Episode 73 - The Importance of an Open Mindset in Men's Health - Dr. Dan Sullivan

Dr. Dan Sullivan, a licensed naturopathic doctor, discusses the importance of a holistic approach to men's health. He emphasizes the need for an open mindset, healthy connections, and comprehensive blood work to optimize health and well-being. Dr. Sullivan also highlights the significance of diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices in supporting testosterone levels and overall health.

Takeaways

• Maintaining an open mindset is crucial for men to seek help and make positive changes in their health.
• Surrounding oneself with healthy connections and friends can provide motivation and support for making lifestyle changes.
• Getting comprehensive blood work done can provide valuable insights into one's health and guide targeted interventions.
• A healthy diet, regular exercise, and stress management are key factors in supporting testosterone levels and overall well-being.

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Transcript

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like if you were going to say okay these are the top three things that men should be thinking about with their health um
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what top three things should men be thinking about or action should they be taking in order to better their
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health welcome to maxed out man helping you become the man you were made to
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be hey guys this is Kevin Davis from the maxed man podcast I here with Dr Dan Sullivan but before we begin don't
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forget to go to max out man.com check out what we've got going on there with coaches and uh coaching courses all
0:33
sorts of resources over there I do want to mention too we're thinking about doing an adventure retreat in Costa Rica
0:39
sometime in the fall of 2024 if you're listening to this I have no plans for this whatsoever at this point but I've
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mentioned it to a couple of guys and they're like that sounds super cool and so if you are interested in something
0:50
like that reach out to me KD MaxOut man.com and we'll figure it out so hey I want to give Dr Dan's bio here so we got
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uh Dr Dan Sullivan is a licensed naturopathic doctor and a certified health coach from The Institute for
1:05
Integrative Nutrition Dr Sullivan has been in interested in health and performance optimization from an early
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age in order to pursue ice hockey at a higher level D1 uh he advanced in hockey
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and received a full scholarship from division one University of Maine uh black bears uh go black bears right uh
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during this time he was diagnosed with ADHD and began searching for answers other than uh prescription medication Dr
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suvan loves helping people optimize their health and has a clinical interest in mental health brain health hormones
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performance and biohacking uh he has Advanced Training from Apex energetics in thyroid blood
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chemistry brain chemistry and functional Indo Endocrinology there you go
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additionally he has completed functional medicine training from The Institute for functional medicine and is in the
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process of becoming a certified practice practitioner you do a lot that's awesome
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uh I appreciate you taking the time taking the time to be with me today and I'm super excited all of that stuff is
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like I nerd out on on all yeah so my background's in in health and fitness
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and you know exercise physiology and all that stuff but I'm not a physician you you're
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like you are just like way on the other side of that that Continuum for me so I'm super excited to learn from you so
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that's like your ledin bio your like website bio so fill us in on the gaps like that how' you get here how' you get
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interested in and why did you go the you know naturopathic medicine versus you
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know traditional medicine this functional medicine all that so give me give me a little bit more background on
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that yeah I mean I think you know starting off I was an athlete I was a hockey player played you know many
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different sports growing up golf tennis racketball U baseball you name it but
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hockey kind of became my passion that was what I wanted to do and I wanted to play in the NHL and so you know over
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that journey I was always interested in how do I get to the next level how do I
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optimize my health and performance for me back then it was more about how do I
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optimize my performance on the ice and so that just naturally led me
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down podcasts books seeking out mentorship changing my diet you looking
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at websites all that kind of stuff just trying to devour information on how to
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optimize myself and so during that process I was diagnosed with ADHD when I
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was about 18 19 years old and I wasn't given any other options
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other than just pharmaceutical medication I wasn't asked about my my
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diet my stress levels my there wasn't any blood work or genetic testing that was done on me so I didn't
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know any other options and so I just started taking the medication and that
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was very helpful in certain ways my focus dramatically improved but then I
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was noticing all kinds of other side effects and so I was kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place where I
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really needed the medication to function well and to do well in school I was having terrible time focusing a lot of
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brain fog I would just read a page and just not even remember anything about
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what I had literally just read and motivation levels were just very low to
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do anything other than what I was very interested in doing and
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so gosh yeah long story short I met a mentor while I was playing uh hockey in
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college he was an acupuncturist he practiced functional medicine he was just a super super inspiring guy very
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passionate about what he did and he was like you know Dan there are other options other than medication and the
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amount of sugar the amount of processed foods that you're consuming in your diet are significantly impacting your ADHD
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and so we did a number of different tests and food sensitivity testing and
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blood work and all this stuff to really investigate what are the root causes of my issues focusing and so after working
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with him I was able to get off that medication and that's sort of what lit
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me up in terms of okay there is something huge about this functional
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medicine World naturopathic medicine world and
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so I I was on track to play professionally but then at that point it
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was sort of a critical Tipping Point point in my career where I knew I could roll the dice and play pro play in the
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minors and hopefully keep progressing make it to the NHL like some of my teammates uh have been doing or or did
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um which was very exciting the thought of just playing at that level is you
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know my dream come true but ultimately I knew that that was
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going to be a massive sacrifice and a Gamble as well and it could take a long time and if I wanted to pursue
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medicine I was already 25 at the time so I figured I would you know it was pretty
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much now or never for me or that's what I was thinking at the time so then I
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started my journey with getting a health coaching certification and then realizing that I
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just I wanted more tools to offer people so my dad was actually a traditionally
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trained physician so I originally explored that option I was looking at becoming a
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do and it was actually interesting I I
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visited a school and during that process I just realized that there was
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there was a disconnect there or so in in my eyes there was so I noticed that a
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lot of the students were the types of foods that they were consuming was not very healthy I noticed that they had
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vending machines that were you know stock full full of candy and soda and things like that and I'm like what is
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happening here you know there's there's some kind of a disconnect between
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the fundamentals of Health diet you know being a primary driver of Health as you
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as you're well aware and and so I kind of veered away from that and I
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I started exploring other options and so when
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so I I had worked for that functional medicine doctor after I worked with him
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I ended up working at his office and taking a low grade roll there just to
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get my foot in the door but during my time there he took me to all these seminars on different you know andol
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brainal all these kinds of things all over the place and I was able to meet other practitioners and so during that
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time I met other naturopathic doctors and realize what that even was and then
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after talking to them and exploring that path I decided that that was the best
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route for me so yeah long story but here yeah I mean
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I like it and I think that you know I think it begs the question and maybe some definitions from you I know that
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when we had kind of initially talked you know we we used the term naturopath in
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you know synonymously with naturopathic doctor so make that distinction for me
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and also like just Define what that means like you know you said do which I
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know what that is but kind of explain some of that because I I think there's so many medical terms and stuff that go
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around and like you say oh natural paath if I say hey I go to a natural paath they're like oh so you do crystals and
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you they wave the little smoke thing around you and all you know whatever they you know they got the sage in the
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office so like just kind of walk through that because I want to set some context for people on what this actually
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means yeah so a naturopath is not a is not a degree per se so that's a you can
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take you know an online certification it's a much shorter process for that to
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be a natural path to basically be just educating people on their health their
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their diet their lifestyle things of that nature but they're not actually going to medical school so that's the
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distinction so a naturopathic doctor or a naturopathic uh medical doctor is
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someone who goes to Premed before they go to medical school then they go through four years of medical school in
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which it's very similar the first two years are very similar to that of a doo which is a doctor of osteopathic
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medicine or an MD medical doctor and so those first two years are very very
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physiology biology focused we're just learning the nuts and bolts of Health
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we're doing cadaver lab where we're dissecting human beings uh so we do all
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that very similar to a traditional Medical School whether that's MD or do
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those are very MD and do are very similar they were they were much
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different in the past I think they've they've gotten closer uh so dos will learn manipulation you
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physical manipulation but a lot of the curriculum is similar to that of an MD
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so before like my dad is a is a do so back in the 70s when he was going to
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school those were kind of considered the the quacks and the you know and so now
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they're recognized in all 50 states very synonymous with an n
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status wise and so with an ND or naturopathic doctor we're about we're
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licensing about half of the US right now about more than half of the US so
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they're recognizing us so basically and then the other difference I should say is that the MDS and dos go
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through a mandatory residency period whereas the naturopathic doctors unfortunately there isn't that there
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isn't that relationship with with hospitals at this point and so we have an optional residency where ours is more
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of a more of a private practice you go into a residency in a much smaller scale
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so that that's a that's a something that we're working on that
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we'd really love to have that um so we are lacking that but um and so you know
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we can prescribe testosterone we can prescribe hormone replacement therapy estrogen progesterone we do a lot of IV
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Therapy we can do the schedule 3 four and five drugs so think of the lower
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intervention drugs so the you know when you're thinking about like uh add
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stimulant medications narcotics things like that those are usually schedule one and two which we don't prescribe so
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that's another distinction between a naturopathic doctor as well okay yeah and you can you know put your
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tenf foil hat on and and kind of think through why the licensing issue why the
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residency issue and why the the um you know animosity or antagonistic
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relationship between hospitals and indes right because it's like well you know if
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you guys aren't writing scripts for the expensive schedule one drugs then you know then that hurts the bottom line you
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know Healthcare is so crazy especially now and it seems like it gets worse all the time um but but I think the
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promising thing is as you're talking about the the the less um you know less
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of a dichotomy between MD and do would hopefully mean that the MDS are getting
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more holistic um Ty type of ucation
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right well and and the the very end of the bio that you read The Institute for
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functional medicine that's that's big long certification process that I'm doing a lot of MDS and dos are in that
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same program and so they're a lot of them have already you know they're already established Physicians and then
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they actually want to Pivot and go into more functional medicine but they were never taught those things which are more
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in alignment with what we're taught as naturopathic doctors which I should probably mention which is more of the
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diet the LIF we have lot of I forget how many hours hundreds of hours of diet
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nutrition you know different vitamins uh minerals we we learn a lot
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about just holistic medicine you know how how to how
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to how to get better how to feel better on a on a root cause level ver and we
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still granted we still have pharmacology classes where we learn medications right
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you know I got my DEA license which required me to pass a huge exam based around just purely
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medications and so there's yeah there's there's kind of
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that we learn we learn enough of the conventional to to understand that
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because a lot of because we really have to understand that right because a lot of I forget how many how many
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medications the average American is on but it's it's a fair amount and so we
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have to kind of know what we're doing in terms of how do we how do we help them how do we work with their p with their
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prescribing doctor how do we wean them down if possible some of those medications and intervene with the
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lifestyle the more Natural Therapeutics yeah I was listening to a podcast this morning um Robert and uh
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charlot Shaw who have mastering your marriage podcast which is Awesome by the way but they had they had a doctor and
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they were talking about um my wife and I were listening to it because she's 50 she's kind of in that per menopause
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stage and and the podcast this particular one was about HRT and about
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the um kind of the fears behind it and all the symptoms of param menopause I
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mean I realize this is a man's podcast but if your if your wife or significant other is going through any of this stuff
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um but all that to say she was talking a lot about functional medicine and she was also talking about you know the
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whole uh lifestyle thing like you can you can control some things with diet uh
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nutrition exercise all of these things but in this case they were talking about estrogen and progesterone production and
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like once your body's not producing those anymore you can't do like you have
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to go a pharmacological route was was her stance um because you just don't
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have that you have to go a replacement route because you just don't have it um and so that's where like what you guys
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do versus is important because there are just times when taking a pharmacological
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approach is the approach right or at least opponent of it right 100% yeah
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there's also ways too it's like how do you marry the pharmaceutical with the
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other the stress reduction the dietary changes the Supple the targeted supplementation the the labs right the
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comprehensive lab work that really fine tunes the HRT right because there's a
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lot of other things that affect uh hormone metabolism how well it's how well the hormones are binding at the
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receptor especially in men and testosterone a lot of guys would just want to go on trt you know but if
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they're if they're a little bit overweight they got that Central at aosi that you know that midsection weight
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they're going to aromatize that testosterone into estrogen yeah more
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more of it right so they're going to convert that testosterone into estrogen so there's a lot of
18:01
other supportive factors to adding in a pharmaceutical that we would you try to
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optimize to get the the best bang for your buck out of that pharmaceutical
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yeah because I mean sometimes it's just it's just part of the like and that's what I want to Define what holistic
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medicine is uh and just the holistic approach because it in some cases when I used to hear words like holistic right
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again it's like oh we got this sh and he's sitting in a yoga pose and all that holistic just means whole body right
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like everything fits together a good bunny of mine Justin rosling's Hofer who actually was a NHL strength and
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conditioning coach um he's he's very much about the whole self and I've
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learned a lot from him because I'm a go go go you know lift weight six days a week you know and like he starts looking
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at HRV and some of these numbers and my Sleep Quality is like dude you're going to die early you're going to look great
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but you're going to die early because you're not taking a holistic approach to your health right and then that's that's something we're missing in modern
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medicine and just everyday especially Western life right for sure for sure
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yeah we have those we have those blind spots too and I feel like a
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comprehensive it's just yeah in my eyes holistic it's just comprehensive comprehensive View and so you know for
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instance what I'll do is I'll do a 90 minute initial exam or initial intake
19:31
with somebody that comes in every new patient is seen for an hour and a half by me wait you're only supposed to get like seven minutes I thought seven
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minutes was I know I know so yeah that's you
19:44
know that's that's inherently an issue right with our current medical system
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and the insurance model it just doesn't that doesn't fit the model and so it's
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unfortunate for people that aren't getting the type of care that they deserve I feel like everybody deserves
20:03
to have a comprehensive look at their body their physiology to understand what's going on because we know so much
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about the body and how to optimize obviously there's so much more to learn which is always exciting but I feel like
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that you that's why we do that is to really literally go ask them questions
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from birth right were they grass-fed were they see baby for you did they get
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chronic ear infections or or sinus infections were they put on chronic antibiotics as a child what is their gut
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microbiome like because that is the house of 80% of the immune system and a
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lot of times I would say probably 80% of patients plus that I see do have some
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level of gut dysfunction going on and so the more I do this the more I test for
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that and a lot of people have never had their full gut
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tested and that plays a significant role in their hormones and how how their
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physique looks how are they absorbing their pristine diets you know with all
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the the macros getting um perfectly calculated all that stuff so it really
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it's just a deeper look and I think that's what I really learned from my original Mentor Jay the the functional
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medicine provider that helped me make the transition was he was just like man
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there's so much more for you to learn and there's there's just deeper and
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deeper levels of knowledge and how this stuff all all works to to optimize a a
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just a massive level than where you're currently at and um and so yeah so just
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to finish that thought I think that uh we call that the subjective right what
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the person is telling us combined that with a comprehensive objective so
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drawing the blood looking at their comprehensive blood work their vitamin D and their testosterone there not only
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the total testosterone granted but the free testosterone the sexor bining globulin the estradiol the ratio of
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testosterone to estrogen you all these different markers talking more men there
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obviously but and then as well is the lipid panels This is this this is a huge
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issue that's that's coming up a lot and where they'll go to their primary care
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and they'll get total cholesterol LDL HDL and
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triglycerides that's it and that stuff may look normal or okay but they're
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literally a ticking Time Bomb when we do we do a a very Advanced Cardiovascular
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panel on people that it would be indicated on or their they're interested in doing that a lot of times the the
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breakdown of the more advanced lipid markers is very telling and so they can
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get away with a seemingly clean bill of health by just looking at surface level
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data but when they dig a little deeper then they realize oh there's some stuff
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going on and then you know it's very empowering too because we can connect the dots and say oh you know you've got
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inflammation going on here you got your vitamin D is low you've got you know your uh your iron status is suboptimal
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all this stuff and how that interplays with the thyroid which is affecting your gut motility which is then affecting
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your brain function and your brain fog people have never had all those dots
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connected before so that's really a fun part of my job and it's really just exciting to see them like Buy in they're
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like oh wow you all this stuff is like it's all connected and I can you know do
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something about it and feel better yeah and and to realize that you know doctors
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don't ask about lifestyle ever like I you know I don't go to the doctor very much because I'm healthy but uh you know
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but in they don't ask about diet they don't ask about your nutrition like in
24:17
general they don't ask about do you work out do you lift weights do you exercise do you have strong family connections do
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you know all of these things all they do are like well you know oh you're glycolides are too high let me throw you
24:30
on this Statin which by the way is going to kill you you know which is like a
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Terri it's just it's just so that 90 minutes is so crucial for people in
24:41
order to get that because you may see all these data and like you said I love the you're you become more of a
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behavioral specialist it you know coupled with data right very
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true yeah I I'm definitely running into that a lot more that that approach
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of okay because a lot of this stuff is
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is they have to do something about it they have to change their lifestyle their relationships whatever the root
25:11
cause we investigate what is causing the issue here is it your is the limiting
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factor the relationship or the lack thereof with your dad or with you know
25:22
whatever the case may be or is it the mold toxicity that you have right is it a physiological reason or some
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combination usually some combination of five to seven factors for most people
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and so yeah it's just uh it it becomes an art and I'm spending more time learning
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about motiv what motivates people what inspires people you know it's it's one
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thing to look at the data and give them a treatment plan I feel like that's
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that's easier so to speak than it is to okay where is this person at in their
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life how are they financially how what kind of a time commitment do they have how motivated are they how can I Inspire
26:11
and motivate them and then what order of operations would be most effective where
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do we start to get the most meaningful quick change for them to feel better as
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soon as possible and then to you know have that motivation and that
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um what's that word I'm looking for the compliance
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gosh that's gonna kill me man that uh yeah gosh that continued um
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yeah that just that motivation the kind of getting the ball rolling in the right direction yeah so are you doing like
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parallel paths almost you know because you could say okay okay well I know that you need to stop eating at McDonald's 6
27:00
days a week I know that you need to actually lift weights I know that you need to do all these things but if I just have you do those that may take you
27:08
six nine 12 months you know I mean you're going to see benefits within six weeks six to 12 weeks obviously by just
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doing some of those things but then you're taking you know whether whether it's supplementation um you know whatever
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whatever those that that other path so are you taking more of a parallel path to do both of those at the same
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time yes so that's sort of where the art comes in and also that what just came to
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mind is the is the Pharmaceuticals too the higher level the higher level intervention for some people to kind of
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just get a kickstar too so that's I will do that when it's when it's indicated
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when I think that would make a really big difference for that person and just help to get them on board so
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yeah there's there's a time and a place for that I think it's just I think you know for for
28:05
a lot of people though it is it is very motivating once they see the data that they've never really seen before laid
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out like that that is really motivating and for men too where you know a lot of
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men are data driven and and um gosh it's just it's crazy what comes up you know
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yeah and seemingly like I just had a guy great guy you know he's what 40 years
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old 42 years old nice family his wife came in she had a
28:35
Hashimoto and I'm treating her and and she's like yeah I want you know I want to get my husband in here and so he
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doesn't really have that much going on you know feels pretty good comes in and um you know he finally comes in he's a
28:48
busy guy and we we get to talking we do some Labs on him and I don't know how
28:56
this guy's functioning because he had mercury levels that were through the roof his homocysteine was like 3x the
29:03
normal limit which is a measure of inflammation in the body he had two different parasitic infections in his
29:09
gut he had massive leaky gut or intestinal permeability he like there was probably
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10 other things going on and I'm like how are you even how are you doing this and and imagine what imagine how much
29:24
better you can feel if we addressed some of this stuff so we're doing that now and man I'm just
29:31
I'm so excited for people like that that are like that are operating you know at a certain percent um of their of their
29:38
capacity and it's like oh now and that's what's exciting for me too is helping people to get to from maybe 50%
29:46
efficiency to 80 90 100% capable of so much you know oh man
29:54
it's and it's not you know at the end of the day it's not that hard it was funny cuz when we uh when I first started
30:01
talking to Justin who's the the guy that he it's called own it which they do
30:06
cellular testing and DNA testing and all this different stuff and then custom supplementation but when I first started
30:12
talking to him I had this like super cocky attitude right like oh I'm Mr fit Mr high performance Mr all
30:19
whatever but my wife is dealing with paropa and sleep issues and all this
30:24
kind of stuff and we get we get our data back and like the same thing as this guy
30:29
right like you're you're patient like all right I'm I look great from the outside and I'm high performance but
30:35
like I don't sleep well my HRV is in the tank I look you know I I'm just
30:41
cellularly not that healthy and so like that's where as a guy you're like oh
30:46
well the data is right here what do I need to do and so I put in all these things in place you know we have better
30:53
sleep things we have we have you know more stress relief which is the Killer
30:58
right like the stress part of it Stress Management all of those things I've been on trt for about three years now I have
31:04
a basically have one testicle so because of a motorcycle accident so that there's
31:09
a physicality that that affected that but mine was like 243 in my in my early in my early 40s
31:17
and so you can imagine how I felt with that um yeah I I do want to ask you about hormone regulation when it comes
31:23
to trt estradi those kind of things um we we at max out man I've been
31:30
concentrating on the like 45 plus demographic so a lot of our listens are that way but I also want to talk to
31:36
these younger guys who were in there you know 18 to 25 18 to 30 I just had a
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buddy of mine that's like 32 and his was like 246 his testosterone was um and so
31:49
talk to me kind of how we evaluate as guys like how do when should we get
31:54
tested what are our procedures what dietary and nutrition and and exercise
32:00
things can we do uh in order to kind of address some of those symptomatic
32:06
things so I think number one everybody every man should be tested for the
32:12
testosterone for sure have a baseline the younger you are the better right in
32:17
your in your in your 20s I would start there just so you have a baseline this is where I was at in my 20s and then you
32:23
can kind of track that over time um I would also encourage guys to
32:29
get a full panel in terms of so not just the Testo total testosterone but also
32:35
looking at free testosterone looking at sexual hormone binding globulin looking at
32:40
estradiol uh looking at dheas I mean really just I'd encourage people to get as comprehensive a panel
32:46
as possible whatever they can afford and and if you're going through your primary care you really have to in most cases
32:54
advocate for yourself so looking up a full panel get getting knowledgeable on
33:01
what that looks like and then presenting that to the doctor and just asking for all those labs and seeing what they'll
33:06
do so I'd recommend doing that and you can go to you can go to an external lab
33:12
too right like that's what I that's what I do and they even have so like they at my thing they have um they'll do the
33:18
full testosterone panel that you described and it's half price on Tuesday and Thursdays I don't know why they do
33:23
that but like you can you can go to an external lab and then you you I present
33:29
that to my you know ND and I'm like all right here's here's my labs you know
33:34
this is what I this is what I've been on this is what I think I should do do you have any you know disagreements or
33:40
whatever but you know to your point go get tested keep going yeah for sure um
33:45
and that yeah that's a great point because that's becoming more and more uh you know financially doable for people
33:53
too because it is that would be an out-of- pocket expense um but yeah becoming more and more reasonable to get
33:59
to get comprehensive labs done um in terms of what were you asking about the
34:05
diet and the exercise just like Steps like you could take you know how do you
34:11
evaluate whether or not like you know you I mean everybody should get tested right but what's the motivation
34:17
to get tested like symptomatically what is you know what things do you look with your diet and and exercise and all that
34:24
too so yeah I think yeah every everybody should get tested because even if you
34:29
feel like you're feeling okay you want to get some data to evaluate that to
34:37
kind of combine how you're feeling with how you're doing objectively and so you can feel okay with a testosterone of you
34:45
know 350 maybe you can because that's kind of your Norm right and so you wouldn't know that until you get the
34:52
yeah until you get I did air quotes if you're listening to this Norm but the
34:57
norm yeah that's a whole another topic but um so yeah I think symptom Wise It's
35:04
just inability of gaining muscle in the gym it's a lack of motivation it's you know are you getting
35:12
are you not getting erections in the morning when you're waking up um or throughout the night you would really
35:17
know that um you know just general kind of malaise also body composition as well
35:27
um can be can suffer so just not being able to gain muscle or be even motivated
35:34
to get to the gym to put on the muscle in the first place also with Focus
35:39
motivation right testosterone plays a significant role in the frontal lobe of the brain where we make a lot of
35:45
executive decisions and so it's a big problem that people have low testosterone right that's a that's a
35:51
that's a risk factor for cardiovascular disease when they have low tea and so
35:56
that's a huge problem so I want to just encourage men that it's okay to seek out
36:03
you know trt or to you know want to optimize basically just want to optimize
36:08
your testosterone right try to do it naturally if at all possible and try to exhaust those options because that's the
36:16
other thing too that I'll just mention before I get into diet and exercise is that the testost if you if you are to do
36:24
testosterone replacement therapy and you haven't address the fundamentals first
36:30
you're not going to get that good of result with it you're going to you know potentially aromatize it into estrogen
36:37
you're going to have to be put on higher dosages higher dosages of something like an nrol to inhibit the conversion and
36:44
you're kind of playing whack-a-mole with these other side effects that happen like the acne that'll come up because
36:51
you're going to have to take higher and higher dosages because if you're more inflamed the testosterone will bind as
36:58
effectively at the receptor so there's all these other things that are playing a role in how effective the testosterone
37:05
is so I'd also encourage me because I know it's it's tempting to just say oh I
37:12
got low testosterone I just want to you know get my levels up as soon as possible but it's worth the work and
37:20
effort that it takes to set the stage right and then after that's
37:25
done if you still truly need trt then by all means do it and but then you're just
37:33
in a you're in a place where the trt is just going to supercharge you instead of
37:39
this weird place where you're getting all these side effects and stuff and it's not really you get the honeymoon
37:45
and it'll just kind of decrease after a couple months so I just wanted to go on
37:51
a little rant there no that's super helpful because I actually haven't heard anybody talk about trt in the you know
37:57
because that it's not a Magic Bullet right just like steroids are not a Magic Bullet the guys
38:02
that are doing steroids which is like 10 times what I take those guys are still working their ass off in the gym like
38:08
it's not a magic it's not it's not magic serum you know like like you're a super
38:13
hero but I love that you talked about the fact that you know I I know guys that are on trt and they're still 50
38:19
pounds overweight 30 pounds overweight because they don't exercise they still eat like crap I was originally on an
38:26
asrol and my doctor like you don't need that you're low body fat you're fine just don't and I don't take it so now I
38:32
just do just just do that I don't worry about HCG or anything that and atrophy because I'm married and my wife doesn't
38:38
care uh and I don't really care that much either but um yeah so but I I
38:44
really appreciate that component is because it's it's something that comes into what you'll talk about next which
38:50
is you know lifestyle stuff right yeah so to touch on that I think
38:57
having adequate protein is critical so I recommend having protein with every meal
39:03
so having at least you know three meals a day typically
39:09
um highly variable in terms of who's a good candidate for intermittent fasting
39:14
things like that for some people that can be very effective if you're very stressed already I would not recommend
39:21
intermittent fasting just because it is another physiological stressor on the body
39:27
um in terms of diet I mean really you want to you want to be assuming as low amount of sugar as possible because
39:34
higher amounts of sugar decrease the immune system decrease testosterone
39:41
literally I would encourage people to be consuming a lot of cruciferous
39:46
vegetables a lot of fiber content that fiber is very good for uh lowering LDL
39:54
cholesterol number one but also just good for the gut microbiome that
39:59
ferments that um very good for the health of the gut which is highly
40:05
affects your hormones like testosterone also um you know making sure you're
40:11
having regular bve movement so the fiber will help with that which will promote detoxification which is also good for
40:18
testosterone um you know quality over quantity as well too so making sure
40:24
you're getting grass-fed beef you're getting you know organic eggs um all those kinds of things the the pesticides
40:31
and residues that's unconventionally grown um vegetables or fruits and meats
40:37
things like that or not pesticides on Meats but just hormones and other things that are in conventionally U meat
40:44
conventionally grown meats are not good and so for many
40:51
reasons I think so yeah I think that's those are some of the pillars I would
40:57
say of of supporting testosterone there's a lot of other Nuance in there of course
41:03
but I think if you're eating mainly Whole Food you're trying to stay away
41:09
from the inflammatory seed oils the fast food obviously the the packaged Foods as
41:15
much just how it comes from nature as possible the better and then I think in
41:21
terms of exercise I would say having regular weightlifting session
41:28
is going to be the most important thing doing full body movements complex lifts
41:35
you know deadlift bench press back squat or if you're unable to do those things
41:40
just still getting a complex movement in like a leg press uh or a p you know Push
41:46
Pull overhead push overhead pull um movements like that and you're
41:52
going you're you're you're working your body in a
41:58
I mean I think the rep ranges too can be can be variable but I like to go more on the Lower Side uh not super low as to as
42:07
to potentially increase risk of injury but you know you know enough weight
42:13
where you're really working you're really stressing the muscle maybe six reps 10 6 to 10 5 to 10 to 12 somewhere
42:21
in that range I feel like is a good uh range for most people and then I think
42:31
um not overtraining either right so if you're going aggressively every single
42:38
day an hour and a half in the gym right there's a point of diminishing return so
42:44
I feel like to your point you're talking about you know the stress and the relaxation that's equally as important
42:50
so hitting the gym hard and then also re rejuvenating uh as well because that's
42:56
OB ly when your body grows is is out of the gym yeah we always make the
43:02
distinction between overtraining and under recovered you know we talked I talked to I talked to a buddy of mine
43:08
and he was saying that it's even Elite athletes have a hard time overtraining
43:13
right like and it typically it's we use that phrase and it really is under recovered to your point that you just
43:20
gave which is just we're not we're not allowing our bodies to grow and to repair and to you know build those
43:27
things that we're that's why we're doing everything right is in order to keep that recovery and and build uh build
43:33
better bodies 100% 100% yeah I ran into that too as a
43:38
hockey player like I it was just yeah I was I was uh not doing a good job of
43:45
recovering under a lot of stress yeah yeah I know so much better now it's it's
43:51
pretty typical hey I want to I want to finish up but I want to can you give you're going to say okay these are the
43:56
top three things that men should be thinking about with their health um what Tope three things should men be thinking
44:02
about or action should they be taking in order to better their
44:08
health D that's a hard one put you
44:16
yeah I think I think number one is actually
44:25
mindset so keep keeping an open mind being open to being wrong
44:33
or just you know like like you were saying like you're thinking you're the healthiest guy in the room or whatever
44:39
and then you know you do some labs and it's like oh I got some work to do so just being open to that I feel like a
44:44
lot of guys and I run into this a lot because most of my practice is women right because I you know that's just the
44:52
way that's just the way it pans out women just are more likely to to seek help and you know get things checked out
45:00
and so for guys I'd highly encourage them to keep the mindset of keeping an open mind you know asking for help if
45:07
you if you're experiencing symptoms like the symptoms of low te or whatever
45:12
seeking go like just yeah doing it okay got it getting help um and
45:20
then yeah I think there's so much to mindset I love that topic but um I think
45:26
that's where it all starts right if you're not open to doing anything or open to changing then the the other two
45:33
are for for no yeah um I would
45:40
say I would say number two
45:46
is uh having having really good connections and people who are
45:55
healthy that you're friends with that you spend time with because we that's
46:00
like the biggest indicator more than me telling you to eat Whole Foods and
46:05
everything which is I think very important obviously but I think if you're around that environment on a
46:11
daily basis it becomes very hard to deviate from that and become unhealthy if everybody else around you is healthy
46:18
right yep so I think that would be do your best to you know be around people
46:23
like that and and create friendships if if you don't have any like that already
46:29
that's very very important to do that or with anything else that you want to get better at if you want to make more money
46:36
spend time around people who who make more money right things like that right
46:41
and then I think number three would be just you know um from my from a biased
46:48
standpoint I think getting tested getting comprehensive blood work as as a
46:53
baseline to just see where things are at and then go from there because
47:00
honestly you don't know till you know and uh know you feel but it's another thing
47:08
to really get a comprehensive look and then it's it's super empowering too
47:13
because you see the data you see the before and then you take action you take
47:19
certain supplements you change your diet or you change your relationships and then you retest and you see what
47:25
happened it's just like an one experiment yeah 100% you know nine times
47:30
out of 10 you're going to be feeling significantly better in the process yeah I love it I love it hey Dr Dan Sullivan
47:37
how do we find you how do we get more information about you learn more about what you do and and um kind of reach out
47:44
if we need help or information yeah so I'm mostly on
47:49
Instagram dr. Dan Sullivan is my handle um Oasis health and medicine so that's
47:57
the clinic that I work at so we have a clinic me and my partner in San Diego California um so Oasis health and
48:05
medicine all spelled out.com is our website so we're seeing patients uh in
48:10
person virtually and we're also looking to expand so we're actively creating um
48:17
an online community on school right now so nice that's very exciting so because
48:23
yeah that's one of the things we're running into is we just don't have the time to see all these people so um and
48:29
then also you know some people just cannot afford it so we want to really make this type of medicine much more
48:36
available as as as available as possible so out for that hey I'm gonna I may
48:43
reach out to you about my wife too with her HRT and talk talk a little bit about that so hey thank you so much for coming
48:49
on board super interesting we'll have to bring you back and talk more about mindset I love that topic as well so I'd
48:54
love to have you back at some point but thanks so much for coming on board man have a great day my pleasure my pleasure
49:00
likewise if you're looking to really maximize your life and become the man you were made to be head over to maxed
49:07
out man.com and get your journey started today