Johan Vesters: 0:32

What's up guys? Welcome back to Talking Nutrition episode 57 Today we have a little reunion going on here I think yeah been a while since you guys have been there. I was gonna say one one room one podcast The

Kristine Andali: 0:47

funny thing is me and Mike haven't even met in person

Mike Kesthely: 0:52

a crime but yeah,

Kristine Andali: 0:54

it seriously is.

Mike Kesthely: 0:56

I mean God how's it it goes back to what year

Kristine Andali: 1:00

2018 2018 2000 I don't know 20 I'm trying to think cuz I moved to California. No, it was later than that. I think it was like it was when I started in Salt Lake City. Yeah, with Nick. My year my years are all mumbo jumbo. I'm gonna but um, yeah, so I'm so excited about this because I just you know, me and Mike relationship has evolved so much over the years from like me knowing absolutely nothing to now being you know, a successful nutrition coach and I owe so much of that to Mike. I like He's the number one most influential person when it comes to where I am today. So yeah, I'm just so excited to see you know,

Mike Kesthely: 2:01

people listening they can't see how read I'm gonna be one of my top accomplishments in life. Having children. Seeing Kristine as successful nutritionist. That's very Yes, that's

Johan Vesters: 2:18

awesome. Yeah, I remember listening to you guys. I think this was like 2028 or something. And the topic we want to talk about today, like shiftwork, you know, this dosterone, kind of like how we can you know, manage that stuff. I remember you guys had an episode about that back then. I've been kind of thinking about this too, like, we got to bring my calling, you know, and Kristine mentioned a couple of times and I was finally happening. So that being said, like who are you? What do you do those little bit about yourself?

Mike Kesthely: 2:46

Yeah, well, my meat and potatoes jobs, so to speak, no pun intended, is a firefighter paramedic. And I've been doing that with the Lethbridge Fire Department. It's a small city in Alberta, Canada, about 100,000 people been doing that for about 24 years now. I've been involved in emergency services as paramedic for about 30 years. So my entire adult career. As that career progressed, I got into nutrition and it's I always describe myself as like the reluctant entrepreneur. I got into nutrition because I was it was self serving, I wanted to become better at martial arts. I got into martial arts when I was a little bit older. And when I was 35. I got into CrossFit even older than that, and I needed to keep up with the 20 year old guys. I'm like, okay, what can I do? And I sort of got into the nutrition. And from that, a very long story short, I started a nutritional consulting company, I started a supplement company that kind of blew up. And I'm still involved in nutrition, some of those companies have gone by the wayside. But I'm still very actively involved in nutrition. And I still consultant I still do formulations for other companies. So So that's in a really small nutshell. That's where I'm at right now. Yeah,

Kristine Andali: 4:02

yeah. You were like, so when it comes to like the CrossFit space, Mike was one of the first like nutrition coaches in that space. Really, there was like, like, there was you, like working against gravity, but that that even started like, I don't know, there's a bajillion. Now, obviously, so many people are doing it, but Mike was definitely one of like, the first ones for sure.

Mike Kesthely: 4:32

Yeah, it was a very cool, it was a very cool time to see the infancy of CrossFit and see where it's like no one really knew how to programme and no one really knew what to feed these athletes. And it's like this was a, such a demanding sport that he was having this massive physiological effect on these athletes, and it's like, how do we recover? How do we get better? And it's, I was I feel very lucky that I was, I was there when that started. And I was able to learn from those athletes and, and it's, it's come a long way for sure. It's, I mean, not that we want to sit here and talk about CrossFit. But what what's cool is you see the times and the weights and the scores that people put up then versus now and it's

Kristine Andali: 5:13

different, and the age and all that yeah,

Mike Kesthely: 5:16

and then what Yes, and the ages but then, like what people were doing for nutrition then versus now.

Kristine Andali: 5:23

Well, yeah, like you, you know, you're the one that taught me how to eat because I was in absolute horrible place. I don't think we've mentioned this yet. But Mike was my nutrition coach for four years, like I had tried all these other people, and it just was just not it. And I finally found like, he really taught me how to eat, to perform. Because obviously, before that I, you know, was in this terrible state of like, under eating over training, you know, he taught me so much even with the training side of things. And yeah, I mean, it was like this, paleo, you know, that kind of stuff for so long.

Mike Kesthely: 6:08

And I mean, I shake my head, but it's like, I think at that point in time, everyone was learning, right? Oh, yes. I don't fault anybody for anything they did. And man, I took some athletes that did some wild stuff with him to just as an experiment. But I think everybody was trying to figure out what's the best thing we can do for for this demanding sport? Right? Yeah, very cool time, we've come a long way.

Kristine Andali: 6:30

Big time.

Johan Vesters: 6:31

I definitely remember listening to I think, I can't remember who it was. But like a bigger coach, you know, and they were like, talking about, you know, how they were like, training like twice a day, and we feed our athletes like high fat, you know, like diets and all this and, and back down to because I didn't know shit. No, and this is when I was still kind of like, I was still overweight, I was, like, CrossFit kind of, like got me to, like, lose most of the weight and stuff. And then nutrition, but like, I remember watching those videos. And remember, like the the advice that we're giving, it's, it's a complete, like, 180. Now,

Mike Kesthely: 7:02

it is doing so much. It's very cool to see, you know, beyond CrossFit, see how the science of nutrition has caught up so rapidly, because even back then it was like, there wasn't a lot of human controlled studies on athletes. And I mean, there's lots now and it's very cool to see that, but a lot of it was just speculation of like, Oh, we're gonna take this from the bodybuilding crowd, we're gonna take this from the endurance crowd. And even in the studies weren't that well controlled, but it's like, now the science has caught up, and we know what we need to do. For the most part, it's still, it's still not always black and white, but it's, it's getting pretty close. So

Johan Vesters: 7:40

for sure.

Kristine Andali: 7:41

Um, so one of the things well, I mean, the main thing, you know, we don't talk a lot about men's health, I feel like it's, I don't know if I'm just not seeing it. But I feel like there's so much stuff out there, from the female side of things, and there's just not a lot of talk on, you know, the men. And so, you know, Mike is super, super knowledgeable in this. And so we wanted to talk more on that. Testosterone, you know, HRT what affects these things, when should you, you know, consider HRT. So I think the first question I have is, What do you believe are the three top contributing factors to low testosterone?

Mike Kesthely: 8:33

Ooh, this is a really good question. Um, the top three, so off the top of my head. And I'm going to do this without overthinking because Kristine probably knows me really well. And I'm forever, especially on a small tangent before I answer. Sometimes she would ask me a question about something. And if I ever said, you know, let me get back to you on that. That means that I'm going to probably like research the shit out of it, and overthink it. But um, so quickly, before I start overthinking it, I'd have to say sleep deprivation, alcohol and low calorie intake. Those would probably be the top three. And with the shining star on that would be sleep deprivation.

Kristine Andali: 9:18

Yeah.

Johan Vesters: 9:20

So yeah.

Mike Kesthely: 9:21

Yeah, it is. And you know, specifically, I mean, I might be a little bit biassed, but within my line of work, being a shift worker, I do see a lot of sleep deprivation. And guys are and this sort of connects with what Kristine said, guys not really talking about their health or mental health or Hormonal Health. There's a lot more acceptance with that now, and I don't know why that is I think gays are just realising, hey, you know what, I do have a problem. I'm open to talking about it, where maybe in the past maybe 1020 years ago, you know, guys would put up some sort of false wall and pretend that everything was okay, right. And this, this could go off into a totally different topic. But I think guys are more open to talking about it. So I'm having a lot of guys approached me and saying, hey, you know what, I'm going through the symptoms, and this is particular to the fire department where we're seeing guys, they were in their like, late 20s. And they're going and getting tested, and their total testosterone is coming back and it's like, really low. And this should be when they're like in the prime of their life, right. And this is can be directly correlated to sleep deprivation for sure. I know you see it all over social media, you know, Benefits of sleep and the importance of sleep. And it's, it's one of those things, I don't think you can emphasise enough. And I think it's one of the things that people think they can get away with. And I put up my hand because for many years, I thought I could get away with it. But if it'll affect every other aspect of your life, right, so, yes. So to get back to your question, yeah, sleep deprivation, alcohol, low calorie intake, and that third one, we could chuck around with you, maybe there's another one in there. Overtraining, maybe there's, you know, exogenous emotional stress, but um, I'd say those top three,

Johan Vesters: 11:08

it's a hard one to, because you, no one wants to hear that, you know, I just sleep more, you know what I mean? I've, I've been talking to a couple of people, and a friend of mine keeps hitting me up to and he sends me shit, you know. And then it's like, clip with Joe Rogan. And talking to like, about like, Tom Cat, Lee, whatever. And then it's something else. Yeah, I wanted to bring them on over like, like, did you know, he keeps sending me this stuff, you know, is he does this work and this and whatever. But I also know, he just had a kid. And like, he, his sleep has been all over the place. And I told him to like, look, really the number one thing, especially now that things are kind of slowing down a little bit for him. The number one thing you can do is I try to dial in your sleep a little bit more. Yes. But I don't want to hear that. You know what I mean? It's like you want to perform better record recovery better, like everything. It's hard, you know, it's like it is

Mike Kesthely: 11:59

the things that people people don't want. It's not that they don't want to hear it. But um, the stuff that works is super unsexy. It's like it's gonna say

Kristine Andali: 12:07

that. It's this. It's the shiny object syndrome.

Johan Vesters: 12:13

Yeah,

Mike Kesthely: 12:14

I can read, I can talk, people gravitate to supplements. We're, we're wired from an evolutionary perspective, to find the shortest path from A to B, right? And this served us really well, in like, prehistoric times, right? Or, you know, when it was all about survival, it's like, what can I do to get food? What's the easiest and safest way I can do that? Well, me just being a little, you know, 100 and 195 pound man, I can't take down this, this woolly mammoth. But if I get 12 of my buddies, I can probably take it down. None of us will die, we'll have food, right? So it's like, that's that line of thinking? How can I do this most efficiently that served us really well. In modern society, it doesn't serve us well, what's the most efficient, laziest way to do something? This is why people love supplements. They're like, Oh, I can take this pill. I don't have to change any other aspect of my life. But this is going to improve my life dramatically. Right? And when it comes specifically to testosterone, people will more likely gravitate to something that's very simple to do to incorporate in their life, and supposedly, how these profound effects but 99 times out of 100 It doesn't work like that, right? So yeah, but the it's the super unsexy stuff. It's like, are you getting enough carbohydrates? Are you getting enough hours asleep? Are you getting close to zero alcohol? Like, not, that's fun. But that's the stuff that

Kristine Andali: 13:41

works, right? So much controversy over the alcohol thing. My stance has changed on this. Over time, just, you know, if you really want to optimise your health, or, you know, even like in fat loss phases and things like that, I at this point, I'm like, There's no room for it. It just has so many negative effects. And it's just a cascade of issues, it causes that it is very hard to keep it in. Yeah, and see that see that? See the progress you really want to see.

Mike Kesthely: 14:19

I agree like 1,000% with that. And it's, it's interesting, because if you look at the studies on how it affects alcohol, it's very surreal. How it affects testosterone. It's very transient. It's like, yes, we know that if we take in alcohol, our liver is going to preferentially metabolise that over creating hormones or let's say it's going to down regulate testosterone production for the short amount of time that it's going to have to metabolise that alcohol, so really the effect the acute effect on testosterone is really low. But so people see that study, they're like, oh, cool, okay, I can grow, I can have a couple beers, they'll be fine. It's not gonna affect my tea. But from an experiential point of view of what you've seen, Kristine, what I've seen, it's like any client and even with myself to any client that has it in, in some sort of chronic fashion, even if it's just like one drink a day, and it's like two and a Palmen. Having one drink, you should be able to metabolise that really quick, it just seems to affect sleep, it affects your training, it affects your recovery affects your hydration status, affects your digestion, it affects high appetite affects all these systems, right? And I'm not talking about having a bunch of drinks, going off the rails eating a bunch of food you shouldn't I'm like talking just having a A single singular social drink. And this makes me sound like I hate alcohol. And I don't, it's summer cod, I'd love to sit on a patio and have a bunch of beers. Let's let's like, Yeah, I'd love to do that. But I know how that's going to make me feel the next day. And it's going, grinning. And just generally how I feel like when I get up in the morning, I've got two little girls that are really demanding. Right? So it's that kind of stuff. It's like, when I go to the fire department, I need to be sharp. So it's just, it's, it's a cost. There's a cost to it. And studies, right.

Kristine Andali: 16:07

I do believe. I mean, I know I just kind of said with the fat loss phase or Optima, optimise your health, but, you know, if someone is dealing with any sort of hormonal dysfunction, or gut dysfunction, there's quite literally zero room for alcohol.

Mike Kesthely: 16:24

Absolutely, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those things that you just have to realise, I mean, people are still going to have drinks, right? And there's times when I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna have a beer. I know, I'm gonna have a beer. But it's like, you need to weigh the cost benefit of that. It's not benign. And as long as people understand that, right. I mean, I've had clients who they've had their nutrition dialled. They've had their supplements, dilute the training dial, and they're super driven athletes. But they've continued to have alcohol and on a semi regular basis, and they don't seem to achieve their goals, right? I'm not going to completely blame alcohol, especially with body composition, though, if and if we're getting past the performance thing and just thinking about, okay, how can this client get to the most optimal body composition that they can get to? There's no room for alcohol, there's no room at all. It'll have a profound negative effect, even just with like, a water retention point of view. Right? Yeah. Not even getting into the light policy effects. Right. So

Johan Vesters: 17:27

yeah, it's a tough one. It's, what are we talking about? No, but it's a tough one. Because also they're like, that's another one of those things. It's, it's a hard conversation to have, you know, and especially, I have someone now too, and we're working through some guts stuff. And she's like, Can I Can we like, reintroduce some drinks or something? But he's like, No, this has to stay out really long time for now. You know, yeah. And I'd love to give you that. But right now, if we start adding back alcohol, it's just not going to be we have to start over, you know what I mean? And it's tough, because as much as we, we talked about flexibility and all that we cannot get around like the downsides of lack of sleep, you know, alcohol, those kinds of things. Like there is a consequence, you know,

Mike Kesthely: 18:39

I mean, something like a gut health protocol is is, is like just a temporary, but like, really, really intense. Really, you have to be right for Yeah, after

Johan Vesters: 18:50

the time is back to testosterone like, so we've talked with testosterone. But what then are the downsides of having low T? So how does that affect someone's life?

Mike Kesthely: 19:04

Yeah, and, you know, when somebody thinks, oh, low testosterone, you know, it might be the first thing they think is low libido. And that can be one thing. But we have to keep in mind that there are testosterone and androgen receptors in basically every cell every tissue in the body, including our brain, and including how it affects neurotransmitters. So, I mean, some of the classic signs of low testosterone V like inability to maintain or put on muscle mass or increasing fat mass, depression, mood swings, low libido, for men, who would be the inability to achieve erection or maintain an erection. And those are just just off the top of my head. Those are some of them, right? Probably one of the biggest ones would be the depression or the mood swings. And these wouldn't this would happen first, right? So guys would be able to maintain a high level of fitness, high level of muscle mass, maybe their libidos fine sexual functions fine. But there'd be a lot of mood swings happening, right, or depression. And that's really one of the first things that we'd see that might not be directly tied to testosterone. And the reason I say that is I've seen a lot of guys sort of run through this circle of like, trying to get proper treatment where they're going to their GP, and I don't want to bash on physicians at all here, but it's like guys are going they're saying, oh, you know, I'm not doing very well. I'm depressed. You know, my wife wanted me to come here. I'm not feeling I'm not myself lately. And usually, the first thing they don't test is testosterone. They'd be like, okay, here is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, here's an antidepressant. Why don't you take this? And guys might go through this cycle for a couple of years until maybe they do get their testosterone tested and they find out. But I'm gonna once again I'm off on a tangent there. So going back to, like the signs Yeah, so it's just the ones I just said there, those are usually the most. Yeah.

Johan Vesters: 21:02

Yeah. Like, my doctor I just went on just went like this well a while ago already, but he did not want to test this also, he did not want to check in. And typical and for me is like, to be honest with you, it's okay. Right is fine, but like I want to learn about the stuff I think it's interesting. And let's be honest, it's like the most important hormone for dude. It's what makes a dude. And it's like, so I asked him, you know, because he was like, well, we don't wait tests for that I was like, Okay, can I ask why not? And he said, Well, we only test it if and it is the exact exact words. He said we only test is if you have bitched tits, or

Unknown: 21:44

my gosh, or you've used PE ds. So

Johan Vesters: 21:48

in my head, I'm like, What the fuck are you talking about? Like, this is crazy. And that's like a doctor, you know, where people pay for? That's what he said. I was like, this people who really need help to go to a doctor, and then this is like, advice you got or the

Mike Kesthely: 22:04

it's without a doubt. It's not just, you know, isolated to, to Canada or the US. But yeah, he's

Kristine Andali: 22:15

in Norway.

Mike Kesthely: 22:16

I know. I know.

Johan Vesters: 22:17

Supposed to be good here.

Mike Kesthely: 22:19

Good. Yeah, I have a big, this is a soap. This is like, Okay, I have 1000 pet peeves.

Kristine Andali: 22:26

This isn't one that just makes me go off

Mike Kesthely: 22:31

with the guys within the fire department. So it's interesting, because I have this demographic of like, 160 guys, and yes, we have females too. But and so it's like, I kind of have my own little like, like subject group, so to speak. But it's like, I used to be part of the health and fitness and wellness committee. And that involves getting guys to the physician, getting yearly testing, going talking to the doctor, hey, we know what trends are we seeing here with the guys. I'm very early on, I started to push to get testosterone tested. And in my mind, in my opinion, guys should have it tested every year starting at 18. Now it doesn't matter if their total testosterone is like 1300, then it's like, yes, it's really good. But data is useless, unless you have a bunch of it to look at. Right? Yeah. So if you do a singular, let's say you do like a singular blood blood pressure on a patient, it doesn't mean anything because you have nothing to compare it to. It's the same thing with testosterone or any lab value, right? Like, yes, we can look at reference ranges, what reference ranges, there's a lot of to discuss about reference ranges as Christina and I have a lot. But if we see a trend, so let's say John gets started to get tested at 18. And he's got 1300, testosterone, great. He's all over range, but he's at his peak. And then he goes through his career with the fire department. And then at age 29, we start to see a drop. Oh, he's at 700. Oh, that's still really good. You'll be fine, right? And then at age 32, he's at 500. Oh, it's getting lower, but you're still within the normal reference range. It's like, Yeah, but doc, it's like, I feel really tired in the morning. I'm not as interested in my in my spouse anymore. Oh, no, you'll be fine right now making up a story here. And then as he gets to, like, let's say age 36 Oh, you're you're at you're below range now. Right. But we saw the trend earlier, right. This is why I think guys need to be tested and the medical community, you guys can kick the soapbox out from under me and anytime here. He doesn't see it like that. They're like, No, we're not into prevention. We're just into treating, right treating chronic issues. Right. That's what it is. We're not into preventing them. Right. But had we caught that earlier? There could have been some prevention put in place, right.

Kristine Andali: 24:49

So yeah, that's why I you know, I'm not gonna say there's not good doctors out there because there is but just to save time, I usually will tell, well, at this point, I can pull live now which I frickin love. Yeah, so I can get full panels for people now, which is fantastic. Just is so helpful. But, um, in the past when I was like dealing with doctors and I, and I like, just so that people know, like, I can have these labs, you know, I can pull labs but I still deal with doctors like like 100% I am not a doctor, so I need these people on my side. Right. But I would tell them, Okay, we need to go to like the functional side like homoeopathic like they think woowoo when they think or hear homoeopathic, but like more like the functional med Doctor side of things because those are the doctors are actually going to pull a full panel. Yeah. And so you just you save time and energy because it's literally some of these doctors it's like pull Link breaking teeth. So I, so I always would tell them to just go to that side of things. And we would get, you know, a full panel done. Because it just, gosh, it was just so annoying.

Mike Kesthely: 26:16

Yeah. And what it comes down to it's just a money thing. Really. It's just like, dogs don't want to do it, probably because of money. Whether reason why really doesn't matter. But you're right. I agree with you, Kristine. It's like, getting those done early, especially if somebody has an interest in their health. If they're like, hey, I'm interested in fixing my problems, what can I do? And they say they've hired a coach. It's like, we try to guide them down this path of like, hey, you know what, let's get some labs done. Let's get a full panel done. Let's take a look. Because we can rule out a bunch of stuff right away. Or we could catch some problems really early that are easily fixable. It's like, oh, my haemoglobin is low or my red blood cell counts low. Okay, we can fix that you don't take my testosterone is really low. Okay, let's look into why that is happening. Whether you're male or female, right? That's a totally different topic. Talking about females on low T. That's even a harder problem to get on board with the medical community than males. Yes. But um, yeah, it's a it's like, personally, myself, I will like as I live in Canada, I'll drive across the border to Montana to get my labs done. Because I can just boom, boom, boom, go online, pick them, order them. Go there, get it done. drive back. Right. Deal with the doc being like, Oh, you're healthy male. We don't need to test this. All right, dude, I'm not into normal. I want to be honest. Right. But

Kristine Andali: 27:34

I was just gonna say that, like that side of things. They're preventative, and they're from a standpoint of like, optimization. Right? And that's what we want.

Mike Kesthely: 27:43

That's what we want. Yeah, for sure. For sure.

Kristine Andali: 27:47

Okay, so next question. What would um, we kind of already talked about this, just by talking about the contributing factors, but best ways to increase slash improved saucer levels naturally?

Mike Kesthely: 28:04

Yeah. And this is a great question, too. This is, so I'll start basic, and maybe we'll get a little more complex. This goes back to the unsexy stuff. It's like, human beings thrive on consistency. And when it comes to one of the things that we as humans love, it's like being in sync with like your circadian rhythm, right? So circadian rhythm disruption will absolutely trash your testosterone. So what does that mean? It's like going to bed when the sun goes down, getting up when the sun goes up. As boring as that is, that's like, one of the best things that consistent sleeping pattern. Consistent eating like we're talking, you know, low calorie will absolutely trash your testosterone. So what do we do, we need to eat in with the amount of calories coming in that would support that. Now, that doesn't mean over eating, that doesn't mean under eating, that just means eating the proper amount. Because if we think about it, if we under eat, that's a stress, that's a stress to the body. And that's exactly how your body looks at it. It's like, yes, there's a time and a place to lean out. There's a time and place to do a quote unquote, cut, right? We need to recognise the fact that that's going to have an impact on your hormones. So to optimise your testosterone, from a natural point of view, one of the biggest players is carbohydrates. A lot of people think it's fat, they'll read Oh, fat plays a role in your testosterone production. Yes, from a building block point of view, we need fatty acids to create testosterone and that steroid hormone cascade, we need it, you're going to get enough fat, you don't need to go out and crush a bunch of avocados and coconut oil and rizoma. It's not going to increase your testosterone. You're going to get enough from your diet eating a whole food diet for sure. From a supplemental, I mean, I haven't touched on the stress part, because that's really tough to say, okay, yeah, take care of your stress. We all have a lot of stress in our life. And it's all very relative, right? One person's stress might not be a stressor to somebody else. I think it's important to recognise these stressors and how you respond to it. Now this is this is out of my lane out of my scope of practice. But if we get into like some mindfulness and meditation, some dealing with the stressors, and that might involve actually going to a therapist, right? It's like it would be it's amazing. If you can talk about your stressors to someone how much that will mitigate that stress. Yes, if we bottle that stuff up, and this is me getting a little woowoo on this, maybe this is me and my old age getting woowoo. If we if we bottle that stuff up, it's going to have a massive physiological effect on us. Right? And without a doubt, guys are still horrible at that. We're getting better at talking about that stuff, but we're still not great. Yeah, but those are the things from a natural point of view, let's say like non tangible things. Um, that can that can increase or maintain your testosterone, right? And we need to differentiate that it's like, guys here like, Oh, I'm going to do this, it's going to increase my T, well, nothing you do naturally is going to increase your testosterone above a normal physiological range, nothing. Yeah, really be a best case scenario is we maintain as long as possible, and you'll have a natural drop. Theoretically, this is supposed to happen about 40. But it's happening much, much earlier because well much earlier because of the stressors of society and lifestyle factors. But the best thing we can do is maintain that there probably will be a time when it'll be too low, right? And then that's when we talk about the use of TRT and exogenous testosterone. That's a big, big decision, all right, but to maintain lifestyle factors, what I just described, supplementation, for as much as I love supplements, there really isn't any decent over the counter supplements that have a lot of really impressive data that will show that'll increase testosterone and there's probably going to be a lot of people that hear me say that, that are going to want to argue because there's a lot of supplements and there's a lot of supplement companies that push this because there's a phenomenally huge amount of money to be made in selling a supplement that will say is going to increase your testosterone who's gonna buy it, every guy is gonna buy it. But there's there's very little that work. One of the and I actually talked to Kristine about this the other day, one of the only ones I've ever seen that has done a really impressive job would be boron citrate, the mineral boron. So it's really good at increasing free testosterone and lowering sex hormone binding globulin, and that can be without getting too much in the details of that. That can be an issue for some guys having a high sex hormone binding globulin, which basically sex hormone binding globulin is the guy that puts the handcuffs on free testosterone, right? Yeah, you got your total testosterone hanging around doing his job free testosterone. That's the guy that likes to party hard, right? sex hormone binding globulin is like that super lame person at the party that just wants to go home early. So he will slap the handcuffs on the free tea and be like, No, man, we're out of here. As a guy, you want your free testosterone high, you want that high, because that's going to do all those beneficial things like increase your muscle mass, libido, increased fat burning, increased cognition, mental resiliency. Boron is a supplement, or it's a mineral that we don't get a lot of in diet. And if you ask me, Hey, where do I find it in Whole Foods? I'd be like, No, I don't even know. Yeah, I don't. I don't even know where would you find it? Yeah, I'd have to Google it to be honest. So. So supplementation, and there's really good human based studies that have shown that it's increased. And I've seen it in clients who have been like, Hey, Mike, I want to go the natural route. I'm not really comfortable going down the TRT route, what can I do to increase my tea? And when we supplement with boron, boron citrate in like the three milligramme to six milligramme range, I've seen an increase from lab to lab of fairly significant value free and total testosterone and then a lowering of sex hormone binding globulin? Yes. That would be the one that off the top of my head, I'd say is, is beneficial. There's lots out there. I mean, if you fire out a question me, I can maybe answer it, but yeah, other ones.

Kristine Andali: 34:35

Um, we did want to just touch on shift work, but quickly, can we when was when should someone consider TRT? Yeah,

Mike Kesthely: 34:47

okay. This is a great question, too. And this is a big deal. Um, what I'm seeing now is because of the increased access to underground labs, and performance enhancing drugs, there's lots and lots of people getting into this without actually knowing what they're doing. So that's just sort of a, I guess, that's not even getting into the topic. When Should someone so I mean, I'm seeing that I'm seeing people use and get on TRT without proper guidance. When should somebody get into TRT or consider it? If if they have all their lifestyle factors down and those are pretty dialled. They've covered all the unsexy bases, and they're still not seeing the results that they want to. And this is also confirmed by labs. Then I would say seek out a physician that is well versed in testosterone replacement therapy, and that's really key. It's like usually the first avenue or funnel to go down as your GP. Depending on your relationship with your GP. You might have success you might not be I would highly recommend seeking a functional med doc or going to a TRT clinic and there are TRT clinics in Canada. I know there's lots in the US, is it like do you gotta pay out of pocket? Yeah, you might have to pay out of pocket. But these are the people that are well versed in it, administering TRT. And this is a this is going to open up more questions. But just because your T is in a normal physiological range, doesn't mean that that is good. You can have very significant signs and symptoms of hypogonadism without having with having your testosterone still within a normal range. Right. And this is very relative. So if I'm using the range of total testosterone from let's say, 300 to 1000. And I'm very symptomatic at 500. Does that mean I don't need to know maybe my where I operate? The best might be at 700 grade, where? Down the street. He sits at 300. And he feels fine. He's out there crushing it at the gym. And you know, he's happy his sex life is great. And Doug's doing great at 300. Right. So it's very individual for everybody. But yeah, does that answer that question? Yeah, yeah,

Kristine Andali: 37:16

the only thing I would add is really doing your homework on like these these HRT clinics, because I have heard some horror stories, honestly. I honestly think like referral is probably yield best in that situation. But yeah, I just wanted to add that to just make sure people do their homework on that.

Mike Kesthely: 37:38

Yeah, you do have to do your homework. And just because it's labelled as an HR, to your to your to your clinic, doesn't mean it's good. Jamie and I have a bunch of different resources. So Jamie's my partner, she's a she's a coach in the bodybuilding industry. She deals with men and women. And she deals with a lot of people that are on HRT, we have a couple of different clinics we refer to. And without naming names, we have a clinic that we will, there's a clinic that takes men and women, we will only refer men there because the women we've referred there to I don't know what they're doing. Yeah, we will, we can talk about it. Yeah, it's very interesting. But there's, you don't get, you can't just expect the best quality care. Everywhere you do have to do your homework, you have to do your due diligence. And you have to do a lot of self education to like, I would never tell a client just to go in and just blindly trust anybody. Don't ever do that, to do your homework, talk to your dig into the internet and, and figure it out yourself. But it's very important to do that.

Johan Vesters: 38:41

Yeah, that's, that's what it's like these days to where people, I mean, we educate on social media as well. But it's literally like, Oh, I saw a clip from you know, whatever podcast and then let me just order it right away, you know, not even like, look like not even doing like a quick Google or something is just go straight to that link. Let me order that. Because fuckin like whoever says, you know, it's supposed to be good for your testosterone.

Mike Kesthely: 39:05

I see that all the time. Yeah, I see that all the time. And it doesn't make a tonne of sense to me, because I'm the kind of person who's like, oh, this has this claim? Well, I really need to write, let's see, I want to find out more about this. But some people are like, Oh, John said that this supplement is great. And he's put 20 pounds on his bench. I'm going to take it even

Kristine Andali: 39:28

know what you're taking? What many people don't know what they're taking?

Mike Kesthely: 39:31

Yeah, I'm like you do have to be you have to be a self advocate. Right. And you have to be curious about what you're going to put into your body. It's really important.

Johan Vesters: 39:40

And I think the list is kind of a little side note, but I think the listen to like people need to know that a lot of people talking about supplements online. Get paid to talk about supplements online.

Mike Kesthely: 39:52

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. I like so before I owned Nova three labs, it was very cool because I could bash every supplement out there because it was non biassed I didn't have any interests. And then I had no but I mean, I loved it. And of course, I was very particular to the supplements that I manufactured. I like the fact that no, I'm not really tied. Yes, I do. I do formulations now. But it's like, I'm not tied from a financial point of view to any particular supplement. So I can, I can be very opinionated about everything. Yeah. And let me tell you, there. There are very few over the counter supplements that work if like, it's such a small percentage, a lot of it. The supplement industry is a wild west. It's not regulated on cannabis trying to do a better job of regulating and they're not doing great. The US is completely unregulated. You can go in you can make a supplement you can put any claim on it, you can sell it. There's there's no regular saying it isn't sane. It's totally insane. And this is why it's a billion dollar industry. Right? Exactly. from a from a consumer point of view be very sceptical. Yeah. Like, and you'll find data on different supplements like I know, you had brought up the Tomcat ally and that's, that's one that has maybe some potential the mechanisms maybe are there for it to increase testosterone and men with low tea. But the data is not like bulletproof right? So but there's there's a lot of supplements like maca. I really like maca. Maca is phenomenal for libido, but it has zero effect on your hormones. So we don't understand the mechanism that right. Mac is a great supplement though. Like I take it every day. And I love it great. But it doesn't have an effect on your hormones. Right? So when it's pitched as increasing testosterone is false. Right? So yeah.

Johan Vesters: 41:52

Anywho. So we, we did have a couple of questions written out about chef work. I always feel like we should just do like a separate. Maybe we will, maybe we should.

Mike Kesthely: 42:05

We can always do part two, right.

Johan Vesters: 42:06

Yeah, that's,

Kristine Andali: 42:08

I honestly feel like this would be a good second part podcast because there's lots to go in.

Johan Vesters: 42:14

Yeah. And it would be a bummer to kind of like rush through it. Yeah.

Mike Kesthely: 42:19

Yeah, we can be part two on that. I mean, it segues from this one, right, where we Yeah, where we've talked about some of the things I know, I've touched on the sleep deprivation. But um, I mean, in part two, we can get into strategies in and around shift work and how to optimise that. But optimise that when you're trying to be an athlete. Yeah, let's

Kristine Andali: 42:38

do that. Yeah.

Mike Kesthely: 42:39

I mean, yeah,

Johan Vesters: 42:40

it's important because that, like, I work with a lot of shift working people, you know, mental hospital, the big hospital here. And it's, it's tough for people sometimes to to manage everything, you know, and then it's also really high stress jobs. So it is it deserves like a full episode if you like. So, that being said, let's save those questions. So before we let you go, do you have any updates? Now? It's moons like Where can people find you?

Mike Kesthely: 43:10

Yeah, the best place to find me is on on social media. It's Mike elevated. I still operate. My coaching company, which is elevated experience coaching. I got a couple of coaches underneath me, Derek and Gavin, who were both young, eager and brilliant, like scary smart, both of them. But I still take clients too, but I've mostly take the demographic of, you know, that 40 year old guy who's just trying to get through life and optimise everything else. That's that's kind of where I am right now. Right. But that's, yeah, that's the best place to reach me is just right on social media. I love answering questions so people can hit me up there.

Johan Vesters: 43:50

Awesome. We'll link that down below. Katie, thank you for your time. Let's do that part too soon. I'm already looking forward to that.

Mike Kesthely: 43:58

I'm excited. I'm thank you guys for having me. On. Course,

Johan Vesters: 44:02

of course. Welcome back to doing podcasts. Right.

Mike Kesthely: 44:05

Yeah, we'll see you soon. Yeah,

Johan Vesters: 44:08

and to our listener. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to drop us a quick rating, review, do whatever you want to do share this sort of spirit in your stories right. And then we will be back with a part two. I will talk to you next week.