Try These 10 Things Before TRT

Considering Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT)? First ask yourself if you're doing these:

1) ZINC. If you are not deficient in zinc, taking a supplement will not raise your T. However, most men in the USA (and Western Civ generally) are deficient in zinc. You need zinc to make T, and zinc inhibits the activity of the enzyme (aromatase) that converts T into estrogen.

Total intake of zinc, from food and supplements combined, should be less than 100 mg per day. Most men will not get any further benefit beyond about 50 mg per day from food and supps combined. If you take a supp, have it between dinner and bed.

2) LIFT. Forget "cardio" forever. You do need to walk a few hours a week, but it should be slow and low-stress, to work food around the corners of your intestines. It's not about burning calories.

You must lift weights at least one day per week (but never two days in a row - recovery's where you make your gains). Your T "serum level" (the amount in you blood) drops post-workout, because your muscles used T to do the work, now suck T out of blood to replenish, your pituitary gland reads the drop in serum T and signals your balls to make more. More muscle = more T.

You can get a great lifting session with just a bodyweight workout. You don't need a "weight set" or a gym membership. (If you like lifting actual iron, or going to the gym, that's fine of course.)

If you are out of shape, start small and increase slowly.

3) PROTEIN. The standard formula for how much protein you need is: your body weight in kilograms is the number of grams of protein you need each day. Normally that's true, but for at least four - and up to 24 - hours after lifting, you should double that rate of intake. Your baseline remains, plus now you temporarily have the additional need of your skeletal muscles recovering from the workout. If you're not going to give your muscles as much protein as they can use, why are you even bothering to lift?!

4) SLEEP. The four basic rules of healthy sleep are: go dim at least a half hour before bed, in bed before midnight, sleep in darkness and quiet, don't get up until after dawn.  Chronic sleep deprivation can lower your T.

5) REST. In addition to getting enough sleep each night, you should have at least one day a week of complete rest. Ideally, lift the day before to maximize benefits of both.

6) FAT. The low fat diet has been a disaster. Your body needs dietary fat to function properly, and the fat it needs is saturated (and mono-unsaturated) animal fat, not that "vegetable oil" crap.

You also need naturally saturated organic (the pollution's in the fat) animal fat specifically to make T. (Never eat high carb and high fat at the same meal, of course.)

7) VITAMIN D. For historical reasons this "nutrient" is called a vitamin, but is actually a steroid hormone. You can make it from sunlight, but the UV-B necessary to make vit D is only available in the temperate zone from 10am - 2pm in Summer, 11am - 1pm Spring and Fall, and not in Winter. Also, UV-B is blocked by smog and clouds (but UV-A, which can give you skin cancer, isn't).

8) MAGNESIUM. Most Americans - male and female - are deficient in magnesium. Whereas calcium helps muscles contract, mag helps muscles relax. This can help you get into phase IV, the deepest most restful stage of sleep. As noted, better sleep can boost your T. Limit calcium - from food and supps - to morning and/or afternoon; get mag after dinner.

9) LOSE THE GUT. Abdominal fat manufactures aromatase, the enzyme that converts T into E. Should you go low carb or low fat? It depends...

10) IODINE. You need iodine (and tyrosine) to make thyroid hormone. Most Americans get enough, but if you don't, low thyroid will decrease T. (You also need selenium - just a little, don't go crazy - to convert thyroid hormone into its active form.)

If, after all that, you decide to go ahead with TRT anyway.. still keep doing all 10 of these things, as they will support both health and fitness!

What Does It Means to Live in "a Free Will Universe"?

You can't just choose the truth, or to be Good, or to grow your awareness, once and have the decision set.

The universe demands you make the choice over and over and over.

How many times do you have to choose? No one, not even yourself, will know that until you "graduate."

Every time you are on one path, and you choose the other path, you lose ground. You keep choosing the new path until you have made up the ground you lost, and then switch again.

Running to stand still.

No wonder you're so tired. No wonder the road seems too long, the obstacle insurmountable, the task un-accomplish-able.

The universe doesn't make the choice for you. It wants to give you the chance to try both paths, as much as you need to, so that whichever you end up with, you can be sure it's the one you really want.

That's what it means to live in “a free will universe.”

How to Prevent Back Pain in Four Easy Steps

Short Answer: You stand up wrong

Longer Answer:

There are many explanations for why so many people in our society have low back pain; the most popular is that all the time spent sitting is “killing” (some people say “ruining”) your low back. A related meme/theme is that you need to practice better posture when sitting and/or standing.

The remedy is said to be standing more, with some even proposing the “standing desk”.

Well, that just smacks of the same condescending, Puritanical BS as the “lazy gluttons” explanation for the Obesity Epidemic – it is the blamer indulging himself in feeling superior.

I say the problem isn't how much time you spend sitting, it's how you stand up from a sitting position.

How You Stand Up

1. You are sitting all the way back in the chair (or couch), your back supported by the back of the chair.
2. You lean forward from where you are – the weight of your body behind your feet – and , with your back extended, pull/push your way up into a standing position.

Every time you get up that way, you hurt your low back by making it do work in the extended position.

How You Should Stand Up

1. You are sitting all the way back in the chair (or couch), your back supported by the back of the chair.
2. You use your hands and feet to scoot your rear end to the edge of the chair.
3. Inhale as you pull your feet back to you (if necessary) and lean forward
4. Exhale as you stand straight up in one swift, fluid motion

The Operative Principle

The operative principle here is to get the weight of your torso directly over your heels before you stand up. Also, try to minimize the time spent between the sitting and standing positions.

In this way, you stop damaging your low back every time you get up from a sitting position, thereby giving your back a chance to heal.

Try it today, and you could start seeing results as early as immediately, all for the low low price of zero dollars!

The Ferguson FAQ

Q: Did 6' tall, 300 pound Mike Brown have the right to violently rob a convenience store?
A: No.

Q: Did the QuickTrip have the right to report to the police that they had been robbed.
A; Yes.

Q: Did the police have the right to investigate the claim by the QT that they had been robbed?
A: Yes.

Q: Did MB have the right to physically attack the police officer for daring to investigate his (MB's) robbery of the QT?
A: No.

Q: Did the police officer have the right to kill his attacker in self defense?
A: Of course, all humans have that right.

Q: Did the protestors have a right to riot?
A: No.

Q: Why did the protestors riot?
A: Because White and Black Liberals (SJW) have institutionalized the doctrine that the distribution of inherited qualities is equal between the races, leaving White racism as the only explanation for the disparity of outcomes.

Carlos Castaneda and The Flinch

Carlos Castaneda was a man who wrote a series of novels in the genre "Magical Realism", in which he was taught the secrets of life by a Mexican Indian (Yaqui) shaman named Juan Matus.

Some of the things Juan taught Carlos:

• A man who wants to become Impeccable sets before himself an obstacle that is almost insurmountable, so as to force himself to become impeccable to overcome it
• Become aware of how you are leaking energy, so you can stop doing that
• Normal people, when they encounter a Petty Tyrant, piss and moan, and wish the tyrant was not so petty. When a Man Of Knowledge encounters a Petty Tyrant, he (the Man Of Knowledge, not the Petty Tyrant) rejoices, glad of the gift the Universe has given him - the opportunity to practice Discipline
• Discipline is not about getting up at five AM and splashing water on your face. Discipline is being able to look at what reality actually turns out to be - as that may differ from what you wanted or expected - without flinching

More:

Carlos' books, or   http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/

and

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13159280-the-flinch