TACTICAL APPLICATION OF SUPPLEMENTS AND PHARMACOLOGY

[Jon Payne]

The one's I've had the best results with are Pure Kana 25mg HHC and URB Delta 8 THC bars (each piece is 25mg Delta 8).

[jlwilliams]

It will be great if you do devote a corner of the forum to the topic. Steroids, PEDs and marijuana/hemp are topics that often turn into pure crap. There are a lot of people pushing beliefs and few calm well informed discussions. A lot of "mmj is the key to every cure" (no, it isn't) against "the devil's lettuce will turn you into a commie" and steroid talk is just as bad. If we're going to have more discussion like the this one that is fine and dandy.

[Yondering]

I am thinking of changing this subforum to that title. LOL.

Since reading Stealing Fire, and my personal experience with Testosterone and its effects, I have been much more open minded about this issue. I was once an advocate of never putting anything into your bodybandcall that jazz...and then of course...the whole prohibition thinking when I was involved with the church.

But since starting Test, and supplementing with thyroid hormone, and a few other things I am stronger, leaner, and more muscular than ever in my life. And I have always worked out and eaten well.

Conventional Boy Scout thinking...excoriates the Mark McGuires and Lance Armstrongs as chearers, etc. Silly mind set.

There are always arguments against all of these things. They will mess with your heart, your cholesterol, your this and your that. But when look at a generation ago...most men in their late 50s and 60s were already dead physically. Victims of muscle wasting, metabolic disease, and poor nutrition...as well as that "graceful aging" bullshit. Today we needn`t sucuumb to that...and even if it detracts a few years on the back end, you will live strong, virile, muscular, etc., rather than feeble, weak, and fragile.

A risk? Maybe...but as a respected expert here on WT told me once...None of us are getting out of here alive.

I'd like to learn more about this, being one of those with a lean body type that's always had trouble building muscle mass. This stuff isn't really high on my interest list so I don't get fascinated diving into long reads about it (like I would about cars, or guns or gun training, etc), so is there a good but succinct collection of info broken down for someone like me with relatively little knowledge about it? If not, would you care to lay out the basics?

[Jack Rumbaugh]

I am stronger, leaner, and more muscular than ever in my life.

This. I'm still not where I want to be but I'm closer to my goals now than I was in my 20s. I'm not quite as strong on some lifts as I was 40 years ago but wear and tear has had something to say about that. Overall, there aren't very many men my age (present company excepted, naturally) that can come close to what I'm doing in the gym. TRT may not be the fountain of youth, but it's pretty damn close.

[Bill the Vet]

1997246[/URL]]This. I'm still not where I want to be but I'm closer to my goals now than I was in my 20s. I'm not quite as strong on some lifts as I was 40 years ago but wear and tear has had something to say about that. Overall, there aren't very many men my age (present company excepted, naturally) that can come close to what I'm doing in the gym. TRT may not be the fountain of youth, but it's pretty damn close.

Lol! This is my experience,as well. The interesting thing is I joined WT for the gunfighting information,but I’ve learned so other much life changing stuff here.
I’m very grateful to Mr. Suarez for “daring to go where no man has gone before “.

[BillyOblivion]

...excoriates the Mark McGuires and Lance Armstrongs as chearers, etc. Silly mind set.

I think a person's body is theirs to do with as they will, but those people weren't called "cheaters" because they took drugs. They were called cheaters because the rules they were competing under, rules they agreed to, made a certain set of molecules and behaviors off limits and they went and took those things (EPO) and did those things (blood transfusions).

That's different that consciously optimizing one's health span, or doing things that let one, as discuss below, get a good night's sleep.

There are always arguments against all of these things. They will mess with your heart, your cholesterol, your this and your that. But when look at a generation ago...most men in their late 50s and 60s were already dead physically. Victims of muscle wasting, metabolic disease, and poor nutrition...as well as that "graceful aging" bullshit. Today we needn`t sucuumb to that...and even if it detracts a few years on the back end, you will live strong, virile, muscular, etc., rather than feeble, weak, and fragile.

This is what I've called "optimizing the catastrophe curve", which would be better said "optimizing the entropy curve". Others use the term "health span", to distinguish it from lifespan.

Recently a friend suggested I try Kiva Chocolate. Kiva is cannabis infused chocolate (cue the Lady's Temperance Band from the 1920s).

My sleep is less than optimal. Mostly due to old injuries, but largely a factor of my Hashimotos. And yes...I have tried melatonin...other than evidence it lowers androgens, all it does for me is raise my resting heart rate. Same with all the other pseudo-herbal OTC. And I have no interest in Ambien or such.

Ambien is not a sleep aid. Ambien just puts you out for some hours. There's some things about "sleep" that Ambien gives you--your body rests, giving some physical recovery, but your brain doesn't go through the sleep cycles and you don't get the real long term benefits of sleep. IMO Ambien is something you should take to help reset your circadian rhythm after a long plane flight, or when you need to switch shifts or some shit--a single sleep cycle, maybe two--but any sort of regular use will just push the problem around.

Anyway...one small piece equals a full eight hours of REM filled sleep andcan energetic wake up. Something I haven't had in years.

I can't drink alcohol any more because of an odd reaction I get. So I was looking at taking THC to try to get that sort of buzz/dulling of the edge one gets after a couple drinks, but not the stumbling blur one gets after a bottle. This meant that I was going to need to get very specific doses. In discussing this with a vendor they indicated that because of the way chocolates were made I was going to have a hard time getting consistent doses, and recommended Gummies instead, which are more precisely titrated.

There isn't a lot of scientific evidence that THC is *good* for sleep, and some evidence that while not nearly as bad as Ambien, does have negative impact on sleep cycles.

But a couple things there:

1) There's a big difference between what large psychoactive doses might do, and what "microdosing", or small, barely noticeable doses will do.
2) If something else is already screwing with your sleep cycles, then the question is whether it makes it *better*, not whether you're getting perfect sleep.

In some cases "the best" is the enemy of "better than I was".

Many of the popular "fitness watches" purport to track sleep quality, and there's things thing called "Heart Rate Variability" that one can look at as less subjective measures.

But if you're getting day after day where you're waking up with less grumpy, more energy and clearer head...go for it.