever these sort of biohacking methods, seriously.

Hector And those that sort of continued on the, path of the nineties, 2000 sort of thing where it was, you know, cheeseburgers and french fries. And I, I was just on a call yesterday with, a lady who was. She's about to turn 50 and I was absolutely flabbergasted 'cause she was like, she was hot and not that 50 year olds can't be hot, but like thought she could have been 38, 39.

Hector And you know, of course maybe there was some operations and stuff, but it didn't look like that. Right. It just, it seems like the ability for people to, like you said, age gracefully is more available to people today than obviously ever before.

Nate I think that. we're gonna see a clear distinction in like the next 10, 20 years, and I think that'll be kind of like the new wealthy divide.

Nate You'll be able to see like people who don't have any money for these compounds. Are going to kind of exist in that state of like [00:16:00] overweight or obesity, dealing with diabetes and things like that, and people with the money to, spring for these peptides and pay for personal trainers and you know, like have someone cooking their meals or whatever else.

Nate They're going to not only be wealthier, but they're also going to be like skinnier and more ripped. So I think that like. Your body is, a large amount of like the current currency you have, and I think that's only gonna get more and more pronounced as some of these compounds become available because now it doesn't just take hours in the gym and, tracking your macros.

Nate Now you can kind of supercharge or shortcut the experience depending on how you, how you view it. by putting some money towards some of these peptide compounds.

Hector are there some that are. I dunno, expense or like if you were to say like, if you want to get started, like here's sort of the, the entry route or like, here's a way to get going.

Hector Or is it that people sort of have to dive in and, I, I'm just so foreign to the process of it.

Nate It's a little bit of the wild west right now. So there's two main ways you can kind of get involved. Number one is you can go to like a [00:17:00] naturopathic doctor or even one of like these like medical wellness spas and get a prescription and have them actually inject you in-house.

Nate That's, so they get it through a compounding pharmacy. It comes in vials already, like already reconstituted is what it's called. So like it's a liquid. Or you can go on the internet and buy research chemicals because a lot of these places are selling 'em and they're like, Hey, not for human consumption.

Nate Horse files. Yeah. So like if they're like, these are research chemicals. They're not for humans, but everyone is still reconstituting themselves with a little bit of BAC water, which is easy to find, buying some insulin syringes on Amazon and then shooting in them into their, belly fat or whatever.

Nate So I feel like you can kind of go either direction, depending on how familiar you are with. Like what you need and what these do and if you have a good like filter on where you can find high quality products. So if you have those things in place, then you know, messing around and being, having those N one experiments where you're just trying stuff on yourself, I think can be a lot of fun.

Nate Otherwise, if you don't feel confident like that, I [00:18:00] think probably talking to somebody. But like for example, there's this one GLP one called Reddit Tru Tide. Just give it like, crazy good results across the board. You can, people are microdosing it, and getting great results in their weight loss, but there's also some really amazing gut health benefits to this Reddi tide.

Nate and then I think like the company Lilly is either trying to Trademark it or patented or whatever else? Because they have just bought up like the nation's supply of Reddit, Tru Tide, so that they can start giving it to people at like $800 a month. Whereas if you went on the research like these, some of these research chemicals websites, you can get high quality Redit, Tru Tide, but it's like $160 for basically what ends up being a four month supply.

Nate So You know, I think that there's gonna, if you have the, the chops and the, time willing to dedicate to the research, you can find stuff for pretty inexpensive. Otherwise it can get very spendy.

Hector What else outside of these, you know, peptides do you think is worth people either investing their time, money, [00:19:00] Are there other things that, you know, check some of those boxes?

Nate there's a couple of really cool things that are just coming out and like, people are getting some really great results doing number one, be walking. Have you heard of this?

Hector I try and avoid it, but yeah, it seems like, some people tend to do it from time to time when I look out the window.

Hector Yeah.

Nate It's when you ambulate your legs in a direction and you end up moving from somewhere to somewhere else. Crazy stuff out there about walking. But like, like, the benefits of walking are absolutely mind blowing. If you put it up against a lot of these weight loss drugs and you control for like, calories, you're gonna get great results on walking too.

Nate Probably fairly comparable. So if you're just walking an hour a day, you're gonna, your life's gonna get so much better. Walking after meals. Also super important for digestion. Helps your body partition those nutrients and put 'em into muscle versus fat. Keeps your blood sugar low. It's so good. Just do that.

Nate Drinking water, also a great use of time and energy, putting some electrolytes in that. And then sleep. People don't take their sleep seriously enough. So. Just [00:20:00] making sure you're getting to bed on time, getting away from the blue light before you go to bed. Having proper like magnesium or supplementation, having a cool dark room using an eye mask, things like that that people don't even think about.

Nate They're leaving a ton of gains on the table, whether they're looking to lose fat or build muscle. and like your mental health, your longevity, how you feel on a daily basis. So impacted by the amount of sleep you got. but people want the shot. They don't want to. Do the work or have to stop looking at TikTok at night?

Hector Yeah, and I think like small, small habits or, you know, small changes. For me, recently, I started taking more calls on walks, you know, as opposed to being on a Zoom in my office. You know, we live in places where it's still warm enough to go outside right now, and it's, here in southern California it's 70 a cool, nice 73

Hector And so taking calls on on walks has been like, a game changer for me. just in terms of, you know, looking down at the steps and seeing like, oh, okay. Like, you know, I look back six months ago and I was averaging like 3000 steps a day, and all of a sudden you add in a couple of meeting, you know, walks and, [00:21:00] you're pushing that 10 k.

Hector Pretty easily as opposed to, you know, I remember like going out and doing sprints and like all this stuff to try and like activate some of those same, I would imagine effects. that can be done a lot more simpler just by, you know, some of these common habits.

Nate I love that.

Nate I've actually been thinking about that a lot because I've been hating Zoom calls recently. Just don't wanna be on them. Like, I feel like I'm like either sitting or just standing in the same spot. I love being on calls. I love talking to people on the phone where I get to move around a little bit.

Nate And even I'm in my house. I'm still like doing karate in the mirror, you know? I'm like, I feel like I'm just, I can move. I can think better. Everything's just going a lot better. I, if you don't mind, I'm just gonna take this podcast and just go outside with it. It'd be fun. That'd be kind of fun thing.

Nate My video, my video

Hector editors will appreciate it. Yeah.

Nate Will.

Hector One of the other things that I, that I think is, you've got some ideas on is, like the strength versus aesthetic sort of thing. And, you know, so much of the world today seems to be focused on looking better and, for sure, I think it has its value.

Hector What are your thoughts on whether someone [00:22:00] should be chasing, you know, physique or whether they should, you know, be focusing on just getting stronger?

Nate Like, I think it's like what's the goal, right? Like if you wanna step on a platform and deadlift and like in a competition, you should absolutely be focused on getting stronger.

Nate I think there are some minimal levels of strength that adult males should have. Like being able to do 25 pushups, being able to do 10 pull-ups, being able to squat your body weight. I think those are all important things. But beyond that, like, you know, I'm like medium strong. I'm not that strong compared to a lot of people.

Nate so like, let's just say for this conversation that I can do a dumbbell row with 100 pounds for five reps. Me being able to go do a dumbbell row with 120 pounds for five reps doesn't impact my juujitsu. It doesn't impact my day to day. Like going from like. Where I'm at to more is not going to give me any sort of like massive payoff, and in fact could potentially be a little bit detrimental because of the stress I'm putting on my joints, tendons, and ligaments.

Nate Not to say you shouldn't get [00:23:00] strong I always am trying to get stronger because strength and muscle go hand in hand and I wanna build as much muscle and be as resilient as I can be because muscle's the most metabolic tissue in the body and helps you age well and helps you eat more carbohydrates, which means you get more tacos If you do it right. So, I think that that is important, but I think that there's nothing wrong with training for aesthetics. You know, I think that like, if you can just keep your body moving at a good level, you never stop jumping or sprinting or dancing or moving around in a way that like keeps you like mobile and feeling good.

Nate Great strain your biceps, hit some bicep curls, work on those triceps. I think that like the amount of confidence a man can get by training his side delts, his triceps and his lats to the point where you could see them from the front. you can't put a price on how it feels walking into a room being like, I know I look good.

Nate I know you see my arm stretched my shirt sleeves. And I think there's a lot of value in that for sure.

Hector The last few weeks I've sort of fallen off as life has gotten a little crazy. But the six months before that I was, pretty dedicated to the gym and, specifically [00:24:00] lifting, following, you know, bodybuilder regimens.

Hector And I have no intention of ever stepping on a stage and being a, a bodybuilder. But for the longest time in high school, it was all just. Let's try and get stronger. Let's try and get stronger. Oh, I'm injured. Oh fuck. You know, it was just like, instead of taking sort of a different calculated approach, and I remember looking at, a picture from a couple years ago and being like, holy shit.

Hector I was that scrawny. You know, like looking back and being like, Jesus, that guy is a wimp. and also conversely feeling better about, you know, how I look in the mirror. I, never thought that that was. I thought that was too vain. Like, why should I care about that? And also going through all the things that I've gone through, I'm like, no, I want to give as much confidence to myself as I can.

Hector And if, I can get more of that by a, by pushing myself in the gym, but then also by liking the way that I look in the mirror. Like, why not? And, you know, training things like delts was like, I always thought like why the fuck would I do that? You know, like dealt raises like. We weren't allowed to do that.

Hector Not [00:25:00] functional bro. Exactly. It just, it wasn't, functional and so I never put the time into it or, you know, the little time that I did, it was like, oh, there's no results. But I think there is something to really being intentional and strategic with how you train, not only for, you know, longevity and health, but also for the way that you look.

Nate And I mean like, okay, I've been a personal trainer since 2008, so I've trained a lot of people and the amount of joy people come into a session when they're like, look at my arm. Look at my, like, look at my arm muscle. Look at my leg muscle. I saw my calves in the mirror the other day, like. That's so fun.

Nate I want everyone to have that experience where they like look at themselves and they're like, okay, let's go. Like that's a great place to be. And I think sometimes guys can like poo poo that because they're like, that's not real functional strength. You know what's functional strength though is like rolling around on the ground and not getting like arm barred because you actually have done enough chess flies where you're gonna be like strong enough to keep yourself locked in.

Nate You know? So like there's a lot of carry over to. Real world stuff in some of these [00:26:00] isolation movements of bicep curls and chest flies and side doubts when it comes to combat sports. And I think those guys are very, like, are very wise to be doing a lot of shoulders and stability exercises to keep themselves stable and strong.

Nate But like it's so funny to, like, if I were to look back at myself when I was at my strongest when I was deadlifting, you know, over 400 pounds for reps and I could squat three 15, which I can't do right now, I would tear that guy up. like, it was crazy. 'cause I came into Juujitsu a couple years ago, like three years approaching, like three years ago, like next month.

Nate And I got beat up by like a 15-year-old girl. And I was like, I am 200 pounds. I have been lifting weights for two decades. How did you just beat me up three times in a row without anything I could do about it? And so I think that really changed my paradigm about like, what is strong. and like, how valuable is that?

Nate Like if you can't, defend yourself, then what, point is there to being able to do more of a dumbbell row zero like that? Zero carryover to me.

Hector Are there [00:27:00] exercises or types of, movement that you think, help with these sort of things?

Nate Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. There's a lot of like, great ways to bulletproof your body against some of the, like the combat sports.

Nate But I do think that like, just in general, like you said, like, you know, getting stronger, being able to do more pull-ups, being able to deadlift more weight, being able to squat, those all have carry over and, are very, very functional. But you can't neglect like the internal external rotations, like the shoulder presses, the shoulder and thoracic mobility.

Nate Some of these other little things that don't get the, the same respect as the big three lifts. And bro, what do you bench. unless you can bench press like a lot of weight. I don't think there's a ton of carryover with a bench press, but it is really fun when I'm rolling with someone who's 140 pounds to be like, that's fun.

Nate then rather than doing like a bench press, I like a single, I got like a single arm floor press, throw a little hip bridge in there. It's nice.

Hector Like a pushup?

Nate No, like you're laying on your back, your elbows touch the ground and then you push a dumbbell up,

Hector laying on your back. Are you on a [00:28:00] bench or are you on the floor?

Nate On the floor.

Hector All right. I have to try that out.

Nate Turkish Git ups also kind of like one of those ones that gets like shit on a lot, but I think that's a great move for just general mobility, being able to move with a load over your head and being able to stay sta stable and sturdy.

Hector You know, one of the guys who is, he's getting dragged through the mud quite a bit is Mike Rael. I'm not sure if you follow him, at all. he has, some notorious thoughts about the Turkish ghetto and saying, you know, how, how stupid it is. I push back on that because I, I think it's like, it's a great strength sort of thing and maybe for like the bodybuilding sort of aesthetic look, maybe it doesn't accomplish all those things, but I think that some of those funky sort of body weight, you know, things that, force your body to, you know, carry weight in, sort of awkward positions, I think can really help when you're, trained jiujitsu or, you know, carrying your kids around, like all that sort of stuff.

Hector Totally gets your body in a wonky spot.

Nate Yeah, I dunno, I, followed him for a little bit because I think he's smart, but then he's. There was drama and I'm like, I don't have time for drama around fitness. Are you joking? Like, gimme a break. I'm [00:29:00] out. I'm creating much drama as I want to with my family. I got a 7-year-old bro.

Hector I felt the same way.

Nate I feel like when people are like, that's a stupid exercise. I'm like, what? It's, there's not like really a stupid exercise have of burpees. There's just stupid applications of exercises. you wanna be a bodybuilder, you don't have to do TURs or GitHubs or suitcase carries.

Nate You know, you wanna be strong, mobile and fit and you wanna be able to like, carry a bag through the airport where you got two kids hanging off you. You probably should do some heavy showcase Carries just saying. Yeah, it just depends on what your goals, you know.

Hector What about things like, TRT or, you know, I think further down that road is, there's like, obviously the steroids, but like things like TRT or or stuff like that where do you land on on those sorts of things?

Nate I was debating getting on TRT to see if that would help my back, but I feel like it's, you know, it's once you're on, you're on, you shouldn't really get off of it. that said, I probably about 50% of the guys I work with are, on some form of TRT and then like in the Juujitsu community, that's massive.

Nate So I feel like. it is a really, really good thing. but it's not in the good in the way that a lot of people think. They think that they're gonna get on it and become like jacked right out [00:30:00] monsters, and that never seems to happen. It just seems to kind of just compound what you already do. I've got people who are taking like two milliliters or whatever.

Nate It's like a, like a, almost like a do double dose of like kind of the average who don't look shredded or jacked or anything like that. So it's not like taking TRT is gonna fix like body issues. What I really think it does a good job of is. Helping you sleep better and helping your mental health. So many guys I've talked to have been like, I was depressed.

Nate I felt like shit, I couldn't sleep. I just, I was in a bad mood all the time, never had any energy. They get on TRT and suddenly they have like a new lease on life. So I've heard that story multiple times from people who are just like, yeah, I was going through it. I didn't realize it was just 'cause my hormones were in the tank.

Nate So I think that like if you are feeling like just low, just not where you wanna be, bad sleep, low energy, but. Like depressed, anxious, that's a really good time to start looking at hormones and see where you fall. If you just like wanna get a little bit bigger arms. I had to think that's probably not the right move.

Hector Yeah. And do [00:31:00] some, unintended consequences to your balls. at least. And that's, that could be a, the balls are smaller,

Nate the dick looks bigger, so I mean, maybe it's a positive

Hector maybe,

Nate are there, I can use all the help I can get, you know.

Hector No comment. Are there supplements that you do? Well, actually, before we get into that, you know, you mentioned a little bit about hormones and such.

Hector I think one thing that's becoming more and more available to people as it's, companies and it's more accessible and and less expensive, is doing things like blood work. Is that part of your protocol or, or is that something that you're.

Nate I, I do my blood work once or twice a year, twice if I remember once pretty much without fail.

Nate Just 'cause I wanna have like, records of where I fall and what's going on. Because I think a lot of times we look at blood work and the doctor's like, Hmm, looks good. But he didn't have your last six years of records where it was like, whoa, you've been really, really, like, good levels there.

Nate Now you have like medium levels, maybe something to look at rather than just being like, that's a fine level to be at, you know? I think of like HRVA lot, HRV, you can track with like a whoop or an aura stems for heart rate variability. And it's so unique to you, [00:32:00] right? Some people, some of my clients have HRVs that are like 80 to a hundred, like really great and some of my clients have HRVs that are 25 to 31.

Nate And so if I got a 25 HRV, I would feel like shit. 'cause my HRV is generally around 90, but everyone else, like, they'll feel bad on 25, but they'll feel great at 31. And so it's just like, it's super, super, unique to each person. So I think having your blood work so you can cross check and make sure that you have like on a.

Nate Yearly basis. You can see what's happening with your blood, your hormones, toxicity. Inflammation. That's critical. It's not necessarily just about what the numbers are, it's about what they are. In relation to your last check,

Hector can you explain a little bit about what HRV is and sort of, you know, what its significance might be?

Nate Yeah, so heart rate variability is basically how long there is between each beat of your heart, so your heart doesn't go 1, 2, 3. Four. It's more along the lines like 1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6, [00:33:00] 7, and it kind of will, it will change. The higher your heart rate variability is, the more your body is ready to take on different challenges.

Nate So if you have a high HRV, you wake up with a lot of good rest, you're gonna be ready to jump into a hardcore workout session, deadlift a lot of weight, but you're also able to flip the switch, and just go into like meditation or breath work and have like that parasympathetic nervous system dominance.

Nate You can shift back and forth. Your body is ready. If you have a low HRV, your body's not really gonna be ready for like a lot of variance in what you're doing. So easy ways to increase your HRV. The two best things are sleep more, sleep better, and walk more. The more walking you do, the better your HRV is.

Nate And I don't have any science to prove that, but I have a ton of empirical evidence from looking at client's data and it seems like step counts and HRVs move in sync with each other.

Hector Yeah, I could see that. I remember when I, first got, the whoop and, and it was interesting. You, you'd wake up and I'd feel like shit or, you know, bad night of sleep or whatever, and you could see in the number, like the number was [00:34:00] lower and then, you know, take care of yourself a little bit, recover a bit, and the number goes up.

Hector And I think that, data is so valuable. Maybe it's just to a nerd like me, but it gives you insights into your body. you know, 'cause I remember being like, oh dude, you're just a little bitch. and not realizing that no, your body is in a, different state.

Hector And so if we can arm ourselves with this information, I think we're able to make better decisions.

Nate I did a whole episode on my podcast, get Lean and live Longer about H HR V and I think like, it was a 45 minute episode. It probably could have been about 25 minutes, but like at the end of the day, the guy who was talking about it, he wears like a whoop, an aura and a garment.

Nate So he has, he's getting his HIV from three different places. He was saying that like they generally all are about the same, and if one of them's a little higher than like, even if the number is different, the, change is fairly easy to see no matter what implement you're using.

Nate he said you can predict like lifespan with this and you can predict disease with this. So again, it's not like, if I woke up and for the next seven days I was getting a 30 on my HRV. Probably something going on with me and that goes on for a [00:35:00] month. He's like, go get checked, go to the doctor, have them do some panels and figure out what's going on.

Nate He's like, cause if you get cancer, God forbid. You'll see your HRV just completely take a dump way before a lot of other symptoms will pop up. but it's knowing your previous levels so you can compare and contrast them to like your current levels. Because if you just start looking at 'em and you're like, it's 30, like you probably, you don't have cancer, you might just have a low HRV in general.

Nate So,

Hector What gadgets or, tools, you mentioned the whoop and you talked about some other ones. Are there any other favorites that you have?

Nate I used the whoop for about two and a half years, and I used the Aura for like six years. I just got rid of my aura because the battery was dying and I found out they sell data to Palantir and I think Palantir might, could potentially be the Antichrist.

Nate I'm not totally sure yet, but it seems like it's like we're well on the way to like digital IDs and social scores and. Constant surveillance, which, you know, like, you wanna put on your tinfoil hat and I'll take you for a ride, you know. But I like that sort of thing. I like my sleep mask a lot.

Nate That's like one of my favorite, like, I don't even know if you'd call it a gadget or not, but like I, I love having that thing [00:36:00] around because it just helps like black out my room wherever I am, no matter what time of day. Just

Hector a standard sleep mask.

Nate There's a couple on Amazon that I really like.

Hector Well, let's talk about like your stack, like your daily, protocol if you will, or the things that you're, you know, you're doing consistently to maintain your, like you said, live longer.

Hector What is the, you, I think you changed the name of your show, which is, I'm excited to hear,

Nate get leaner and live longer.

Hector Yeah. what's sort of the protocol that you have for that?

Nate Alright, so, it used to be more like movement in the morning, but now I've switched it up to breath work 'cause movement wasn't feeling good.

Nate But basically I wake up and I have a glass of water. With, a little bit of baking soda in it. And that's just something I've been trying out for the last couple days. I like baking soda pre jiujitsu or pre mountain biking. Anything where you're gonna get a big lactic acid buildup. But I've just been liking having it in the morning because I like to wake up and just drink something gross.

Nate And I think that sounds weird and I'm not really joking about it. for a long time I drank the water with hydrogen tablets in it and that didn't taste very good. So I feel like I'm just like on like. What's something weird I can put in my body right off the bat? Then I'll have a glass of fast aid right after that.

Nate So, fast Aid is my amino acid supplement, so I'll take that before I, [00:37:00] train or if I'm doing anything on an empty stomach just to make sure I have aminos, especially if I'm fasting and I don't wanna raise my blood sugar. It's a great way to do that, but I think aminos in the taste is great, especially if you're not gonna eat first thing.

Nate then I do like, you know, six to 15 minutes of breath work, depending on how much time I have. and then I'll usually train at some point during the day, either doing cardio or a weight training session because I haven't been doing any sort of combat yet. and then at night, what I'm taking right now is I'm taking a vitamin C, I'm taking a turmeric, I'm taking.

Nate like 150% dose of magnesium. So I, I have a magnesium glycinate supplement and the, the serving size is two, which brings you about 400 milligrams of magnesium glycinate. But some of the studies right now are showing that 500 milligrams of magnesium can actually increase brain volume and protect against dementia Alzheimer's, which runs my family.

Nate So, oh, why not? I'm just gonna take that for the rest of my life. So I take three of those if I need to like guarantee good sleep, I'll take two pills of Complete Restore, which is my sleep and recovery supplement. then I [00:38:00] take, I take fish oil and vitamin D in the morning. You wanna take vitamin D in the morning. You also wanna take, take vitamin D with the fish oil. So you give it a little bit of fat 'cause it's fat soluble. and then I also, in my, protein shake that I'll make and take with me on the road, I have two scoops of the whey protein.

Nate I have a scoop of collagen. I put in a bunch of salt. I do, ice sunna banana, and then either milk or almond milk, and then I'm doing the CJC injections at night. Now, that's not gonna be a long term thing. I'm just, I'm doing that for like six weeks. Then I'll take six weeks off of peptides just to see what happens.

Hector I love that it's a thorough, you know, protocol and I'm gonna ask you about how to sort of, not simplify it, but make it, manageable. And, but before that, I, I remember being a, a young kid and my mom, You know, she has a, a number of things. Most, mostly it's diabetes is sort of what she's fighting or whatever the word is to use there.

Hector But I remember seeing her and her having her Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and she had that little box of pills Right. That she'd have to take. Yeah. And I remember thinking like, I'm never [00:39:00] gonna be that person that has to fucking take all these pills, because I remember seeing like, it was like a handful of pills that she had to take.

Hector I'm like, that looks miserable. And I've sort of come around and I'm like, well, you're either gonna. Take a handful of pills of supplements or you're gonna ha take a handful of pills of medication. but it seems like you're gonna the, I I needed to order one of those Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday things.

Hector 'cause I'm like, this is, the only way to sort of make it practical and it doesn't seem like there's a way. Around that, given the food environment, the toxin environment, all the things that you talked about.

Nate Yeah, a hundred percent. Like our food is just not as nutrient dense as it used to be. So if you want to get the amount of nutrients you need, you generally ought to be eating well over your calorie limits.

Nate So supplements can bridge the gap there and give you what you need. I didn't mention creatine. I take creatine and I've been taking 15 grams a day as an experiment for the past three weeks. But did you know that creatine monohydrate, just the regular basic creatine, if you have wake up with like low sleep, if you take five scoops of that 25 grams, you [00:40:00] can basically counteract the, like the sleep deprivation you feel and like the mental load you have.

Nate It's amazing. There's some new studies coming out about that with regard to decreasing, like sleep debt as well as. How it impacts people with who already have Alzheimer's and protects against Alzheimer's. By the way, did you know nicotine protects against Alzheimer's and Parkinson's?

Hector because of you, I did

Nate magnesium, creatine, nicotine, all like have some really crazy long time lifetime, mental health, like.

Nate Longevity benefits. Kind of weird.

Hector Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. 'cause I, I remember growing up and being in high school and thinking like, oh, creatine. It's just, to make your muscles bigger or like, it being very much like a, bodybuilding, you know, for muscle sort of thing. But it seems like more and more studies are coming out about its effects on the brain and how it actually can benefit, you know, cognitively as well.

Nate Yeah, it's kind of wild and I, I'm trying to get everyone to take it, so I got my little sister taking it. My kids take a little bit of it. Really. I'm trying to get my grandma to take it. She's a, in a memory care [00:41:00] facility, so she doesn't remember to take it. Weirdest thing,

Hector How much are you giving to your kids?

Nate Like two grams? I'll make a, like a shake and I'll split Almost a full scoop between them.

Hector that's something that a doctor might go, oh, that's a good, I, you know, 'cause I was like, no, you guys can't have this because you've gotta, I don't know, reach some, arbitrary age, but, but it seems to be safe for kids.

Nate Totally. Yeah. I mean, it's already in food, it's in steak, but like you eat a one pound steak, you eat about a gram of creatine, so you don't need to feed your kids like. Two pounds of steak every day.

Hector Yeah, a

Nate lot.

Hector Yeah. And expensive these days. I love your, your ing. I need to re-up on that because A, it tastes good.

Hector And, a big part of my, protocol, if you will, is intermittent fasting. So I usually don't eat until four or five. and with the fast aid, that just gets so much, it just goes by so much easier. Are there any other Yeah,

Nate yeah. It really mutes your hunger signals, which is really nice and it keeps you kind of full, especially if you put it with really cold water.

Hector That's the trick. Well, yeah. Another part of the challenge that I was doing was training while fasted, and you mentioned [00:42:00] the aminos, which the fast aid brings. It's like you're sort of not wasting the workout, but you're definitely not getting the most out of it that you can.

Nate It's crazy how much of my, like working out, I completely wasted because I was doing, I did intermittent fasting for almost three years and I trained in the morning and I wouldn't eat until like 4, 5, 6, 8 hours later. And so like your body, like let's say you're doing a chest day, you like you're tearing down your chest muscle fibers, your body will go look for aminos to rebuild that and it's gonna pull it from your quads.

Nate So you lose muscle when you train without, like aminos floating in your system. And it doesn't mean everyone needs to be taking an amino acid supplement, but if you are fasting and training, I even like, I even don't even go like for a long walk beyond 30 minutes if I don't take that stuff. But if you've had plenty of protein in your diet, you had a bunch of eggs earlier in the day, you know, like, and you got like in the last three, four hours you've had something, you're gonna be okay.

Nate But like these early morning training sessions where you're doing it on empty stomach or when you're intermittent fasting, you have to be taking something like this. It's [00:43:00] really, really critical if you want to maintain the muscle you've built. 'cause muscle is so expensive to build, you don't wanna lose any of it because you didn't take a scoop of something easy.

Hector Yeah. Any other favorite supplements, that you like, that you recommend often?

Nate I just released a, it's called Max Aid. It's an essential amino acid. So it's not when you take, while you're fasting. unless you don't care about raising your blood sugar, cause it'll break the fast. Fast. It won't break the fast.

Nate But I've been really liking that. What I've been doing is taking, taking that and mixing it into Greek yogurt and like making like a strawberry flavored Greek yogurt that's like super high in aminos. That's been really good Like the magnesium glycinate a lot. Been taking that a lot. Been taking a lot of creatine.

Hector Yeah. And also what I love about your, I dunno, you call it your shop, is that you sort of aggregate and put together, you know, some, you probably have better words, but like some combination or some compounds of different stuff. So you're taking sort of one pill that's got a group of all these, you know, different supplements, for a specific function, whether that's like, you know, at night to recover or in the morning to get going for your brain.

Nate most of what I've, built with million dollar Body labs is just stuff that I wanted to [00:44:00] take and so kind of used it as an excuse, like, like my nootropic deep mind like. People, like a lot of people don't like this because there's no caffeine in it really. But I like to get my caffeine through coffee.

Nate I wanna drink a bunch of coffee in the morning and that's like my favorite thing to do. So when it comes to like two or three o'clock in the afternoon and I'm like running on fumes or I'm tired or whatever, it's nice to be able to have a stem free neutropic that can help me with my, like my mental and cognitive abilities without keeping me up late at night.

Nate So

Hector there you go. Yeah. On that note, why don't you tell people where, they can go grab the supplements, if there's anything else that's worth going out there and getting, and, how they might be able to stay connected and follow up with you.

Nate Yeah, so million dollar Body labs.com is where you can grab the supplements.

Nate got a deal running right now, it's like 30% off stuff. So if you like, it's like kind of like an early Black Friday thing. I don't know when this this comes out. I'll probably run a Christmas special too, depending. If you want to, learn about like the peptides and it's really just like, learn about what I've been learning.

Nate go to truth [00:45:00] about peptides.com and I just have like a blog and I'm trying to continue to update it. So if you have questions about something in particular, I'll go do research on that. Next. I just wanna learn as much about this because I do think it's, it's gonna be the future of a lot of like longevity, biohacking, and just health and fitness and wellness.

Nate Then if you wanna check on my book called Million Dollar Body Method, which basically like condenses everything that I've learned about nutrition and how to eat for all day energy and to lose fat really rapidly, just go to get nate's book.com and I'll send you an, free copy of it. You can also go on Amazon or Audible and, and get it.

Nate It's on there, but if you don't wanna pay for it, get nate's book.com.

Hector Love it. We'll link all that up as well. Last question, that we ask everybody. In your opinion, Nate, what is the definition of modern masculinity?

Nate The first thing that popped in my head, and I I can't really get it out, would be like a servant leader, I think is, my definition.

Nate I feel like the journey I've been on and through masculinity is really one of leadership. my wife is a very strong-willed person and she's amazing and I love her. She just has a lot of opinions on [00:46:00] things and I don't have as many opinions, and I always felt like she'd be like, where do you wanna go?

Nate I'd be like, I don't know, babe, where do you wanna go? And I was like, I'm being so nice letting her choose. What I've learned though, is that a lot of times she's already been choosing stuff all day. Especially now we have like with kids and stuff, she's making choices, making decisions. Sometimes she just wants to turn her brain off.

Nate So the greatest gift that I think I can give my family is by being like a servant of them. By leading and by projecting really calm patient energy. And then like, the way she lights up when I go, Hey, I made plans for Saturday night. We're gonna go out at seven o'clock. I already arranged a babysitter.

Nate She's like, Ugh. You know, like it's just this deep breath that she's able to take. So I gotta tattoo with a pillars That I really, really like because it reminds me to like try to be that pillar and live into that role that I can really bless my family with.