How to become male 2.0 with Dr. Tracy Gapin

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:18.690] – Allan
Ras, how are you doing?

[00:02:20.560] – Rachel
Good, Allan. How are you today?

[00:02:22.800] – Allan
Doing a little better. They finally gave us our Saturdays back and they changed their mind and said the islands could have their Saturdays. And everybody is speculating that they were afraid if we got more days available to us than other people, that those people would just travel here to spend their weekends.

[00:02:41.890] – Allan
And they don't really want people doing that. But they they did decide to give us the weekend back, which was really nice because I was able to go in and get a good long walk in, see parts of the island I haven't seen yet because I just haven't been up that way that far. But I found my limit, you know, I found my spot. I was not going be able to probably go much further than that because four hours and five minutes on your feet as well.

[00:03:06.350] – Rachel
That's a long day. Yeah, for sure. So but I enjoyed it.

[00:03:10.180] – Allan
I enjoyed getting out and got a lot of sunshine and a beautiful day in the jungle. And the cows, most cows got free and we're walking down the road looking around. Yeah. So it's interesting all around. So what are you been up to.

[00:03:26.230] – Rachel
Probably the same thing actually over the weekend. I did two long runs. I told you I was going to get back to double digits and I did. And I did some long runs over the weekend. So today is kind of a rest day.

[00:03:37.970] – Allan
Good rest days are good. I'd say it's kind of a rest day for me to had a lot going on. I just didn't really have time to put in a good. It's weird. I don't like getting out walking if I can't do two hours.

[00:03:50.680] – Rachel
I understand that. I do understand that.

[00:03:53.380] – Allan
If I can't get to a part of the island, it's just gorgeous. Then it's like, you know, it's just not as much it's not as much fun. So and it doesn't it's not that it takes me two hours. It's just once I get to about the 45 minute part, 45 to 50 minutes, that's when I start getting the prettier beaches. And so, you know, just that point, I don't really want to turn around, but I, I do sometimes.

[00:04:18.250] – Allan
But, you know, because I know once I get that next mile in the just the beaches are just that much prettier. So it's really hard for me to to pull it back in but rest day to day and I'll hit it tomorrow.

[00:04:30.360] – Rachel
Awesome. Sounds great.

[00:04:31.840] – Allan
All right. So let's introduce our guest.

Interview

[00:04:35.080] – Allan
Our guest today is a world renowned men's health and performance expert, professional speaker, entrepreneur and author. He has over 20 years of experience focused on providing Fortune 500 executives, business leaders, entrepreneurs and athletes, a personalized path to optimizing their health and performance. With no further ado, here's Dr. Tracy Gapin.

[00:04:57.120] – Allan
Dr. Gapin, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:04:59.890] – Dr. Gapin
Hey, Allan, thanks so much for having me today.

[00:05:02.830] – Allan
The name of your book is Male 2.0: Cracking the Code to Limitless Health and Vitality. And, I think everybody aspires to be a better version of themselves, but we don't always have the tools or the know how to get there. And I guess as you wrote this book, and it's something that's been kind of top of mind for me, is that you just at the very beginning of the book, kind of just grab us by the collar and say, dammit, grow up, man.

[00:05:30.550] – Allan
You know, talking about covid-19 and all the things that we're going through right now, now, more than ever, men have to start paying attention to their health.

[00:05:39.880] – Dr. Gapin
Sure. Yeah. You know that I use the term Male 2.0 as really a contrast to what men have done up until now. And that is now 1.0. And you and I spoke briefly before we started about how men don't typically go to the doctor until there's something wrong or their wife is nagging them or there's an acute problem, like they have a disease, a kidney stone, a cancer, or something. Or more commonly when they start to have some issues with their sexual function, sexual health concerns.

[00:06:13.390] – Dr. Gapin
And so what male 2.0 is all about is really shifting the mindset of men to focus on proactively optimizing their health before disease sets in. And we could talk about how we do that in a moment. But the key is to understand that guys need to take control, take charge, own their health, and do something about it in a proactive way before it's too late. And that's what Male 1.0 is waiting until disease sets in. Now, 2.0 is being proactive and taking charge.

[00:06:49.000] – Allan
Yeah, because our current health care system is designed for sick care. It's not really designed for health care. But, that's when one of the cool things that I've noticed that's changed in the last product, the last ten years is there's a higher emphasis on well care. There's thee's more opportunities than ever for a man to go in and talk to a doctor and start doing protocols that are going to get them healthier.

[00:07:14.140] – Dr. Gapin
Sure. Exactly. And, we could talk. We can call that. Preventive medicine, we can call it functional medicine, we can call it personalized precision medicine, but it's really about optimizing yourself and optimizing your whole human system. Men think that all they need is testosterone because that's what's kind of drilled into your head from all these T clinics that are on every corner now. And the key is to understand that if we're going to optimize our health and have amazing energy and feel confident how we look and feel, you have to go well beyond testosterone and focus on stress, which is a big issue right now with covid, especially,

[00:07:57.250]
Sleep quality of sleep. Almost every man I see has struggles with poor quality and or quantity of sleep nutrition. What should you eat and when should you be eating it? Looking at our detox and our body's ability to clear toxins, our environment, our fitness, our mindset is a big part as well. You an I spoke briefly before about, you know, limiting beliefs. And and so it's putting all these pieces together into what we call a systems based approach or call it a comprehensive approach, or it's really looking at the whole human system as a complex network of different parts.

[00:08:33.560] – Dr. Gapin
And you have to focus on all of it or else you're wasting your time.

[00:08:37.820] – Allan
I think that's that's the unfortunately the approach I think a lot of us will take. You know, well, we go out there and say, OK, well, I need to I need to exercise. So we go out and we get some shoes on and we get out and we start doing the jogging and we just don't see the change. The knees hurt the ankles hurt them all hot and sweaty. Now I take a shower and I can feel good about that, but I didn't really change my health significantly.

[00:09:02.090] – Allan
And so it almost seems a little too hard. And then I was you had it in the book and I actually saw it on on one of the YouTube channels that you had a speech on that that you were just talking about how low T has just become this epidemic thing men are dealing with. So, obviously, if they know that, that's probably the problem, fatigue, you're lethargic, you don't have any energy.

[00:09:27.890] – Allan
Things aren't working the way they're supposed to be working. You're not sleeping. You're not gaining muscle. You're losing muscle. You're putting on body fat, all those things. We know that testosterone helps us not have a problem. I was just shocked when you can say that free testosterone, a male now at a given age, has 45% less testosterone than we did 15 years ago. That's crazy. We're becoming women.

[00:09:57.030] – Dr. Gapin
Yeah, you're exactly right. And we could talk about the causes of it. But make no mistake about it, the testosterone levels in men are plummeting. Free testosterone, which is the bioavailable form of it, is even worse. And that's causing all the I shouldn't say necessarily causing it. It's a big part of all the health issues that men are experiencing now. And the mistake is what you just mentioned is to think that, well, if I just go get a testosterone shot, that solves the problem.

[00:10:26.900] – Dr. Gapin
And I can't tell you how many men and I see on a daily basis who come in and they're getting testosterone shots from the place down the street. Forty five bucks every two weeks getting the shot. And I still feel like crap. And I'll be like, well, what are you doing for your sleep and your stress? And you know what? You should be eating based on your genetics and. Well, the answer is no, no, no, no.

[00:10:47.720] – Dr. Gapin
And and so it's understanding that that as massive a problem as low testosterone has become, if we don't address the underlying causes of it and the other cofounding variables as well, then you're not going to get the success that you're looking for

[00:11:05.090] – Allan
That kind of leads me to you had the four components of male 2.0. Could you kind of go through those? Because I think it's really important to understand that this is like we've been talking about. It's not just one things. There's not a magic pill or a magic shot to solve this problem for us. But there's a holistic approach that we really have to consider.

[00:11:26.910] – Dr. Gapin
Exactly. Yeah. So over the last twenty years, really, I have formulated this process that I use, that I've now coined the male method as my approach to help men focus on the key pieces of optimization that they need. And so M is mindset, A is aging, L is lifestyle, and E is environment.

[00:11:50.990] – Dr. Gapin
So M looking at mindset. I focus first and foremost on your why. Your why is what drives you, what gets you up in the morning, what keeps you up at night, what is your motivation. You're never going to turn things around and get optimized because your wife is nagging you because just because you want to lose ten pounds just for the hell of it. No. My why for example. Is my kids, those beautiful little kids of mine are my everything, and everything I do is to create a better life for them, and that drives me every day more than anything else, more than than any other superficial details. So the key is with mindset. Focus on your what is your why? And don't ever lose sight of that. Don't ever let that go.

[00:12:45.250] – Dr. Gapin
Number two is eliminating limiting beliefs. We talk a lot about how guys think that they can't change, that they're too old to change or they'll never lose weight or they'll never have the energy they have when they're 20 years old. Those are all just lame limiting beliefs that we need to overcome. On mindset l also focus on stress mitigation, understanding stress and accepting stress and being able to to put it in it place, put it aside, and move on with your life and not let it let it affect you at a physiologic basis.

[00:13:18.090] – Dr. Gapin
So I focus on mindset, techniques, breathing techniques, mindfulness practices like meditation to help with mindset

[00:13:26.220] – Dr. Gapin
A is addressing the challenges of aging.This is where I really focus on hormones. Testosterone is just one piece of the the whole picture. You have to look at thyroid and cortisol and estrogen and DHEA, melatonin. The list goes on. There's about eight or nine different hormones that I focus on and all those are associated with the root cause of aging. We look at glucose regulation. We know that that long term blood sugar regulation, insulin sensitivity is the medical term for it has been correlated with obesity and mortality as well. So regulating those sorts of things.

[00:14:04.590] – Dr. Gapin
L lifestyle, this is where we focus on the basics of nutrition and fitness and sleep. And there are, of course, generic recommendations like nutrition. I really emphasize the benefits of intermittent fasting or time or restrict feeding, but there's also genetics. We can talk a lot about your epigenetics, how by understanding your genetic blueprint, we can really dial in on exactly what you should be doing, Allan, which may be different than the guy next to you and then the guy next to him. And so it is really personalizing it with genetics can take this to the next level as well. And then finally E is exposures. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals and toxins in our environment which are crushing our health, causing obesity, autoimmune disease, crushing our hormones. And so mitigating exposure to these toxins, as well as improving our body's ability to handle them is the E of of environment.

[00:15:03.410] – Dr. Gapin
So that's the Male Method.fifty-sevenOK, and I think one of the core of that, yes, it's a very holistic thing. And one of the areas I want to dive into is the limiting beliefs, because I think many of us still sit there and we'll say, well, my my father my father was obese and then he had a heart attack when he was fifty seven. My mother was obese. And then this happened, which is not actually true.

[00:15:26.150] – Allan
I'm just saying. And someone said, but we feel like we're on a track, we're on a train track and we're going at the same speed that our parents went and we're going to the same destination. And while it is true we're going to the same destination eventually, If we believe we're going there faster, we are. I think it was. Was it Ford that said, I really believe you can or you can't? You're right. Can you talk about these limiting beliefs and some things that we can do as a practice to kind of get past them?

[00:16:01.880] – Dr. Gapin
Absolutely. And so living beliefs are exactly what you said. They are ingrained beliefsthat really formed the basis of your of your behavior and your emotions.

[00:16:15.320] – Dr. Gapin
And these beliefs arewrong. So one of them, you brought up the concept of genetics and how if my parents died young from heart disease or my mom had breast cancer, that means I'm going to get as well and I'm destined to to die early. And and from that perspective, that's just epigenetics where we know that your genes are not your destiny. And we now understand the concept of epigenetics, which means that our actions, our lifestyle, our behaviors and what we do, how we eat, how we move, even how we breathe and how we think it's amazing affects the expression of our genes.

[00:16:53.810] – Dr. Gapin
And so people talk about the BRCA1 gene, for example. Did you know that that lifestyle has a massive impact on whether that brak a gene is going to cause a woman to have breast cancer or not? It's not just the gene alone. You need the lifestyle and the environmental factors as well. And so it's understanding that that's a limiting belief that just because your parents were ill or died early, that you will as well.

[00:17:19.200] – Dr. Gapin
But a lot of it also is really just psychological, you know. We in general tend to think negatively, think the worst, have limiting thoughts of our capabilities and what we're able to achieve. And we need to get beyond that. We need to understand the limitless potential is the phrase that I like to really emphasize that we all have. We all have a limitless potential, if you will, recognize it and pursue it. And I can show you men who are in their 80s who are incredibly healthy, who decades ago were on death's door and they made a decision. It's called Living with intention, I call it where you live with specific intention, laser focus on your goals and you don't ever lose sight of that. And so a lot of that is psychological understanding that these negative thoughts are nothing more than negative thoughts and that you can overcome that it comes down to the power of positivity and living with intention. And again, what's the underlying foundation for all that? What is your why?

[00:18:27.370] – Allan
Yes. When I when I got into all this and I was I was on the wrong path and my wife was that I was I was not going to be a part of my daughter's life as long as I needed to be. I want to be around to help her. And so I know she was getting into things that reminded me of who I was when I was her age. You know, she was doing the the cross fit and the obstacle course races.

[00:18:53.060] – Allan
And I was like, you know, I really want to go there with her. I want to be a part of that. She wants me to go watch. And I'm like, no, I'm not going to be a spectator in your life. I'm going to be a participanttwenty-five. And that was the spark I needed to get in the gym to start moving more, to start learning how to eat, to start working on my sleep and my stress and build the body that could do a Tough Mudder with my daughter, who was twenty-five years younger than me.

[00:19:21.050] – Allan
And the other thing was, I didn't want her dragging me behind or slowing down. I wanted to be there with her the whole way. And the joy of that, that was the reward. You know, there's not a food reward or anything. I threw at myself afterwards saying, oh, well, now I can go off of this. It was this. I just got the best gift of finishing this Tough Mudder with my daughter. And when you have that kind of passion behind what you're doing, you said you can overcome anything.

[00:19:47.750] – Allan
You know, we ran through electricity. They're shocking us with electricity as we were trying to finish this race and people were faced planning left and right. And we just ran straight through it because I was just so pumped about that moment with my daughter. So, yeah, I agree. If you believe it'll happen and you have if you've got that, why build behind it been by absolute sureness. You'll get where you want to go. Yeah.

[00:20:13.550] – Dr. Gapin
What a great story. That's a perfect example. And I love that of how that drives you to achieve something that you would never, ever achieve. If you're doing it just for the sake of doing it or because someone is telling you to do it or something that doesn't have emotion behind it. You know, I see guys every day who say, I want to lose ten or fifteen pounds. Why would I just want to have a smaller waist size or I want to have smaller.

[00:20:39.440] – Dr. Gapin
That's not what the why is the emotional driving force behind it for you? It's that amazing experience with your daughter that you can't put a price on that. It's incredible. For me, it's my kids, same thing. For a lot of guys is to actually feel loved by their partner and they want to feel attractive to their partner. And that provides them fulfillment and an emotion that's very important to them. That's what's going to drive them. It's not the I want to lose ten pounds. It's the emotional underpinning that we need to focus on.

[00:21:14.480] – Allan
Yes. And, you know, one of the interesting things I just had Amanda Thebe on last week and we were talking about menopause. And one of the things that she brought up was that when a woman's estrogen starts going out of whack at menopause, then they also the oxytocin goes down and that's the love and bonding. And so in many cases, we're getting to this midlife point. Our testosterone is crap, their estrogen is crap, and now there's a conflict between us.

[00:21:43.130] – Allan
And we don't have that the bonds sometimes to make it through there. So, you know, I can I can definitely see a situation where you're saying what's happening to me and what's happening to my wife is not working. And I do want to feel that love again. I do want to have that, that. And a lot of that's going to come from what you can control, which is yourself.

[00:22:02.490] – Dr. Gapin
Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree.

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[00:24:12.860] – Allan
Now, we talked about endocrine disruptors and I've gotten into this before, you know, I remember at work there's a guy who would come in every day and he would he would have a little plastic container with his lunch and he would put it in the microwave, but he would microwave his lunch. And I wanted to say something, but I just didn't feel like it was my place there just to say something to this guy. And so I started trying to avoid BPA.

[00:24:36.230] – Allan
I started saying I'm not going to get bisphenol A. I'm not going to use that. And then now I'm reading when they switched to Bisphenol S we don't know if that's any better, any worse. It's just it's different sources that can say it's a BPA free thing.

[00:24:50.480] – Allan
And then there's phthalates and astrazine and birth control and phytoestrogen. And then you're whole talk about cows and the myriad of reasons why cows milk could be a problem or is a problem. I'm just fascinated hat stuff's out there and took me like atrazine. You were saying it could affect male frogs. Could you could you go through that story?

[00:25:16.120] – Dr. Gapin
Because it's pretty dramatic. Yes. So for your listeners, atrazine is an herbicide that's used to kill weeds, basically, and it's sprayed on crops here in the US. It's been actually been banned in Europe, but for some reason, it's still allowed here in the US. Thank you, FDA.

[00:25:34.680] – Dr. Gapin
And it's the second most commonly used herbicide behind glyphosate. So people focus on just glyphosate, but atrazine causes similar issues and it's sprayed mostly on our corn crops and our wheat crops here in the US. So and especially if something is nonorganic then is likely been sprayed with atrazine and that will never show up in the ingredient list of your products. So you don't know what's there, but it's definitely there. We have found that atrazine is found in significant levels of our drinking water and the water tables are contaminated with atrazine because our community, our municipal treatment plants are very poor at filtering out endocrine disruptors such as atrazine and estradol, birth control, and all these other toxins.

[00:26:19.550] – Dr. Gapin
So atrazine, you mentioned the frog story is pretty scary at very minuscule levels of atrazine. Male frogs become female frogs. If they're exposed to atrazine in very small concentrations in the water, they become female and actually lay eggs. So it's amazing to think about these male frogs actually become female and they're actually able to actually lay eggs and reproduce, which is insane. The drinking water here in the US has exponentially higher levels of atrazine than those studies in the frogs.

[00:26:56.010] – Dr. Gapin
And so we know that atrazine causes autoimmune issues. It has been linked with a decrease in testosterone levels. Without question, it's been linked with cancers and obesity and diabetes, and it's unfortunately not really discussed very much.

[00:27:12.960] – Allan
I think the worst of it is that we all have it. Every single every single one of us is exposed to these on a daily basis. It's in our water, as you mentioned. It's in containers that we're putting our food in. It's in products that we're using to wash our hair or shave our face or wash our clothes, keep the static out, make our stuff soft and smell good. All of these are really messing with the way our bodies hormones work.

[00:27:44.490] – Allan
So what are some strategies for us to implement where we can at least do something about this? Because it's not going to change, we can't count on the FDA to come around and fix this for us in the short run. And so we have to be proactive. What are some things we can do?

[00:28:00.360] – Dr. Gapin
Yeah, great question. So we can look at it from two different angles. First, we can look at it from mitigating or eliminating it possible our exposure to these toxins. And then we can look at it from a functional perspective of how do we optimize our bodies, detox pathways to fight off the exposures that we do encounter.

[00:28:23.120] – Dr. Gapin
So from the mitigating exposure part, first, it's from a food standpoint focusing on limiting exposure in our foods. That means eating organic. That means eating grass-fed beef if you are meat eater. That means focusing on almond milk, cashew nut milk, rather than cow milk, because we know all cow milk. You mentioned that cow milk. These cows are eating the crops, normal milk on the shelf. These cows are eating the crops that are laden with atrazine and phytoestrogens and other chemicals. The cows are given steroids hormones themselves, and then the milk, once harvested, is stored in plastic containers and the plastic is getting leached into the milk, the phthalates and the BPA.

[00:29:13.050] – Dr. Gapin
And it's this soup, if you will, of endocrine disruption in that milk. So, limiting exposure in your food by focusing on organic fresh fruits and vegetables, grass-fed animal meat. Looking at drinking water, one of the biggest culprits is plastic water bottles. And so I focus on right here. I know your listeners can't see, but I'm holding a stainless steel water bottle so that every time I drink water, I have this with me and I drink from this rather than ever using a plastic water bottle.

[00:29:45.390] – Dr. Gapin
Another big one is coffee. I'm a coffee addict like a lot of people and cups, you know, plastic when it gets hot, releases these chemicals into your food and drink. So I would avoid cups. For example, I would avoid store your plastic or your food in any plastic containers, especially the story you mentioned of heating up food in the microwave and any kind of plastic container as well. It tends to be more when these plastics are hot, when they tend to leach the chemicals.

[00:30:16.980] – Dr. Gapin
And then you mentioned personal care products like shampoo and soap and laundry detergent and sunscreen and deodorant. You want to really look at the ingredients and choose carefully. There are I like to recommend a couple apps on your phone that you can use to actually scan barcodes and find out the actual ingredients of your products before you buy them. Because a lot of those personal care products you are putting on yourself and these chemicals they can absorb through your skin very easily.

[00:30:47.640] – Dr. Gapin
It's called lipophilic, which means they like to get absorbed through the fatty layer of your skin. And so you want to really do everything you can to mitigate exposure. We find it in plastic products, baby toys, plastic containers, chemicals, paint and hoses and garden. Everywhere.

[00:31:13.980] – Dr. Gapin
Yeah, what's amazing is I've tubing has high levels of phthalates in an I.V. tubing. You go to the hospital and you're getting IV fluids and you're actually getting these chemicals in. It's it's insane that they're everywhere.

[00:31:29.230] – Dr. Gapin
So then the other side of it is really optimizing your detox system and your body has a free radical scavenger system or an antioxidant system where your body is able to kind of detoxify these chemicals. And so we look at things like glutathion and catalase. And thyrotoxin and all these other complex pathways that start in your liver to clear these toxins. And so anything we can do to optimize, that's going to be valuable. What do you what can you do to optimize that? We can look at cold therapy, cryotherapy like cold showers, look at intermittent fasting. We can look at supplements like curcumin or tumeric, supplements like protandem, which is amazing, has Nrf2 activator. And we can look at supplementing with NAD boosters. NAD is a molecule that is very much needed to improve our redox system, redox pathways to help clear these toxins.

[00:32:32.010] – Dr. Gapin
And so making sure that your body has an ample supply and so supplemented with MNN, for example, or NAD patches are great way of doing that as well. And then finally, I'll briefly mention that what I do with my clients is I look at their genetics and based on your genetic blueprint, we can really understand your body's function and your weak spots or your blind spots of what we need to optimize. So for some people, it may be that there are glutathione is susceptible or maybe they don't have good mitochondrial function or whatever it may be. And we can specifically target that area for optimization to improve your body's detox pathways.

[00:33:15.140] – Allan
And there's one I didn't want I didn't want to go on without reminding them you brought this up. Neither one of us are spokespeople for this company, but you filter your water specifically using charcoal filters to try to get these these endocrine disruptors out of our water.

[00:33:32.810] – Dr. Gapin
Sure. It's actually it's a carbon filter, you're right, its a carbon block filter. And there are a couple of different ways of doing that. I have in the past used a Berkey water filter and an nonaffiliated I have no financial involvement with them at all, but I love their product.

[00:33:48.530] – Dr. Gapin
It looks like a tea urn and you can take lake water and put it in this and it'll filter out all the toxins and chemicals and purify it to the point that you can drink it safely. They also are there also is an underwater mount for your sink that you can use that has again, you want a carbon block filter that will clear out these endocrine disruptors. Not reverse osmosis. I actually don't recommend RO typically because it does filter out some minerals that you actually need, like calcium, for example, you filter out too much of the good stuff with RO and you waste a ton of water as well.

[00:34:26.780] – Dr. Gapin
But there is an undercounter mound that you can use for carbon filter. And then there's also a Kinetico has a good one that we're actually building a house. I'm going to be putting it in that house as a Kinetico, a home system that will filter your entire house water again with a carbon block filter to purify it.

[00:34:45.500] – Allan
Cool. Yeah, we live on an island and a lot of people here are they basically have to get their own water from rainwater and we're told not to drink the city water and stuff like that. So we do some of that. And so, yeah, water filters are pretty ubiquitous here on the islands because you when you're dealing with rainwater and trying to drink that or even the city water, in some cases you just want to be careful.

[00:35:08.900] – Dr. Gapin
Sure, sure.

[00:35:10.250] – Allan
Now, I really haven't talked about peptides on this show. It's kind of something that I think is it's starting to go a little bit more mainstream. When I first started hearing about you and I think the term they used was SARMS. And so I started doing a little bit of reading on them there. But I'm not someone who typically brings the type of stuff that's going to move you two percent. If you're not focused on your mindset and your lifestyle and your environment, then the peptides aren't going to get you there.

[00:35:39.050] – Allan
That's not the secret sauce. Yeah, but they're very, very interesting because they're just amino acid chains, but they have some pretty significant effects on our body. If, again, if we're doing everything else right, peptides might be something to explore. Could you talk about peptides, what they are and what they do?

[00:35:56.110] – Dr. Gapin
Sure. Yeah, peptides are absolutely amazing. And I truly believe that at some point peptides will replace pharmaceuticals. And I know that's a bold statement, but it's true because they have amazing capabilities to provide very precise, specific outcomes with very minimal, if any, downside or side effects.

[00:36:18.290] – Dr. Gapin
So peptides, as you mentioned, are simply chains of amino acids. A protein is just a long chain of amino acids. That's all it is. A peptide is a short protein. Anything under 50 amino acids long is considered a peptide and anything between fifty and a hundred is a polypeptide and over one hundred amino acids and length is called a protein. It's that simple. So peptides can provide amazing specific functions, such as we can use peptides to help with metabolism, burning fat, losing weight.

[00:36:51.500] – Dr. Gapin
We can use peptide for building muscle. We use peptides to sleep through peptides for improved cognitive function, focus and memory and anxiety. There are peptides for improving gut health or musculoskeletal repair or reducing systemic inflammation. There are amazing peptides for men's health, specifically libido and boosting testosterone and actually erectile dysfunction. There are a few peptides that men have actually complained that the erection last too long from the peptide. So they may have taken too much on their peptides for hair loss and for skin rejuvenation.

[00:37:31.310] – Dr. Gapin
And it goes on and on and on. And so so what's amazing about peptides is that you can have very specific functions and again, very little, if any, downside. You know, the first peptide ever discovered was actually insulin. Insulin is a peptide and growth hormone peptide. So these are naturally occurring, signaling molecules in the body that give signals that your body already recognizes. So that's what makes these very unique and different from pharmaceuticals, is that these are natural products that are recognized by your body to provide specific outcomes.

[00:38:08.390] – Dr. Gapin
Some peptides are given orally and some peptides are given via subcutaneous injection. Some peptides are given intranasally, as a nasal spray as well. So you can also inject peptides into a joint. For example, BPC is a great peptide that's amazing for reducing inflammation either in the gut or in your joints.

[00:38:33.560] – Dr. Gapin
And BPC can be given orally, which is amazing for gut health. Or it can be given subcutaneously for systemic inflammation or specifically into a joint to help reduce inflammation in the intraarticular space. So that's an example of how depending on the function, you're trying to achieve different routes of administration.

[00:38:54.950] – Allan
OK, now if I eat a grass-fed, grass-finished steak, it's a protein. My body is going to break that protein down to usable amino acids. What's preventing the oral peptides from being broken down in a similar fashion?

[00:39:10.950] – Dr. Gapin
Yeah, great question, and that's the reason most peptides are not oral. BPC is a great one and BPC is very helpful to be taken specifically orally if you're trying to improve the gut, because that's where it's going to get absorbed and have its function is specifically in the gut and affect the microbiome.

[00:39:31.020] – Dr. Gapin
I've had guys who have come in with significant reflux symptoms, irritable bowel symptoms and chronic gastrointestinal bloating and pain. And among other things, I add BPC and a month or two later they forgot they even had any symptoms at all. It's pretty impressive. So you're exactly right that in general, most peptides need to be given either subcutaneously or intranasal or somehow get systemic other than the gut, because the gut will break those down and they're too big to be absorbed the way they are.

[00:40:07.800] – Dr. Gapin
And I'll also emphasize briefly, I love what you said. That is, once you do everything else, peptides are great. A lot of guys will come to me for peptides first. And my analogy here is peptides are dessert until you eat your dinner. You don't get peptides until you do the heavy lifting and do the right things and make sure that the male method is being achieved properly, then peptides are not necessarily going to be very helpful.

[00:40:35.910] – Allan
Yeah, I think I think the other thing that comes out of this is you can go on onto websites and they're going to they'll sell you peptides. So they'll tell you it's MK677, and this is going to help you gain muscle. And but that's that's not really the route you really want to go with. This is the self somewhat medicating. I don't want to call it a medicine, because when you get it from them, they're saying it's not for human consumption.

[00:41:01.170] – Allan
But that's what your intention is. So how do we go about knowing what one I guess knowing what we need or we could use and then getting it appropriate?

[00:41:11.860] – Dr. Gapin
Yeah, great. Great point. So as you mentioned, you can find these peptides all over the Internet and the problem with these places, and I'm not going to name any of them to call them out, but they are research chemicals in. You know, when you go to these sites that are offering it to the masses, it's a research chemical. And unless it's coming from a compounding pharmacy that have quality assurance, they have good QA documentation of the purity of their product, the safety of the products. You just don't know what you're getting. I've heard amazing stories of people getting these peptides and then sending them off for analysis and they have nothing like what they're supposed to have and other stuff in there that they shouldn't. And so from a pure standpoint, from a safety standpoint, from a quality assurance perspective, I would never recommend I wouldn't take it myself unless it comes from a qualified compounding pharmacy. And so that's why you need to get your peptides from a physician like myself or another prescriber who has experience with peptides.

[00:42:18.930] – Allan
So as we're coming up on November being Male Health Month, we want to make sure we're more aware of it. I have to ask you the same question I ask all my guests. I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest, and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay?

[00:42:38.340] – Dr. Gapin
Well, absolutely. Great questions. Number one is sleep. I think that one of the most overlooked aspects of men's health is sleep. And I like to use wearable technology to track every client I work with. They have to wear either an aura ring, a biostrap, a Garmin watch like I have on here some they actually track their data. And what we find is their sleep is awful. And so they may think it's fine when you actually track the quality is terrible.

[00:43:07.800] – Dr. Gapin
So I really like to emphasize a couple aspects of sleep hygiene that are very valuable when it comes to basics of sleep optimization.

[00:43:17.140] – Dr. Gapin
Number one is consistent sleep schedule. So setting a time that you're going to go to bed, let's say it's ten o'clock, ten thirty and you go to bed that exact same time every single night, eventually your body is going to get into a good circadian rhythm that is going to help improve the quality of your sleep. And your body senses that your circadian rhythm, your clock genes are called and your period changes are genes that regulate your circadian rhythm. They sense this. And so going to the exact same time every day, including the weekends, there's the social jetlag people have where they tend to sleep very poorly during the week and they go, oh, I'll just make it up on the weekend. It just doesn't work like that. Your body does not recover like it needs to by simply adding an extra hour sleep on Saturday and Sunday. So it's really being consistent about sleep schedule, going to bed and waking up at the exact same time

[00:44:09.390]
For three hours before you go to bed, you need to turn off every single electron in your house, no more phones, no more computers, no laptops, iPads, that sort of thing, turn off the TV, read a book, use an incandescent light to read a book and focus at that time on meditation is great on some mindfulness techniques before you go to bed as well. But you've got to get the blue light that's coming from these electronic devices off of you for three hours before bedtime.

[00:44:37.740] – Dr. Gapin
I would also emphasize that your bedroom should be for two things only.

[00:44:43.890] – Allan
Preach it.

[00:44:45.030] – Dr. Gapin
And one and one of them is sleep. Yes, a lot of guys will, I hear the story all the time: I just lay in my bed and work on my laptop for a couple hours before bedtime. Worst thing you could do is when you go in bed. It's only for two things.

[00:45:02.860] – Dr. Gapin
During the day, your body needs sunlight, you need exposure to sunlight, and so especially early in the morning, as early as you can, you want to get out and get your body exposed to at least 15 to 20 minutes of sunlight, especially in the morning, again, to help with that circadian rhythm.

[00:45:19.110]
We can also look at things like keeping your your bedroom completely dark, keeping a cool, comfortable bedding, get rid of any EMF electronics in your bedroom, such as WiFi, cell phones. There are some advocates for actually turning off the circuit breaker for your bedroom because your outlets are actually releasing EMF, even if nothing is plugged into them.

[00:45:41.780] – Dr. Gapin
And then the last piece that a lot of people may not have heard about is your diet. So what you're eating at dinner can often have a profound effect on your sleep. So foods that are high in amino acids, foods that have MSG, these foods give you glutamate. Glutamate, an amino acid that is actually an excitatory neurotransmitter, it gets converted in your body to GABA, which is a very relaxing, soothing neurotransmitter. For some people, they can't make that conversion very easily. They have a variant in one of their genes that code for the ability to turn off glutamate. And so for a lot of men, what you're eating at dinner time may actually be affecting the quality of your sleep and the disruption of your sleep. So I recommend that you really try to limit high protein foods and MSG, even grains that may have glutamate in them for four to five hours before bedtime as well.

[00:46:41.820] – Allan
Thank you for that, Dr. Gapin. If someone wanted to learn more about you, learn more about your book, Male 2.0, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:46:51.870] – Dr. Gapin
Thanks. Yeah, they can check out my website. It's drtracygapin.com, and I will offer to your listeners a free copy of my book called Male 2.0, and they could check that out on my website at drtracygapin.com/limitless. And again, free copy. Just help with the shipping. Otherwise, the book is free.

[00:47:15.690] – Allan
Awesome. Thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness

[00:47:19.320] – Dr. Gapin
Hey, I enjoyed being with you here, Allan. Thanks so much.

Post Interview/Recap

[00:47:26.480] – Allan
All right, Ras, I know this was kind of a men's health topic, but, you know, there's ways to take information away from all these conversations, whether we're talking about menopause, whether we're talking about some men's health issues. There's always something to take away, if nothing else, than just knowing that your significant other is going through some stuff and things that we can do to make it better for him or her, things we can do to take care of our children, because it's not the amount of chemicals that are going to be available in the world are not going down or going up.

[00:47:58.670] – Allan
And so that's one of the things I took out of this was just how serious endocrine disrupters can be. I mean, you're talking a frog from a male to a female. And I'm like eww.

[00:48:11.010] – Rachel
That's very serious stuff right there. That was a light bulb moment for me, too.

[00:48:17.810] – Allan
I downloaded the Environmental Working Group app. You can find this on iPhone and I'm pretty sure it's on Android. But I downloaded the app just to see what it was like. And it's actually really, really cool. You just take a picture of the barcode, you know, so it opens up like your camera. So it's going to ask to use your camera and then you just put the barcode in that little square.

[00:48:41.600] – Allan
And as soon as it reads what it is off that barcode, it tells you everything that's in it. And, you know, you basically can see. And so my wife bought this body wash. She likes the smell of it. It's supposed to have pheromones. I don't know that it's making a difference, but she does like it. So that's that's that. And it's caught in the middle. And I was like, OK, now it's caught a middle because of possible allergies.

[00:49:04.900] – Allan
And I'm only really allergic to dumb people and people that lie. I'm not allergic to anything else.

[00:49:11.780] – Allan
So, you know, that's got the fragrance that they're using. I'm not allergic to. But, you know, it doesn't have any of those endocrine disruptors, which was good to know. Now, I did have some dyes in it. Of course, they want it to be a pretty color. Doesn't have to be, but it is. And so, there are some dyes in there that I have to think about. You know, there's really something I want to put on my skin or is that something I want on someone else's skin in my family?

[00:49:39.440] – Allan
So I thought that was a really cool app to have and just kind of go through and look at your household cleaners, look at the things you're putting on your body. You know, this makeup, all of it. It's just, you know, there's things there that you just might not know which you're getting because a shampoo sounds are, you know, cleaners sound like a very easy thing. Just put some soap and some fragrance and let's go.

[00:50:00.500] – Allan
But that's not always the case. They said they want to make it pretty color. They wanted to, you know, have a certain feel and texture to it. So you feel like you're getting something more than just some soap. And so there might be more than just soap in your soap.

[00:50:18.350] – Rachel
That's so true. And we don't know about what these chemicals, many of these newer chemicals or compounds do in the long term either. So it's helpful just to get a little heads up to see what's in things, just like with the food we eat every day. You just may not know what chemicals are in all of those detergents and soaps and cleaning products. So that sounds like a really neat app.

[00:50:41.720] – Allan
Yeah, I'm glad I did. And also, I'm going to take a few minutes to find that that filter he was talking about, you know, the charcoal filter. It does look like a coffeemaker. You know, one of the things you have in an office space, if you've ever seen office space type of coffee deal where it makes large things of coffee, but go find one of those and I'll put that in the show notes for this episode.

Berkey IMP6X2-BB Imperial Stainless Steel Water Filtration System with 2 Black Filter Elements

[00:51:07.310] – Allan
So if you do go to the show notes, there'll be some links there. I don't think I can link to the app, the Environmental Working Group app itself, but it's easy enough to find by doing the search. But I will I will link to that filter so you can filter out some of that stuff that might be in your tap water at home.

[00:51:27.230] – Rachel
That's a great idea. He didn't talk about reducing exposure to toxins and that's the first step is knowing what we're exposed to. But he also mentioned that being healthy or having a healthy lifestyle can help improve our options after maybe being exposed to some things. You talked about a lifestyle, how that impacts our genetics. And just because we may be prone to certain things, like he had mentioned the BRCA gene, which is on my radar, if we lived a healthy lifestyle with good food, good nutrition, good exercise, maybe that gene won't be activated.

[00:52:03.890] – Allan
Yeah. And then the other side of it is you have to think about these things as far as what's the cumulative thing that's going on with your body. And so if we're throwing chemicals at our body and we're eating crappy food and we're not getting good sleep and we don't have good stress management protocols and we're not moving enough, all of those are basically signals to your body your information, food is information, movement is information, and if you think about it from that perspective, the coding that's there is going to kick off and say, OK, this person doesn't need to be around any longer. Let's go ahead and do these bad things because, you know, they they want it. I mean, not to say you're asking for it, you know, in a sense. So we know that movement. We know that lifestyle. We know that what we eat or sleep, all of it impacts our health. And the more that we can do step by step, just little increments, one, cutting out the toxins Two, looking and getting higher quality food.

[00:53:04.130] – Allan
So you're getting the nutrition, reading another just even another study today that showed that vitamin D deficiency is a big, big deal with covid. And so, you know, if you're not getting the requisite sunshine, 15, 20 minutes out in sun with a good bit of your skin exposed. So, you know, you're getting some sun, you're getting some vitamin D. If you can't get it, then consider supplementation. But if you're not getting your vitamin D, you're putting yourself at risk for complications from covid, that would be worse than it would otherwise be.

[00:53:40.280] – Allan
So, again, these things are cumulative about our lifestyle and other things you can do today to improve all of it, to give your body a fighting chance. Just little incremental things.

[00:53:51.980] – Rachel
Yeah, it all adds up to these little steps really do make a difference in the long run.

[00:53:57.380] – Allan
All right. So we challenged ourselves to start helping you come up with a Keto Thanksgiving, hopefully can roll in to maybe even a Keto Christmas by giving you a few recipes. And the recipe I'm going to bring on is not so much a recipe as a as a style of a way of getting something done. The turkey is the hallmark for most people to to have. Now, if you really want to go, Keto, then I'd say go with ham. Ham is going to be more Keto than a turkey.

[00:54:29.270] – Allan
But if is the thing which for us, Thanksgiving is definitely for me it's the thing. I love cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. It's a gift I do for the family for Thanksgiving every year. And we're going to do it a little early this year because of covid. We're having to change our travel, but I'm still going to cook a turkey for my family about a week early. But anyway, here's how you do it. It's pretty simple.

[00:54:52.220] – Allan
Go find a good quality turkey, you know, get going, get an organic, humanely raised, pastured turkey. You know, just wild out there about their turkey. Better if you can hunt for it. You know, I don't know. I think they have turkeys up there in Michigan.

[00:55:08.530] – Rachel
Oh, yeah.

[00:55:09.200] – Allan
Maybe Mike can go get you one. I just think hardest thing to hunt, but you get a good quality turkey. OK, that's the first bit.

[00:55:16.880] – Allan
Second bit is that I'm going to tell you to cook it the exact opposite way. Everybody else tells you to cook it, OK? You don't want to put it on rack. You want to put it down on the pan and you want to put it breast down. OK, everybody else cooks their turkey breast up, and that's why the breast milk gets really, really dry, because the moisture falls down and it falls out of the breast, which one to do is flip the script on this and cook it for the first bit breast down.

[00:55:47.190]
OK, so what I'm going to do with my turkey is I'm going to clean it, wash it off real good upon the giblets out. I'm just going to lay them down in the pan. OK, those are a treat for me about three hours from now. OK, I'm a preheat the oven to 325. So the ovens warming up. I clean the turkey out. Got it ready. Sometimes they stuff the giblets in the next base, in the neck, in the bottom space.

[00:56:11.230]
And I don't know why that juxtaposition that's backwards from where it came from. And maybe, you know, if someone knows why they do giblets the way they do, message me, let me know why that happens.

[00:56:22.570]
But anyway, you clean out all that stuff, and then I'm basically going to take a complete stick of butter and I'm going to put it in in the cavity. I'm going to take a cup of chicken broth. I put that in the cavity, I'm going to I'm a dice up some celery with dice up some mushrooms and dice up some onions and we'll put that all in the cavity, OK. Close the legs up. They usually don't have some kind of little strap if they don't just use some string and tie the title legs back together at the bottom.

[00:56:56.410] – Allan
So that kind of stays closed. Oh I forgot one thing. Oh I've got almost the most important thing. There's two things. OK, I guess I forgot. One is a beer, a dark beer. So get yourself a dark beer. You know, if you can find a dark, dark beer and you pour that in there along with everything else, and then you want to put some spice in there. And what I usually use is I use Tony Chachere's.

[00:57:20.230] – Allan
It's a Cajun spice. You can usually find it just about anywhere I've never had trouble finding. And if you can't find that, just get a Cajun spice and you want to put a good bit of Cajun spice in the center. OK, so now all that's in there, it's bubbled around, the spices in there, the beers in there, the butter is in there. And then you just, like I say, close the legs up and you lay it breast down in your baking pan in the pan dip and make sure it's deep because the moisture is going to come out and your breast is literally going to sit in that moisture as it cooks cover it all up with tin foil and put it in the oven.

[00:57:54.350]
Now, depending on the size of your turkey. What you want to do is cook the turkey until it has like an internal temperature of about 165, maybe just a little bit more. OK, and that can take anywhere from three to four hours from most of the turkeys that you're going to buy, get it to about 165 internal temperature once it gets to 165 to pull it out and carefully turn the turkey over. I always make a mess doing this, but you turn the turkey over and then you carefully peel all the tinfoil away, carefully turn the turkey over and you put it back in the oven and you let it go for probably about another half hour to 45 minutes.

[00:58:37.970] – Allan
So you get an internal temperature of 185. You always want to cook any kind of poultry, chicken or turkey. You want to get it to internal temperature of 165. That's when it's done. I mean, 185. So once you get it to 185, you're done. Pull it out. Now, when I do the turn over, I talked about the giblets. That's when I go fish them out. And I put them on a plate and I put the turkey back in and I go sit watch football and I eat the gibblets.

[00:59:09.300] – Rachel
Nice.

[00:59:09.560]
Nobody else. Nobody else wants them. I love them. So I sit there and just eat them. And I was like, What are you eating the turkey? Like you started the turkey. Yeah, but not the kind of turkey you want but the kind I want it. And so that's my little treat to myself. And I'm cooking the turkey is to have the giblets while I'm watching it and waiting for that last, you know, half hour to 45 minutes for the turkey to come out.

[00:59:33.800] – Allan
And so that's it. What you've done with the with the drippings and all that, you can use it in something else, a gravy or something. But it basically because the turkey cooked almost all the way through with the breast down in that moisture, it retains the moisture and you'll have a very juicy recipe bird. And it was butter and other stuff that was drifting down through there. So it just adds a little bit more fat. Not a lot, because you only put one stick for the whole turkey, but there's just a little bit more fat there than you would have otherwise had.

[01:00:09.050] – Allan
So that's that's the turkey.

[01:00:11.910] – Rachel
Sounds delicious. It sounds awesome.

[01:00:14.490] – Allan
And it because you've cooked it breast down, it might not be as pretty as Martha Stewart, but it's still going to have that golden brown. It's still going to look nice enough. And is to me, it's that's the taste. You're going to slice it needed anyway. So that's that's my recipe for Thanksgiving. How to make your turkey a little bit more Ketofied.

[01:00:36.630] – Rachel
Oh, that sounds so good. Well, you can't have turkey without mashed potatoes, am I right?

[01:00:42.940] – Allan
Yes.

[01:00:43.870] – Rachel
Except for, if you're Keto potatoes are not part of your day to day from normal diet. So I have a creamy mash cauliflower recipe that I got from the ketoconnect.com. Matt and Megha are great cooks and I have tried this recipe several times and I've modified it to different tastes. But yes, you can turn cauliflower into basically a replacement for mashed potatoes. You just boil the cauliflower to get them soft.

[01:01:14.290] – Rachel
You drain them, you put them in a food processor and you process them until you get them to the creamier consistency that you like. And then the Keto Connect recipe suggests adding heavy whipping cream, butter, garlic, rosemary, parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to taste to the recipe. But the great thing about potatoes or mashed potatoes is that you could do it however you want. So if you want more garlic, add that if you want more butter.

[01:01:45.460] – Rachel
I've made mashed potatoes with cauliflower, with parmesan and garlic, which is wonderful. But I've also used cheddar cheese and bacon bits to make it a little bit more like a baked potato kind of a meal. So it's just a really wonderful creative recipe that you can modify to suit whatever tastes of the people that you have coming to your party or your Thanksgiving dinner. So it's a nice recipe, very easy, doesn't take much time and you can absolutely practice it in advance to get it to the way you like it.

[01:02:20.140] – Rachel
But I'll send you the correct version of the recipe and then your listeners can try and modify it to their own tastes, OK.

[01:02:28.540] – Allan
Did that come with a gravy of any sort or have you tried any Keto gravys.

[01:02:33.460] – Allan
It does come the gravy. I have not made the Keto Connect version of it, but what Mike and I have done in the past is with all those wonderful juices that you get off of your turkey, we just add a little bit of xantum gum to kind of thicken it up a little bit. And that's just perfect the way it is. But you can absolutely modify that again with adding more rosemary or other fall spices to give it the flavor you like.

[01:02:59.590] – Allan
OK, and you'll have plenty of drippings. That's one of the things when you're cooking the turkey, the way that I cooked the turkey, there's a lot of fluid in the pan when you're done. So you'll have tons of drippings that you can use for gravy this time and or you can freeze some of it. And when you want to have that going on later, then yeah, just mixing in some xanthum gum, which is fairly innocuous. You know, it's not not something, but it's not something you really have to be that concerned about.

[01:03:26.650] – Allan
So perfect. Well, thanks, Rachel.

[01:03:30.020] – Rachel
Sure.

[01:03:30.120] – Allan
Next week we'll be sure at the end. Stick around to the end and we'll be sure to have another recipe for a Ketofied Thanksgiving.

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