In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with my good friend John Gorman to unpack the current “wild west” of peptides, TRT, GLP medications, and performance-driven bloodwork. We dig into how John’s telemedicine clinic approaches comprehensive lab testing — and why running a full panel (including markers like reverse T3) matters far more than cherry-picking a few numbers. If you’ve been dieting hard, training consistently, and still feeling stuck, we break down how chronic stress, poor recovery, and subtle hormone disruptions can quietly crush metabolism and make fat loss feel like a white-knuckle grind. We also cover testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) — the real pros and cons, common oversimplifications in the industry, and what most clinics fail to discuss. From there, we dive into GLP-1 medications and tirzepatide, what we currently know, what we don’t know about long-term use, and how to think critically about risk versus reward. John shares practical guidance on legitimate peptide sourcing, red flags to watch for, and how to think about “periphery” tools like methylene blue and injectable carnitine without getting sucked into hype. If you’re interested in optimizing performance, improving body composition, or simply making smarter decisions in a rapidly changing medical landscape, this episode will help you separate signal from noise.
In this episode of the Flex Diet Podcast, I sit down with my good friend John Gorman to unpack the current “wild west” of peptides, TRT, GLP medications, and performance-driven bloodwork.
We dig into how John’s telemedicine clinic approaches comprehensive lab testing — and why running a full panel (including markers like reverse T3) matters far more than cherry-picking a few numbers. If you’ve been dieting hard, training consistently, and still feeling stuck, we break down how chronic stress, poor recovery, and subtle hormone disruptions can quietly crush metabolism and make fat loss feel like a white-knuckle grind.
We also cover testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) — the real pros and cons, common oversimplifications in the industry, and what most clinics fail to discuss. From there, we dive into GLP-1 medications and tirzepatide, what we currently know, what we don’t know about long-term use, and how to think critically about risk versus reward.
John shares practical guidance on legitimate peptide sourcing, red flags to watch for, and how to think about “periphery” tools like methylene blue and injectable carnitine without getting sucked into hype.
If you’re interested in optimizing performance, improving body composition, or simply making smarter decisions in a rapidly changing medical landscape, this episode will help you separate signal from noise.
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Flex Diet Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Mike T. Nelson. On this podcast, we talk about all things to increase muscle, improve performance, improve body composition, do all of it in a flexible framework without destroying your health in the process. Today on the podcast, he is back once again.
My good buddy, John Gorman. He is a veteran strength and conditioning coach, uh, specializing. In physique and he is known for blending applied physiology with real world performance. And I've known John for many, many years. And what I love about him is he is always looking at new research, looking at new things, and he's also applying it in the real world, uh, with his athletes, his physi competitors.
And that's one thing I look for in other coaches is. Do they take [00:01:00] new information and are they willing to test it and actually apply it in the real world? Um, and I've learned a ton of stuff from John, um, over the years. It was awesome to chat with him again. Uh, this time we're talking all about kind more, I'd say on the, the peptide and hormone, um, side.
You know, everything from uh, just how labs work. So. Everything from GLP to T three, reverse T three, uh, TRT, some of the pros and the cons, um, how to do it safely and correctly. Uh, peptides is a wild, wild west. How do you look for what would be considered legitimate peptides and even things on the periphery like methylene blue and, uh, carnitine in terms of supplements.
So we went the. Down many, many different rabbit holes here [00:02:00] and was, uh, super awesome to talk to John. And of course we got a little bit into music at the end because we both like very similar good music. So we'll put a link to all John's stuff down below. I'd highly encourage you to check out all the great stuff that he's got going on.
Usually appreciative of him for coming on here and just sharing. So, uh, wild wildly from his. Uh, background and all of the information. If you want more, some stuff from John, make sure to check out all the links down below. If you want more stuff from me, check out my Daily Fitness Insider newsletter.
Completely free to join. Go to link down below and you can hop on for free. So thank you so much for listening to the podcast. We really, really appreciate it. And without further ado, here is my discussion with John Gorman.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Welcome back to the program, John. How are you Doing?
John Gorman: Great. It's great to be [00:03:00] back on. I know we had a lot of fun on our last episode. Yeah, it's been a bit, man. Time flies.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I know, it's crazy. Was that, was it like two, two or over two years ago now?
I'm trying to think. I should know this. I,
John Gorman: I think it's, well that just shows our age, right? Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I
John Gorman: think it's been two years, but it feels like four months, five, six months to me, so yeah, it's been a bit,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah. And you've been, uh, pretty busy. And one of the things we're gonna talk about is you ended up doing a telemed facility now, is that correct?
John Gorman: Yeah, so a lot's changed over the last two years with, you know, me buying a manufacturing company for our supplements. That was one of the big things. And as that was happening, um, I also started Premier U Telemed because a lot of the things, you know, we were talking about this before the podcast started.
I'm getting up there, I'm 48 and, and as I get older, I don't get a ton of 21 year olds, 22 year olds. I still have those clients, right, sure. As a diet coach. But a lot of my people are 35 plus. Mm-hmm. And I've noticed a lot of people, [00:04:00] 45 plus females, for example, the stages of menopause are all starting to hit somewhere.
Especially someone that has a dieting history and their hormones have, have experienced the ups and downs of dieting or competitive athletes. I work with a lot of competitive athletes too, that's really extremely hard on hormones. So I started to notice I'm having to send my clients out here or there to get blood work done.
Some of 'em end up on, you know, some form of hormone replacement therapy and they just needed someone good to take care of there. Of their hormones, right, and their blood work and their health. So after about five years of trying to do this, trying to find the right people, I found Premier U and they own three locations, physical locations in St.
Louis. And I went up and I met the owners and spent probably six months doing events with them, speaking at menopause events. Just my due diligence really to make sure this is somebody I can, I can hitch my, my ride to. And they're great. So yeah, we started that in March and we are seeing people in, in, [00:05:00] uh, five to six states right now.
I say five to six because one's being finished as we speak and all my clients go there. My whole family goes there. Um, even my son's moms go there we've got a really, really good facility that's helping a lot of people with hormones and blood work.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And so how does that work? Do they generally have like issues they're trying to work and then they would do a consult and recommend certain blood work?
Or how does it work?
John Gorman: So generally, I'll just give you the perfect example, right? I have, and usually I'm screening blood work because that way I know I need to send them in. I'm not just
Dr Mike T Nelson: sure
John Gorman: randomly just trying to get all my clients to, everybody does blood work, everybody sees my doc. It's, you know, you mean
Dr Mike T Nelson: not everyone needs TRT for everything.
John Gorman: I mean,
Dr Mike T Nelson: especially on the guy side, that seems to be what the deal is now.
John Gorman: Yeah. You know, it's, it's, and it's gonna keep going that way, honestly. Um, with everything that's happening with testosterone specifically, I think the floodgates are gonna open and that's gonna be available to everybody. [00:06:00] But, uh, before we get to that, yeah, so I, I could have a.
You know, 45-year-old female with a diet history, and she hires me and she needs to drop 35 pounds. I know she's going through menopause. So I, before I start just putting her on any kind of a diet plan, I need to make sure that her hormones are in the right, in the right place, especially testosterone because we're training with weights, you know, we're trying to retain muscle.
If we're dieting or if we're trying to put muscle on, we've gotta have free testosterone basically. Total and free are important. So I, I have them go get their labs done and I have 'em get a full panel. So we look at thyroid, testosterone, all, all the sex hormones, you know, estrogen, progesterone, all the important things, cortisol, and even down to things like reverse T three for the thyroid, because
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure.
John Gorman: That gives the diet
Dr Mike T Nelson: we're dieting history.
John Gorman: Yeah. It, it tells me if a person's not healthy, it's not time to diet or I need to take X, Y, Z approach because if they still need to diet, I can still usually [00:07:00] get them there. So there might be some aids such as. You know, one that people just don't understand.
It's, it's a GLP, it's tirzepatide.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
John Gorman: Somebody's got really high inflammation, microdosing, tirzepatide, there might be a great place for that. So it really gives me the look at what I need to do as a diet coach. And people hear that and they're like, well, Gorman, you're not a medical practitioner. A hundred percent not.
That's why we started Premier U util me because I've got like our nurse practitioner, Jordan, our, our physician's assistant, Dr. Brandon, I, he's a physician's assistant, but he's a doctor of chiropractic. Those two take care of everybody for us. And they're the experts. I just write my diet plans and training plans to match.
I kind of meet them where they're at. So I just had a large, um, amount of people that needed that. And the crazy thing is, Mike, because you think like an entrepreneur too, like you and I see things through a different lens than a lot of people. All these people that I've helped over the last 10 to 15 years.
They're my age. So like when I announced, yeah. Here comes, it's kind of [00:08:00] like when I launched a supplement company, here came people from 10 years prior that I had helped, they all came about the supplements. Now I've got people that are reaching back out. They're like, Hey, I, you know, my wife's interested in ta having her hormones looked at.
It just comes back, right? When you do business with people for 10 to 15 to 20 years the right way, you launch something and those people come back and support it. So that's, that's really kind of what we're seeing.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I know for, I've gone back and forth many times of even just looking at blood work. I mean, I started looking at blood work probably 15 years ago, and then I just stopped doing it because I.
I realized quite fast. Oh boy. There's a whole bunch of stuff that I don't know anything about and it's not as simple as, you know, the groundhog oh, he pops up out of the ground, you whack him back down. It's not whack-a-mole.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: You know, it's much more complicated than that. And so I started doing it again probably maybe five years ago now, and I just started because I would, it is [00:09:00] mostly guys, you know, a lot of my clients are mostly female, but it seems like guys were worse for this.
I'd be like, okay. All right. When's the last time you had blood work? I don't know. How old are you? 39. Okay. Do you don't even remember the last time you've had blood work? No. Do you know your doctor's name? Do you even know who your doctor is? What are you talking about? I'm like going, oh my God. If this dude, if I don't do something to show him on paper, well, what might be off to get him to go into a physician?
I'm not trying to replace his physician. He might go 2, 3, 4 years and. Have nothing done, you know, and then you start seeing weird stuff or stuff you can't figure out, and then you get blood work and you go, oh, this makes sense now. You know? Yeah. So it's just another piece of the puzzle, even if you're only staying on the performance side of trying to figure out, like you said with, you know, T three, reverse T three, you know, even stuff as simple as, you know, hematic, grit, iron levels, et cetera.
All those play into, what do most people complain about? Oh, my [00:10:00] energy's low. I feel tired, my performance isn't where it's at Now. That could be, uh, billions of other different things, but, you know, getting blood work does give you some more insight into, you know, Hey, what, what's going on with the engine there?
What's really going.
John Gorman: Yeah, it, for me, probably one of the most important things I learned early on as I started to learn how to read labs was don't make someone's issues worse by just Oh yeah. Diving the hell out of them. Right. And, you know, prior to 2019, people would come to me, I, I would die at plenty of athletes fe females in their fifties.
I had no idea what blood work even looked like. Right. I would just put 'em through a contest prep, and now if I look back, I would find much better ways to diet them, uh, much better, you know, functional supplements to help throw in there, you know, things like Chase Barry to help with progesterone and, you know, cordes to help with cortisol and just a lot of that kind of stuff.
My product hormone optimizer, not, you know, shameless plug here, but Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: I, [00:11:00] I created that to help keep testosterone levels as high as possible for people, especially when they're dieting. So I wouldn't have known about any of that. So that was. I created a lot of problems with clients and I think a lot of coaches are doing that and they just don't realize it.
Right. Because I would say, you know, if you were looking at labs 15 years ago, man, none of us were like, we had no clue. We stayed away from that. Uh, and then it was kind of taboo in, you know, 2019, oh,
gorman223042_Recording_640x360: I
Dr Mike T Nelson: got a lot of shit for it. I never made it public because I was so afraid that some doc is just gonna chew my ass.
John Gorman: Yeah. And you know, here, here's my response to that because I had a nurse practitioner chew my ass for it, and she's that still happens. Yeah. You, you guys are just a bunch of bros. You, you know, we went to school for X, Y, Z, and I'm like, you know what? There's a lot of people that have become successful by learning things online now versus going to school to get a degree.
As long as you stay in your lane and you do the things that are ethically responsible and you respond to your [00:12:00] clients that way. You're just trying to make their training, their nutrition and their supplementation match that. There's nothing wrong with looking at blood work. It's, it's the bros out there that give people, you know, especially in the assisted bodybuilding world, it's just always been that way.
It's when you get these bros out there trying to tell people how to adjust their meds and all this kinda shit, like that's the kind of stuff that gives it a bad rap for guys doing what we're doing. We're just trying to help our clients get the best results possible by meeting them where they are.
Hormonally.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and unfortunately the, like all things, there is a whole bunch of. Bad players too. There's the, the fitness bro who, who took four hours of online, you know, credit and thinks they can read blood work now. And if I were an MD I'd be like, screw you. I had to go to 6, 8, 10 years of school to, to do this.
So I I, I get it from both sides.
John Gorman: Yeah, I do too. But you know, it's been a blessing. We put on events, menopause events. We generally make 'em free, get people in the door, [00:13:00] help 'em out. It does help bring us new patients and, you know, customers. But, you know, at the end of the day, it just goes back to that model.
The more you help somebody, the more you're gonna generate revenue and, and create something. And that's, as long as that's ethically at the base of what you're trying to do, it's successful. And we're growing month over month, um, nice and steady. So I love it. I'm so glad that I finally found the team. I could start this with.
Dr Mike T Nelson: That's great. And before I forget, uh, explain a little bit about reverse T three 'cause that might be new to people.
John Gorman: Sure. So that's probably one of the most important markers that people like us should look at. That doesn't get tested because you pretty much have to request it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: So what happens is when you get free, T three is one of the markers for thyroid.
Whenever you look at that, you know, we want it to be, you know, 3.0 or above. Ideally it's kind of a snapshot of someone's metabolism. If someone's T three is like a 2.1, for example, that means that your metabolic rate is slow. So fat loss is, is a lot harder. [00:14:00] Fat gains a lot easier. Well sometimes to find out why it's that low, you look at reverse T three and what happens is when someone's highly, highly stressed your, your body takes the usable T three and it tries to slow you down because you're stressed.
So it takes T three and it slows you down and makes the non-usable reverse T three. So it slows your metabolic rate down your T three drops and your reverse T three. Well, generally, if somebody's listening and they're looking at labs right now, you'll see a range of, you know, anywhere from five to six all the way up to 22, I think is the top of the range.
I like to see that at 12 or lower. Anything that starts getting up there at 1419 is really bad. I saw a 26 1 time, ooh, that shows that somebody is highly, highly stressed. And if I see that number as super elevated, I know dieting is going to be extremely hard from them. So then going back to what we just talked about.
So what do I do? That's where I take the lifestyle stuff and I'm like, Hey. [00:15:00] How much sleep are you getting? Are you drinking any alcohol? Let's eliminate that for a bit. Um, are you over exercising and undereating right now? We need to, we need to stop just for let's, let's fix things, right? Let's raise your calories to maintenance, raise 'em a little, let's stop all the cardio.
Let's work out three to four times a week. We've gotta de-stress the body and then it, and it takes a while. And it's so hard because people don't want to slow down. Like they don't. I just had a conversation with one of our people out here in our gym at headquarters about slowing down and getting more sleep.
And that's really the only way to kind of fix that scenario. But if someone's reverse, T three is really high. It's just fat loss is gonna be brutal and fat gains a lot easier. And I see it more with women because guys seem to be more hormonally resilient. We can handle stress a little bit better.
Females hormones are so fragile and they just seem to get hit with this a lot more than guys.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and I think the. [00:16:00] Female diet culture is way worse than guys you, historically, if I'm doing an intake, it's, it's sad to say, but nine times out of 10 if someone did a, a crash diet and did crazy things, it's unfortunately 90%, it's, it's females.
John Gorman: Yeah. And I think guys like us, we've been around so long, you know, before we even looked at labs or intake forms, like that was just, I think before we even kind of got started, that was just the norm. Like women Oh yeah. Had all this pressure on them. Back in the day, it was, you have to look like this lady on Oxygen magazine.
And now with social media, you take that a billion times as much and you have to compare yourself to all, like you all women feel all this pressure where us as guys like, all right, if we're gonna get a little fluffy and fill the t-shirt out, that's all right. We'll, we'll wear a t-shirt and be a little bigger.
But women are just constantly in that state to where they feel like they have to diet, which really just crushes their hormones.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I don't know if you've seen this, but I call it like the, I need a better [00:17:00] name, but I just call it like the poor stress trifecta of high reverse T three. If you do a lactate, they're usually spinning off lactate at rest, like sitting there talking to you sometimes 2, 3, 4 millimolar, like not exercising and their HRV is like complete dog crap.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So like to me that's like the, you're pushed so far into glycolysis and your body is trying as hard as it can to try to produce some form of energy under this high stress condition, and it's just struggling.
John Gorman: Yeah. And I love that because you're one of the first people, matter of fact, you are the first person that I ever heard bring HRV kind of into my world.
And that was, yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I did you you invited me to do a whole presentation on it. That was back in the
John Gorman: day,
Dr Mike T Nelson: man.
John Gorman: Yeah. Zi Summit, uh, 2016, here's Yeah, Missouri, you spoke on it and I, at the time, I was like, man, what the hell is HRV? I didn't even know what that is. I was confused. And, you know, you were early to some in, in our industry.
[00:18:00] You were Oh yeah, for sure. Early to, for sure. So you're, you know, the, now you're the foremost expert. But, you know, comparing those three things that you just said, a lot of people don't understand how that ties to dieting and why dieting might be harder. You know, I try and look at things from an insulin sensitivity standpoint.
Sure. So, you know, if someone's highly stressed, well usually blood sugar stays elevated, which means insulin stays elevated to try and drive it down. So it might make your caloric deficit have to be lower than it normally would if your cortisol wasn't just so chronically high all the time. And that's, there are people out here in our space, I don't want to name names.
Um, some of 'em are PhDs very well respected, and they, they don't believe in the hormones versus the calories and calories out debate. And I don't see how anyone can ever debate that. You, if your hormones are out of whack and cortisol's chronically high, it affects your calories and calories out. It doesn't mean that you can't lose weight.
Right. It just means that normally your, your seco, you know, for short just has to be lower than it normally [00:19:00] would. So it, it a hundred percent affects it. I just think there's such a, a large gap that still needs to be bridged between understanding those two things.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I think of it as, just gonna make sure my phone's off here is I call it the, the white knuckle factor.
It's yeah, if your hormones are screwed and you're like, that last case we just talked about where your HRV is dog crap, your reverse T three is high, your insulin sensitive is all over the place. You measure your C peptide, it's sky high, right? So marker for 24 hour insulin, could you, by the laws of physics, still lose weight and improve your body comp?
Yeah. But man, is your life gonna absolutely, completely suck And you probably have a job, you probably have other responsibilities. You know, it's are you gonna be able to white knuckle it that long? And to me as a coach, to just tell someone, oh yeah, calories only in and out mattered. Just, you know, Karen, just try harder.[00:20:00]
It's like the worst advice.
John Gorman: It's, which stresses them out more, right? Yeah. Your body under more stress. You know what my, the thing is. I think this is why Tirzepatide has become so popular. Oh, for sure. In our world, because of its ability to help clean up insulin sensitivity, but also the person in that situation, their inflammation's going to be high.
Yeah, right. It may not be super, we don't know unless that's measured, but it's going to be elevated and it does a really good job of lowering, uh, you know, helping insulin sensitivity and lowering inflammation, which lets someone start to lose weight again without changing anything else. And I still try and treat the underlying conditions as far as Hey, you need to sleep, stop drinking alcohol.
Oh, for sure. Earlier. But Tirzepatide goes in there and it does move the needle. I like to use it kind of as a last case resort of somebody that. They just, you know, they're stressed. There's nothing I can their job sucks. Their wife just had a kid, [00:21:00] like they're, they're trying to do whatever it is they're trying to do it.
Tirzepatide does help at a microdose, I like 10 to 12 units a week. Is, is what we like to do. Not these big, you know, the obese people that are just sitting on the couch taking it, not exercising and eating potato chips and stuff like that, that low dose seems to really help move the needle. But still, at the end of the day, if people aren't fixing the underlying issues that are causing that, I, I would say, quote unquote sickness or that unhealthy body, it's still even that's not gonna help.
That stuff has to be the highest priority. And I think people are still just throwing things like the GLP is right at it. Without fixing what's, what's wrong?
Dr Mike T Nelson: What are your thoughts on this? My thought is that GLP is, if you pick one, two, or potentially three in the future, whatever one you pick, I feel like it is gonna be.
The TRT of the future, meaning I think for better or worse, most people especially probably not getting the best help, [00:22:00] probably not working the trainer or coach are gonna go on some GLP. It's gonna work for them. They will feel better, like their health markers will probably improve. And then they're gonna try to go off.
They don't have any new habits. They probably maybe lost some muscle mass. They definitely lost performance, lost aerobic. 'cause they just weren't training. They don't have any of the habits in place. Instead of hiring someone to help 'em, they'll realize they can't do it. They're gonna go back on and they're just gonna be like, well, I'm just gonna stay on the rest of my life.
John Gorman: And, and we don't even know what that looks like.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And we have no idea what implications there are for that because we don't have that long-term data yet.
John Gorman: Which, which is scary, people think Yeah. Short term, and they think, oh, this will be fine. I mean, that scares the shit outta me. I'm not gonna lie. So I, I personally use it three months on, three months off, um, to help with insulin sensitivity just due to some really bad cholesterol, genetically high cholesterol that I have.
So one of the things I can't [00:23:00] control is that I can take meds to control my cholesterol, but then it throws everything else outta whack. My insulin sensitivity goes really like 110 blood sugar, that I should never be that guy.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Hmm.
John Gorman: So that's what my cholesterol meds do. So I don't take 'em anymore because the last thing I wanna do is control for cholesterol just to become pre-diabetic.
Right? Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: So my point is, um, I take eptide three months on, three months off to at least try and manage insulin sensitivity. And inflammation because you know, for a healthy heart, you don't want high inflammation. So that's something, if you're gonna have high cholesterol, at least try and control for inflammation as much as you can.
Um, but even then I'm just like, oh, you know what's, what about these people that are just staying on long term? What about me? If I'm using it twice a year, I don't know what that's gonna look like. We don't know. No one does out there. So I think that scenario that you mentioned, I think it's much more than just the gen pop community that's not gonna exercise.
I think it's gonna be abused at large. I [00:24:00] think. Well, I already know this is happening in the bodybuilding world for prep. Oh yeah. No one's, no one's prepping without tirzepatide because when you can shut off food, noise and hunger, at least to some extent, dieting becomes so easy. And it is, it is so easy right now with Tirzepatide, at a microdose, it's easy.
So it's going to be the most, and, and I wouldn't say that's an abuse of it. I'm just gonna say people are gonna use it way more than they even know what it's gonna cause years down the road. So there's a lot of money that's being made right now in the medical community. Um, I mean, we're making a lot of money on it, right.
But we're, we're using it the way it needs to be used. There's places they're just gonna, they're gonna hand it out like candy and they have been for a long time.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And on the other hand, it is fascinating to me, like I've said this before, if you would've asked me. Five years ago even, and said, Hey, you know what, five years from now in 2025 or even before that, we're for the [00:25:00] population, not just the diabetic population, we are gonna have drugs that are so effective at crushing appetite that people will start having muscle loss and will basically be crash dieting themselves because the drugs are so effective at crushing your appetite.
I would've said, no way. I will never see that in my lifetime. That is appetite is so multifactorial, redundant. The fact that you could do that to general population people who are not exercising, like that's insane. That's like where we're at now, kind of,
John Gorman: you know, it, it's, it's, if you just look at everything, how fast everything happens now, I mean, obviously to look at ai, right?
Yeah. AI is an amazing tool when used the right way. But, you know, I mean, look, just how fast everything's happening. It's the same with medications. We're coming out with a lot of things, and part of me wonders, you know, let's, let's look at the two evils of the situation. If we didn't have these GLP ones, our obesity rate would probably just keep going in a, in an alarming [00:26:00] rate.
Or if you have people that abuse these, they're not gonna be as obese. Uh, they're gonna suffer some muscle loss, you know, what's that gonna do to their metabolic rate and hormones and stuff like that down the road, but they're not going to be as obese. I, I don't know I don't know. That's why it's, it seems everything always comes back to you need to exercise and count your food and, and be healthy.
And sometimes some of these things will help aid in that stuff. There's always that middle ground, not the extremes, you know.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I keep thinking like how, how much, you know, sort of like the fancy word is like a tachyphylaxis or how much tolerance or how adapt come to these drugs over time. So for example, if someone's been on 'em for 1, 2, 3, 4 years, do they keep, have to increasing the dose to take it?
Did they become less effective? Do you eventually end up with a population that unfortunately now [00:27:00] was lost weight, now gained weight, and now is still on a drug that they've just built up a tolerance to? I, I don't, I don't know.
John Gorman: Yeah. It, yeah, we don't know. We don't know what that tolerance is. Like I, I know some people taking, you know, that don't do what we do.
They don't live the lifestyle we live. They're taking 50 units a week. That's absolutely crazy. Insane. I, I took 20 once by accident because I'm an old man and I, 10 units a week is my microdose. I'm an old man and took it and then I forgot that I took it and then took it again and my stomach felt awful.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: And it felt ugh. And I'm like, well, I'll never do that again. Um, yeah. I can't imagine, but someone built up to that, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: Um, it's kind of like, I think about this, you know, Metformin, right? Like metformin can be very useful. Like it's, you know, no one really uses that anymore because you've got Tirzepatide.
But over time, like you build up a tolerance that, so you [00:28:00] have to keep increasing it, and then it gets to the point to where, you know, you take it at, you know, 2000, you know, milligrams a day or higher. Like you're going to get diarrhea and you're gonna have all these other issues, right? Not really anything else worse than that, but I mean, that's bad.
Yeah. No one wants diarrhea. All the
Dr Mike T Nelson: GI effects.
John Gorman: Yeah. So it's like, what do you do? Well, you've gotta, you've gotta scale it back or come off of it and reset and do those things. I, I would imagine this drug is probably like that. There's probably gonna, that's why I don't have any issues at three months on, three months off.
I've never had any issues, any side effects. Um, I'd be curious to see if I just stayed on it for a year, what that would look like. I mean, I'm never gonna find out, but there's gotta be some kind of way to, to come off and then go back on to keep its effects.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, because I was just think in the back of my head, like there's, there is no free lunch and physiology.
Like there's, there's always a cost somewhere. And when we don't know what those costs are and everything just appears to have only these magical [00:29:00] benefits, I, it just makes me worried that we don't know. I mean, look at how many old drugs we're like, oh yeah, we thought it did this. It actually does that.
Yeah, even Metformin. Metformin is an incredibly old drug. There's still debate about, well, does it actually interfere with the different parts of the electron transport chain? Most people would say yes, but when the lead researchers who studied it his whole life says no, because the dose you need to have that happen in humans is way too high.
No one hits that dose anyway, so you're like, okay, if that guy's right, then how the hell is the thing working? You know? And this is a drug that's what, how many decades old,
John Gorman: right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. It's, we're in interesting times.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. But I don't think any of these are, are going away.
And there's also. Not an incentive from a pharmaceutical company to do long-term studies on it. Right. So you're left with, okay, maybe [00:30:00] NIH or these other companies, or not companies, but government could spend money looking at long-term ramifications, but we slashed all the funding to NIH and all these other places that would have the capacity and the money, which are extremely expensive to do long-term studies.
So we're, we're kind of running the long-term study on ourselves right now, which I don't know, nobody seems to be too worried about that. And it makes me worried, I guess maybe I'm just a, a weirdo that, you know, I haven't done any TRT, I haven't done any peptides, and I'm not saying I'm against him or anything like that, other than I did some combo in Costa Rica a few times, which is his own weird shit.
But. Yeah, I don't know. It just, it, it just makes me nervous.
John Gorman: Yeah. It, you know, hopefully it comes out to be, you know, it's obviously way different than TRT, but Yes, in the right situation is used the right way. TRT is life changing for an individual, so, oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: for sure.
John Gorman: In, in 2019, my total [00:31:00] testosterone was 190.
My body, I was so stressed from years of dieting, running two gyms, just running everywhere, ragged that my testosterone, I was 40, it just would not 42, it would not come back up. No matter what I did, I tried everything. Um, so it was life changing. As soon as I went on, I use it such a low dose of 120 milligrams a week.
A lot of places are like, here, just take 200 milligrams a week. If I did that, I'd probably weigh 240 pounds and look, gorilla and my sex drive would never shut off. Yeah, pressure be sky high, there's a right way to use it and I. You know, someone like me at 120 milligrams a week, my total testosterone's about seven 50 to 800.
Yeah. Nice. My free testosterone is actually at the top, like it is up really well, because these days I can, I make my own schedule. I sleep nine hours a night if I need to. Right. Me too.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: But that's, that's a very good place to be. And I think, you know, when people use things those [00:32:00] ways, when they need to, I th that I don't feel so bad about, you know what I mean?
Like you said, there's,
Dr Mike T Nelson: and testosterone's an old drug, like we've got very good data on testosterone, so I don't Yeah, I agree. I think
John Gorman: Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: in those situations when we have a drug that's da old, that's been used that much, that has so much data Yeah. That, that, that makes sense to me.
John Gorman: Yeah. But I, I'm, I'm right there with you.
It is. Scary. But for me, I'm gonna keep using it because what's scarier is to know that my inflammation could be high.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Sure.
John Gorman: My heart and things like that, and my joints and, you know, it's, it's, we're all kind of early adopters when stuff comes out. Usually bodybuilders are the super early adult.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah.
John Gorman: They're, they're the ones that take everything and, and mess shit up for us. But, you know, we'll, we'll just have to watch closely.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. But to me that, that sounds like an intelligent discussion, right. Of, okay, I don't really know the long term cost of this, but I do have observed these are, you know, this compound is very [00:33:00] beneficial for these certain factors.
Okay, cool. That, that makes sense to me. Like you're looking at, here's your output, here's the cost. I don't know what's going on it, it's also. Why I don't like a lot of TRT clinics, because as you know, oh, you go in and they just do a measurement. Oh, bro, you're low. You need to be on this ridiculously high dose.
Like they don't ask any questions about your lifestyle. They don't check any other hormones. They don't look at lh. They don't look at any other of these factors. And also, rarely do they tell you that, you know, oh, by the way, there's a certain percentage of people who go on TRT that their natural production just shuts off.
Doesn't ever really come back online. That's not everyone. That's not a high percentage, but you know, maybe single digits somewhere in there that if you do this, you might be one of those unfortunate people where you may have to do this the rest of your life also. Yeah, it just seems like nobody wants to have a intelligent conversation about something.
You could be doing the rest of your life if you go down that route. Again, [00:34:00] I'm not saying nobody should do it. I'm not saying that it's bad. Again, it's, it just, it feels like everything moves so fast. No one wants to have an intelligent conversation. I sound like some old ranty person about get off my lawn now.
John Gorman: Yeah, but you know what, it's clinics like that that just turn people, they're, they're a transaction. Right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Of course they are.
John Gorman: They'll, they'll never build successful businesses. They'll be able to have a quick turn and burn business and maybe they're slightly successful. But to build something extraordinary, you have that conversation with your patients.
You educate 'em. Yep. And you actually help fix whatever problems they need fixed and those people go out and they spread the word and grow the business for you. Word of mouth. Right. So a lot of this stuff we'll do is, so for example, I've got a client, he's a younger guy, he, his testosterone's low. I have not been able to do anything in two years to get it up.
He's an entrepreneur. And you know, Dr. Brandon, I had him meet with him and Clomophine is going to be what he starts with instead. Sure. Makes sense. Because back can get his levels back up. [00:35:00] Um, if he ever wants to come back off and try to restore natural levels, that's a good first step. Right. So that's an option that we have instead of just throwing TRT right.
At somebody because there's more money to be made with testosterone.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: Um, so it's when you help people and fix 'em, that's when you can grow something. It goes above and beyond just kind of a turn and burn type of business. And that's just, that's why we take our time with each person and they, that's how we're growing really.
Is is that word of mouth, because you, you take care of people like that. You have that intelligent conversation.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I think eventually it's just like my pet peeve about people who pick trainers. Like you're like, ah, that guy or gal looks, they look like they're in shape. I'm like, okay. Do have you talked to 'em?
Do you know anyone they've trained? Do you know anything about 'em other than, oh, looks like they have abs.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Right. I don't think. Anything in the industry wide changes until the consumer actually is educated and starts demanding a better service. Starts saying, oh, I'm not gonna just take a trainer as a weekend [00:36:00] certification.
I'm gonna ask 'em about what is their experience? Do they have any degrees? How long have they been doing it? What do they work? You know? And then take it as like a, a serious conversation. Same with hormone replacement. You know, if I tell people I'm like. If you go in, the first thing they do is run testosterone only and tell you it's low, and you only need TRT.
Just close the door and run away.
John Gorman: Yeah. There, there's so many bad actors out there. They're just, and, and unfortunately, you know, patients, customers, whatever business they're in, a lot of that's on them too because they, they enable for sure, because they don't Yeah. Do due diligence and ask the questions that need, and sometimes people just don't know.
And that's of
Dr Mike T Nelson: course,
John Gorman: but the, the, in our world, in the training world, oh, it's bad Joe, Joe, bro, over here running everything under the sun that just is jacked out of his mind, gets all these clients and literally gives them a cookie cutter, you know, here's your cookie cutter diet that I give to everybody else.
And here's your anabolics too. They're, [00:37:00] they're gonna get you the results you want. And you get the same like people, they don't ask the right questions where someone like us, you know, I want them to come ask the questions.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: Because that, that enables me to sell myself because I can say, Hey, here's what I would do for you.
Um, but a lot of that's on people too. So it allows the bad actors, they'll always be in business and it's, whether it's this or the supplement industry's bad. Like it's just people, people set themselves up for failure sometimes.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And some people are not really so much as a coach, as they are a drug dealer, which sounds horrible to say, but
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: It happens.
John Gorman: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred, a hundred percent. It's rampant.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So, uh, changing gears a little bit, um, talk to me about peptides. That seems to be like the wild, wild. West of it now. And I was saying before the podcast, I won't, I won't name any names, but I in the past have used BPC uh, 1 5 [00:38:00] 7.
John Gorman: Yep.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Probably starting about six years ago, you know, different forms of, you know, TV 500.
Um, it was through a physician who was able to get legit material, so I would refer him over to him. He was super nice, helped me out. And the interesting part was 60% of the people were like, oh my God, this is like the best thing that has ever happened to me for my, you know, insert injury thing here. 40% were like, I don't know.
I didn't notice any difference at all.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: And it was, again, different people, different injuries, different things, but as far as I could tell, legitimate material, similar protocols from someone who had a high level of experience doing it. Yet. It was just crazy to me over many years how I saw just such disparaging differences.
John Gorman: Yeah. I, I think a lot of this is because the quote unquote research industry that's out there where people can just go on places like, [00:39:00] uh, peptide science or Amino Asylum or, you know, a lot of these places get shut down left and right. Yes. You know, you can only buy stuff from there if you Venmo their money in.
Right. These are all red flags. Um, places like that. The material that they're gonna get, the stuff there gets almost never, ever a hundred percent pure. It just isn't you, there's no testing on it. It's the Wild West and it's a lot cheaper for a reason. There's, it's a lot cheaper for a reason.
So you're getting, it's like going to Walmart to buy whey, whey protein. They're using WPC 34, like the most rock rot gut ingredient for protein. Of course, it's $21 a tub.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: But you're also gonna sprint to the bathroom after you drink it, right? That's kind of what these research companies are like with, you know, all these different peptides that you can get.
So with ours, and, and, and by the way, that's why people aren't seeing the results that they should get. Had a client that was using Tirzepatide, they [00:40:00] said they got it from, I think it was Amino Asylum or whatever, yeah, my, my hunger's not changed at all. I'm like, that's because the shit you bought is from one of these research places.
Get, get it from your physician. Like it's, that's the best way to do it. So I think there's a lot of that that are giving peptides a bad name because of the, again, the bad actors out there.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, for sure. And there's been published data on that going back many years. That vast majority of the peptides that were sold, I can't remember.
It was, I think one of the studies set up to 85% that they tested there was, there was either no peptide in it or it wasn't in effective at all. And then you're injecting some of it. You're like, oh, I hope the shit's sterile. At least you know.
John Gorman: Exactly. Which is scary. Nobody cares. Yeah. So Nick Maer, who owns Light Labs, um, and he also owns the biggest bone broth protein company in the Wor Kettle Fire.
Oh, kettle
Dr Mike T Nelson: On Fire. Yeah, yeah,
John Gorman: yeah, yeah. Kettle On Fire. So I met him at SupplySide Global. I bring Oh, cool. The reason he, he's getting ready to be on our podcast again soon. [00:41:00] So he started a testing company called Light Labs. Oh. And we're, we're gonna try and start using them for both companies. And one of the things he told me it, and I think that was exactly what you just said, around 85% of all the research stuff out there is bunk.
Literally 85%. Yet people, and I made a post on it, and people still are just out there buying it up, buying it up. It's man, what are you doing? So going back to the actual legitimate stuff that you get from like my clinic or your physician or wherever. That stuff's all tested. It comes from a legit pharmacy.
It's controlled. I've seen great results when people are using, you know, both forms of BPC 1 57 oral, if someone has like gut issues. Mm-hmm. The oral is great for that. It's not great for like joints and connective tissue and injuries and stuff like that. And then the injectable of course for, you know, whatever injuries you have.
But also I think the people that say, ah, I'm not really getting the results that I need. Sometimes you have to lay off that area that you're trying to get [00:42:00] fixed. And people don't, they just take the BPC 1 5 7 and inject it and they, CrossFitters are the worst. Right. I know because my wife's a CrossFitter, she, you know, they just keep going, going, going, and you're hitting your shoulders every day with those workouts almost Right.
Five days a week. So yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you gotta scale back. I just, I think there are things that get lost in translation, but as long as you're using a good, uh, pharmaceutical dose and everything's coming from your practitioner, yeah. Those things are, are game changing a hundred percent.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And it, it is also crazy to me that if you look at the animal studies, so if we just pick on BPC 1 57, there's some pretty impressive animal studies, like in, I think I can only find two human subject studies.
And then one of 'em was for knee pain, but it was a direct, um, basically injection into the joint space done by a physician. Um, and that did show an improvement in it. Um, yeah, so it's fascinating to me how [00:43:00] we still have very little human data. And I, I talked to a researcher that I might be helping her with possibly, who knows, of Hey, can we run an actual study through a legit university on it?
And we had a peptide company who was gonna sponsor it by basically just, you know, donating material. They kind of backed out at the last minute because they're like, well. If we sponsor it, what if it does turn out to be potentially PO positive and we're, let's say one of these hypothetically research companies, now we actually have human data showing that it is beneficial.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Does the FDA now reschedule that and say, well, I don't know. This is looking like this may actually work. And then trying to get IRB approval on something that is still kind of a research compound. They're like, well, where's the human use? We need to see safety. We need to see some of these other things, which a hundred percent I totally agree with.
And [00:44:00] then you're like, well look at all these animal models.
John Gorman: Yeah. Right.
Dr Mike T Nelson: But yet, in the meantime, people are still gonna use it. And we're left with the question of, I don't know, let's go off of anecdotal reports. Maybe that's like kind of the best we have.
John Gorman: Yeah. Yeah. Again, interesting times, right? So interesting.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And I, I'm, again, I'm, I think I'm for, I'm for peptides and whatever people wanna do, as long as they're educated can get legit material. But it just seems like it's, the, the wild, wild west of the claims are vastly outstripping the evidence. And I don't see any emphasis on any more evidence coming out, which is also not to say in lieu of evidence, like we just don't really know what some of the effects are.
And so you're back to almost you know, physique and bodybuilder people doing self experiments, and now they're putting it on social media instead of forums like [00:45:00] they were back in the day. That's their new form of data.
John Gorman: Yeah, it, it just absolutely drives me, it drives me batshit crazy. It's so, it can be dangerous.
Like it can really be, oh, for sure. Something's not sterile. Like it can be extremely dangerous.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So how do you ensure that the peptides you're getting are actually legitimate? So I think that's one of the, for, at least for me, if I am, if I get called in to advise people, I'm like, Hey, I can't tell you yay or nay.
It's, it's a medical decision. You have to decide that. However, I can tell you, if I were to experiment with these on my own Pet Rat, I would definitely make sure that the, the thing that I think I'm getting is actually the thing. So like how would people know that if I'm gonna order BPC 1 57, how do I know it's BPC 1 57?
John Gorman: Well, one, it needs to come from your, your medical practitioner no matter what. And then you
Dr Mike T Nelson: mean not off the internet somewhere. [00:46:00]
John Gorman: And it, a lot of these places you have to be careful because I, I've heard of places that are sending out research grade peptides. They're getting 'em cheap wholesale and they're selling them.
I, I don't really think that's happening a lot anymore because everything's kind of been cracked down on a lot. Yeah. And I'm kind of hoping this year we see a lot of these sites shut down. But if you're getting them site, so say through us, right? It's going to come from a legit pharmacy. You can look that pharmacy up online to make sure it's a legit pharmacy.
Like Genesis or Lakeway or, or, or whatever. And have the conversation with your doctor's office or your clinic office and say, Hey, where is this? If you wanna know, ask where is this stuff coming from? And we will tell you. So there's nothing to hide there, whether someone can see like a co OA on that, that part I'd, I'd have to ask my partners.
I don't
Dr Mike T Nelson: know. Yeah. Yeah. That
John Gorman: I, I don't know who we can give access to COAs or if what we see on our end. Um, I'm sure, [00:47:00] because I don't deal with that on my end. I, yeah. Push the clinic, I bring clients, I do all that, like the actual medical laws and rules and the way everything runs with the company like I am, it's too confusing for me.
So I wish I knew that answer. But I do know that we have a way to verify everything that we get has a COA, it has a use by date, like all these different things. Um, I have a bottle of injectable all carnitine somewhere. Um, and I think that came from, anyway, it, it's got lot numbers. It's got all that stuff on there.
Right. A lot of these other, so
Dr Mike T Nelson: you have full traceability.
John Gorman: Yeah. Yeah. And so just do your homework and if, if you need to just ask the place that you're getting it from, like just ask. And if they won't give you any answers, you know, something's not right. But most places are legit.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. And that's like the, the same thing I tell people with the supplement industry all the time.
If you call and ask questions and I get it, there are people who are busy, who are overworked in the supplement industry. So if they don't get back to you, it doesn't necessarily mean they're, you're, they're harmful or they're trying to do you harm. But [00:48:00] most bigger companies are gonna try to follow the best case practices because they have a whole bunch of stuff to lose.
Smaller companies aren't necessarily bad, it just means that if they disappear into Fiji tomorrow, well, you know, that was kind of the way it went. And most of the people, as you well know better than I do. If you are doing it the right way, they want to tell you what they're doing because it's more expensive.
It's more time intensive. And the crazy part is I've heard from people that have put little like Q QR codes and scanability on products and had it on their website. The amount of people they say who click through on that is like almost non-existent.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: So to me it still seems like there is some onus on the consumer to do their homework at the end of the day.
John Gorman: I, I agree a hundred percent. And I'll say this about peptides too. Peptides are not cheap, right? So I look at it in this [00:49:00] fashion. If you want, if you wanted to buy a very nice sports car, you wanna buy a Lexus or uh, a hundred thousand dollars car, this is a hundred thousand dollars car. It's not meant to be for everybody to be able to afford, right?
Um, because the demand is not high enough to help drive that price down. So like this is, this is a hundred and $150,000 car for those people that can afford it. You wouldn't go buy some car that was a knockoff built at Billy Bob's garage down the street and they say, yeah, this is a sports car. But, you know, we got the, the, the parts from here and there, and we put it like it's.
It's still a sports car. Like you wouldn't and spend $40,000 for it versus $150,000. That's research grade versus actual pharmaceutical grade. You a hundred percent get what you pay for. And I can say that till I'm blue in the face. But it's the same with supplements. Like you can go buy Walmart protein or you can buy our isolate that has zero carbs, zero fat, 25 protein per scoop with five ingredients, four [00:50:00] ingredients.
You can't compare the two. Like you can't, you're going to pay more for that, for quality. So it's just, that's just the thing on peptides it, it actually pisses me off, Mike. I'm not gonna lie, it's one of my biggest pet peeves out there because people know better, but they just still keep doing it, which enables all this shit to keep happening.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, and that is my pet peeve. One thing I keep trying to pound into people is that at the end of the day, you are responsible for yourself. If you're gonna put this and side to put this into your body, which I agree you a hundred percent should have the right to do that. I don't think that should be taken away.
But it's your responsibility to do some of your own sourcing to figure out what is best or ask other people who that, you know, that can help you with that. And then a shocker. You can't expect it to be dirt sheep then either.
John Gorman: Exactly. Exactly.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Uh, yeah. Just a couple more things here. What peptides do you think are effective?
And the [00:51:00] second part to that, what peptides do you think are kind of under the radar that you think, uh, potentially could be useful but are not popular?
John Gorman: You know, I am, I'm going to just tell myself here, I am not a peptide expert. I've, I'm kind late to this, right? You know, things like LPs, I'm very up to speed on BPC 1 5 7.
Outside of that, you know, TB 500, like outside of those basic ones, I, you know, there's interesting stuff out there, like a OD.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah.
John Gorman: Stuff like I'm just not educated on, because our guy, Brandon, is our peptide expert, literally one of the world's. Um, smartest Worlds one of the smartest people I know. Out of everyone else that I followed in the world on Peptides.
He's, he's right up there with him as far as knowledge. Um, so I'm just not up to speed. I, I don't know what's, what's one that people need to watch out for? I think on the GLP side, um, rta, Tru [00:52:00] IDE is going to be interesting to see once it's,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah.
John Gorman: Widely, widely available, but I know going from Semaglutide to Tirzepatide, the massive changes, you know, way less side effects and things like that, man, that's just such a good product.
And then when IDE is at scale, it's gonna be so expensive. Tirzepatide is going to still be the go-to because it's gonna be more affordable, right?
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yep.
John Gorman: Um, I think the farther we get away from Semaglutide, the better. I absolutely can't stand that one because it slows digestion. It really just has some nasty, nasty side effects.
But it was Gen one, right? Like we improve on everything as we go else. What's the point? Right? So as far as anything else, I've just, I wish I had more for you. I just don't, I'm not one. Yeah, that's fair. I can say, Hey, I, this is not my area. 'cause it's just not, and a lot of my clients aren't using a ton of peptides.
Right. So I haven't had to really get in there and learn it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. I mean that's kind of where I'm at too. I keep, I have on my little list of [00:53:00] stuff, I'm trying to go through all the research on certain types of peptides and different things because it doesn't take that long because shocker, a lot of times there isn't that much research to actually read.
I know. So it doesn't take too long to kind of get through it. But yeah, I'm at the same, same area. Like I have a couple experts I refer people out to and, and even then I'll take their data and be like, okay, so if you go the kitchen sink route that was just recommended, that's up to you. But if you want to understand is this or that can be beneficial, let's pick one.
Let's try it, let's see what the effects are and then, you know, kind of go from there. 'cause it's, I've seen what. Consults what some people are spending on, God knows if they're even legitimate peptides. And I'm like, bro, for all the mitochondrial enhancers, you're, you know, shoving into your body. Like your VO two max is 24.
How about we do some aerobic training, man, you know?
John Gorman: Yeah. Let, let's get the basics down, right? [00:54:00] Yeah. Um, I, I think a good guess for you to have on would be Brandon Williams, our guy Brandon Williams, to talk peptides.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh, cool.
John Gorman: Um, I think you guys would, he's very much like you. Highly. I just think you guys would hit it off highly intelligent.
I think it'd be a great guest for your podcast. There are some other things out there that I, that I really like a lot. Methylene blue is something that I think I, I know we're going,
Dr Mike T Nelson: yeah, no, what do you think? I had methylene blue and I also had injectable carnitine. Were the next two questions.
John Gorman: So methylene blue I like quite a bit.
Um, just for mitochondrial, you know, I would say cleaning, right? It's kind of like taking a battery and letting it get recharged better. You know how our cell phones, you have 'em for two to three years and the battery just loses its charge a lot faster? Stuff like that. I like when somebody's been through like a really tough phase, stress, dieting, whatever.
And we do a quote unquote cleanup phase. I I like that there hmm, to get a little bit more energy, help the mitochondrial engine function a little bit better. Your, your [00:55:00] battery operate just a little bit better. So, um, I like that. And then injectable, all carnitine, I'm a massive fan of massive, massive, massive, I can't find a downside to it.
It improves, uh, lipid panels quite a bit actually. The energy that you get from, it's amazing. Uh, whenever I, yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: I heard that from several BJJ friends and athletes and people I've worked with who have used it.
John Gorman: Yeah, it's, it's just an instant shot of energy. Uh, whenever I put on our fat muscle event, you know, we had a hundred people here and a bunch of speakers, and you know how it is when you're at events.
Um, and if, if you're in charge of something, I was just dragging, not a lot of sleep, a lot of stress. I, I take, you know, one cc, which was 500 milligrams in the morning and at least would give me some more energy outside of, you know, the food I was eating and stuff like that. Uh, great for fat loss. It improves, uh, the androgen receptor, so the testosterone and the other hormones that you're using and improves that.
Not massively, but it improves it some, so every little bit helps. [00:56:00] I just have not found the, the downside is it sucks 'cause you gotta give yourself an injection every day.
Dr Mike T Nelson: I know.
John Gorman: I'm fucking, I'm afraid of needles. Yeah. It, it doesn't feel good. And it, that's what worse. Well, and it can't, it's gotta be in the muscle.
It can't be under the, because once he sees a lot of fluids, right. So. And it doesn't always feel good. Like you're gonna poke yourself in the, in the ass like that. That part's not the bad part, but the injection of a lot of these, you know, whatever they are, medications into the muscle, they just don't always feel great.
But, you know, you get over it and it gets done quite, you know, and then you're off to it. That's, that's the downside, you know, people get, uh, injection fatigue. That's the name of it. Right. But I mean, we all go through pill fatigue when we're taking so. Sure. And just the last thing I wanna see is a bunch of pills.
Right now I've got a whole bunch behind me, right. I've not taken for a month because I had pill fatigue. So other than that, I, injectable Carine is awesome. We have it, um, we have it for [00:57:00] $99, so I do, that's price. A lot of my clients are getting price. Yeah. I'm just gonna be honest, we're making 20 bucks on that because I needed it for my clients.
We could try and sell. For 200 bucks, but you know, you get less people buy it. I need it at scale for my clients because it really, really helps with fat loss. Natural competitors can use it, it's just a prescription.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Mm-hmm.
John Gorman: So people inside the states that we treat, you know, Missouri, Texas, Florida, Arkansas, Illinois, uh, and working on Oklahoma, that was the sixth.
My clients in those states, they, they can get it for 99 bucks and it ships out and it's to 'em. So it's, it's been a game changer. That was one of the big things I wanted to bring on board whenever we, we came in, but we just kept the price down so low because we knew it was something good and we needed to get it out to people.
So we kept the price down.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Very cool.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um, and as we wrap up, like what was your common dose on methylene blue? I've seen God, I've seen everything across the board. Any [00:58:00] agreement from anyone.
John Gorman: I have not seen any issues with, well, any of the doses. Right. And it depends on where you get it because I mean, you can go on Amazon and get stuff that's, it's probably freaking
Dr Mike T Nelson: Oh yeah.
Fishbowl cleaner.
John Gorman: Yeah. Rug down, right? Who knows? Um, 30 milligrams a day I think is, is fine. Mm-hmm. During cleanup phase. Okay. Um, and a lot of people like to say one day on, one day off. I think it really depends on where the person's at, you know, what they need to do and how fast of an amount of time.
So I've not seen over 30 milligrams a day. Have, have you used it? Did you say that? That
Dr Mike T Nelson: I have, I, I bought some. I've, God, I, I first used it God, a long time ago and I got too chicken shit, and I stopped using it to be honest. And then I, after it started becoming more popular again, I, I bought some pharmaceutical grade and I just started with a low dose and I don't know, I haven't, I get kind of a weird.[00:59:00]
Headache. Like I don't feel as good when I start getting above even just eight to 10 milligrams.
John Gorman: Yeah,
Dr Mike T Nelson: and the weird part is like I don't, if I stay below that dose, I don't, I don't notice anything. Like the only time I notice something is maybe if I've really just beat the crap out of myself and I'm taking the day off from training and everything maybe.
But I, yeah, I did it for almost like three weeks in a row. Maybe I didn't do a high enough dose. Who knows? I was doing five to six mgs per day. I didn't notice anything from it, but I don't know.
John Gorman: Yeah, that, that's, that's pretty low. Yeah. Um, I pulled one outta my bag that I keep here to show people as an example of, of the stuff you want to avoid.
Right. So it's an, this is an empty bottle. This is called, uh, I don't think we'll get in trouble for saying other company's names on here. I don't think anybody's coming after you for this, but probably not. This is Neuro Pro. I don't even, you get this on Amazon for 49 bucks. There's absolutely no way I would [01:00:00] want someone to use this and use the benchmark of, you know, 30 milligrams from this.
'cause you don't even know. There's, yeah. Especially if it's a
Dr Mike T Nelson: liquid. You got another concentration.
John Gorman: Yeah. These are, are these tablets? Yes, these are tablets. Oh,
Dr Mike T Nelson: interesting.
John Gorman: 15 milligram tablets. 60 pills in here. So it's probably a month's worth for somebody doing a quick cleanup phase. But you don't even know.
How powerful this is versus, you know, when you get the actual capsules whenever you get a prescription. You know what I mean? You can go with that and, and maybe somebody starts off with 15 with a prescription daily and they try that. I think it just depends on where they're at and just how hard they've, you know, really been hitting it.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. That's on my list. I keep looking at the research and stuff on it, and there, there is some interesting long-term safety data. There is obviously clinical uses for it. It's been around for quite a while. It was one of the things I heard six years ago that I thought was the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life, but it kept kind showing up on my radar again, [01:01:00] and I don't know, I just, it's interesting.
I'll have a, I'm having a physician on here to, to talk a little bit more about it coming up, so,
John Gorman: yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I'd like to listen to that. It's, the thing is, it's literally the first drug ever created, from what I've
Dr Mike T Nelson: heard. Oh yeah. It's an old drug in terms of human
John Gorman: use. 1890s or something. Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, so it funny story too, I took it one morning, totally forgot that I had taken a little bit higher dose and was using the bathroom and I was like, oh, my wife must be using some new toilet bowl cleaner.
'cause the toilets whenever I take a whiz in, in our blue. And that same thing happened the next day. And then I realized, oh yeah, dumb ass. You're taking methylene blue. It's not new toilet cleaner, it's urine's blue.
John Gorman: That's always every time I, every time I do a run of it, which is only like maybe once or twice a year, um, that's typically what I'll see and I'm like, oh crap, what's happening?
And then yes, you're gonna pee, [01:02:00] you're, you're gonna pee like a light greenish blue. You know, it, it throws people off.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Awesome. Uh, well thank you so much. Anything else we missed or anything else you wanted to throw in at the end here?
John Gorman: No Uhuh. I, I think, um, man, I, I need to have you back on my podcast on the Fat Muscle project.
Yeah, for sure.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Um,
John Gorman: I, I would definitely get Brandon on. He's, he's good to talk about peptides and I just, I think those, like two years is too long. I think we need to both hop back and forth on each other's podcast. Yeah, that'd
Dr Mike T Nelson: be great.
John Gorman: There needs to be some more speaking events and things of that nature where we all just kind of get together.
I think HRV is a topic that we need to hear more of in my part of the industry, you know, the bodybuilding side of it, because you know how it is, like things come and go, like something's hot and then everybody learns about it, and then it just, every, it kind of goes away for a while. I feel like it's back to we need to reiterate this, you know, so I think that's a, an important topic that I'd like to.
To hear that come back more into [01:03:00] the industry. Uh, there's a whole, there's always gonna be a new crop of people coming up that need to learn. It's kinda like talking about carb cycling. Like the last thing I ever wanna Yeah. Talk about how to carb cycle or do a refeed. But I have to remember there are a lot of new people that don't know how to carb cycle and refeed somebody.
Right. So it's I think there's just important stuff that you and I have to put out and we need to do a better job of staying connected, you know, versus every two years.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. It's funny, I was laughing at the carb cycling because I just did a podcast series, uh, with John Heck. So he was on my show and I was on his show about, about carb cycling.
And I realized as I was talking about a lot of this stuff, like I, I realized, oh, I have been doing this for God knows how many years, but I haven't talked about it in detail all that much. Because until we started talking with him and I was like, oh yeah, 'cause most everyone knows this. And you're like, no, no, they don't know it, you know?
I was like, oh yeah, yeah.
John Gorman: Yep. I know. Yeah. I'll, I'll get with you after this. [01:04:00] I know. We need to get you scheduled on my show, so.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah. Awesome. And last question. Uh, any good music I should be checking out?
John Gorman: Oh, man. So you and I are the people listening may not be like us, but Paleface Swiss is mighty.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Yeah, I like those guys.
Yeah, they're good. Yeah.
John Gorman: Face Swiss. And then I heard something new the other day, it's called, it's funny, we're talking about steroid sound, like it's a little bit different. It's kind of like just upbeat meets metal workout music. Um, kind of a Rob Bailey slash heat breed ish. Like it's, it's a little different.
It's called Steroid Sound. So yeah, check those out.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Okay. Anyone
John Gorman: else? Check
Dr Mike T Nelson: into you?
John Gorman: You, you always hit me up with good music and as soon as you do, I go check it out and work out to it, which is what I'm about to do. You've hit me with a couple good bands here lately that I've got on my list to go listen to, so I'm about to dig in.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Nice. Yeah. Lately I've been listening to a lot of older stuff. Um, the last obituary album is [01:05:00] actually really good. Took me a little while to get into it. Uh, the la not the last prong album, but the one before that. I think it's no absolutes. It's actually really good. And then, um, I'm a big fan of the, the Browning, if you like, kind of metal, EDM ish kind.
John Gorman: Yeah.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Little bit more harsh vocals, like I've been a big fan of them as of late, so. Yeah.
John Gorman: Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff, man.
Dr Mike T Nelson: Cool man. Well thank you so much. Appreciate it.
John Gorman: Yeah. Appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to the Flex Diet Podcast. Uh, big thanks to John Gorman for being on the podcast here. Again, really appreciate all his knowledge and wisdom, especially from being in the fitness industry in various aspects, doing it day to day for many, many years. Make sure to check out all his stuff there.
We'll put links and everything down below. If you want more information from me, uh, check out. My daily [01:06:00] newsletter. You can go to the link down below and hop onto the newsletter completely free, and I'll send you some cool stuff along the way. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. As always. If there's so many you think may benefit from this, please forward it to them.
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So thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. As always, we will be back again next week. Talk to you then.
Speaker 3: You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. Why you old fool? [01:07:00] What? I'm not your son. And my name's not shine. He calls me an old fool.
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