Skip to content
The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1744 - Derek from More Plates More Dates

Derek is the fitness educator and entrepreneur behind the "More Plates, More Dates" YouTube channel, podcast and companion website.

Derek (More Plates More Dates)guestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20243h 6mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:03

    Derek’s origin story: from endocrinology nerd to More Plates More Dates

    1. DD

      (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Derek.

    4. DD

      Hey, how's it going?

    5. JR

      Nice to meet you in real life.

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      I've seen, uh, ah, man, fucking dozens of your videos, so, uh, it's cool meeting you in person.

    8. DD

      No, yeah, long overdue I feel like.

    9. JR

      How did you get started?

    10. DD

      Um, for me, I've always sort of just been like a nerd about pharmacology and biology, endocrinology, stuff like that, and I've always just researched online about random stuff. And eventually, um, I was encouraged by a few people to start posting online, and I was, uh, I just started writing out blog articles on a WordPress site maybe like five and a half years ago or something at this point, and eventually it got to the point where I guess YouTube was already big, but it wasn't that- what it is now. And I was just asking people in the, I don't know, like male self-improvement niche that I was friends with, "Do you think I should be posting videos too, instead of just writing these articles?" And they said, "Yeah, it's a no-brainer, you should be." So, I just started basically reiterating my articles in video format too, and then eventually the YouTube sort of outpaced the WordPress site. And that's why it's always, you know, Derek from moreplatesmoredays.com, that website was where-

    11. JR

      Right.

    12. DD

      ... I originally wrote my articles. And that eventually got to the point where it wasn't very time-efficient to write, unfortunately, so I kind of like moved disproportionately towards video format 'cause I can just fire off a video in, I don't know, 15 minutes, that otherwise that in written format would take five-plus hours to write out, if not longer.

    13. JR

      Well, I love the fact that you have, like, the- your production is very minimalist. You have a- an air conditioner behind you-

    14. DD

      (laughs)

    15. JR

      ... wood-paneled wall.

    16. DD

      Yeah, yeah.

    17. JR

      It's like-

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... y- there's no attempt at all to, like, glitz and glamour-

    20. DD

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... but it's just good content.

    22. DD

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      I mean, a- you just hit a million subscribers, so obviously something- it's working, you know? It's working well.

    24. DD

      Yeah.

  2. 2:03 – 4:15

    How elite athletes still beat drug testing: teams, loopholes, and incentives

    1. JR

      But it's- what you're doing is just you- you have a unique ability to pull information out of the air, like you- you remember stuff, like how things work and how things, you know, like how... Especially when you- you were talking about catching people that are doing steroids.

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Like when, like, there's been many times you've gone over people's blood work and it's very educational. I learned a lot about it, especially, like, before I watched your videos, I thought, "Oh, USADA, like, there's no way anybody can cheat with USADA around."

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      And then I watched some of your videos, I'm like, "Oh my God, they're cheating." (laughs)

    6. DD

      Yeah, it's not like they make it obvious where their shortcomings are and where the loopholes are, 'cause they would obviously prefer people to not know what they're doing current research on to tighten up, but yeah, there's definitely leeway still, or else they would not still be in the lab trying to figure out ways to bulletproof it, essentially.

    7. JR

      Well, there's one gym that I know of that, at one point in time, I don't know how they do it now, but at one point in time they had, like, literally full-time scientists-

    8. DD

      Hm.

    9. JR

      ... that were working with the athletes.

    10. DD

      No, yeah, I think a lot of athletes have maybe not, like, a full team, but there's always- there's usually some sort of chemistry/pharmacology guy in the back end who they're deferring to, or even just their bro-

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. DD

      ... who's experienced enough.

    13. JR

      Yeah, but the bros is what- how people get caught. Like, your bro's like-

    14. DD

      Oftentimes.

    15. JR

      ... "Bro, you just got to do this, you're going to test clean-"

    16. DD

      Yeah. (laughs)

    17. JR

      ... "trust me." And then-

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... you test positive and that guy's fucked and, yeah.

    20. DD

      Yeah. Yeah, I think usually there's a- some sort of, I don't know, deferral to figure out, like even people who... Anybody at a top level is trying to figure out what kind of edge they can get, regardless if it's through straight-edge supplementation, dietary practice, manipulations, lifestyle interventions, et cetera. And obviously the conversation at some point comes up as like, "What's not on the list that I could get away with?"

    21. JR

      Right.

    22. DD

      Or, "Is there a way to get around..." Or, "What are the other people in my sport doing that I don't know about?" And if other people are doing something, you're going to... You know, it's sim- not as dramatic as the Lance Armstrong case, where everyone's doing it-

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. DD

      ... so you're pretty much forced to do it to be competitive, but, you know, people are thinking in that same kind of way.

  3. 4:15 – 6:07

    Cycling’s doping ecosystem: EPO, blood transfusions, and the biological passport

    1. JR

      The Lance Armstrong one is the most ridiculous to me, because they took his jerseys away, supposedly-

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... but he still has them. You know, the- he's like... There's a photo of him, it's a hilarious photo, of him on his couch, like with his feet up and-

    4. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    5. JR

      ... behind him is all these framed jerseys of him winning the Tour de France.

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      And it's like, "What are you gonna do, take my jerseys? I fucking won those bitches."

    8. DD

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      Like, and he did win them. He did. And everybody-

    10. DD

      It's fucking ridiculous how they even... You know, pretty much everyone underneath him is doing the same thing.

    11. JR

      18th place was the last guy that you could find that did not test positive.

    12. DD

      And even that guy, though, he might have just gotten it-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. DD

      ... out of his system in time-

    15. JR

      Oh, yeah.

    16. DD

      ... because-

    17. JR

      Probably.

    18. DD

      ... they're still trying to figure out how to detect EPO use, blood transfusions, autologous you can't detect right now at all, except for aberrations in your hematology they can kind of like infer based on longitudinal data that something's off, and they can assert that you're doping and-

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. DD

      ... putting blood back into yourself, but they can't- they still can't even tell.

    21. JR

      Right.

    22. DD

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Yeah, well it's- that's why they try to use the biological passport, right? Like-

    24. DD

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      ... they try to get a baseline of you at random times over a course of several months, and then they get an- and they understand, like, what your normal levels are.

    26. DD

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      But even that varies with sleep-

    28. DD

      No.

    29. JR

      ... and diet, and...

    30. DD

      And you've got to build up the data, so if you're hypothetically an athlete who understands how this process works going into it, it's not very hard to go to LabCorp, get my own hematology panel, assess my reticulocyte hemoglobin red blood cell count over time, develop my own longitudinal biological passport before I go into a tested sport, and see, do I fall within the, uh, you know, threshold cutoffs where I would not get caught for my degree of autologous blood transfusions?

  4. 6:07 – 9:49

    Icarus, Russia, and retroactive testing: why medals get stripped years later

    1. JR

      Did you see Icarus?

    2. DD

      Yep.

    3. JR

      That's a fucking great documentary.

    4. DD

      Yeah, yeah.

    5. JR

      Goddamn, it's so good.

    6. DD

      (laughs)

    7. JR

      It's so good when you realize that the entire Russian Olympic team was juiced to the tits.

    8. DD

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      The whole team.

    10. DD

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      Everybody. They... That guy, Grigory, he said the only people that it didn't benefit was the figure skaters. So they didn't do it-

    12. DD

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... to the figure skaters.

    14. DD

      Well, I would bet the figure skaters were still doing stuff that might just not be on the banned list yet, or might, might be now. Who knows?

    15. JR

      E-

    16. DD

      'Cause even, like, 2000... I think it was 2000 and... (sighs) When were the Summer Olympics? It was like 2008, 2004, '08 and '12 or something like that. They've retested... Like, since they've developed some of these long-term metabolite assays, they've been able to go back and retroactively catch, I think it was like, 150 athletes that otherwise didn't get caught at the time. And this was over six years later. And then of those 150, that's just a ballpark number, it's not accurate, but it was like 79, I think, were medalists.

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. DD

      And they, they figured that out six years later.

    19. JR

      Uh, well, whenever the, the host country wins, like, a shitload of medals-

    20. DD

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... like that's when it all gets weird. Like Sochi.

    22. DD

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      That was a big one with Russia. And then Beijing, the Chinese one was a big one. They had won so many medals.

    24. DD

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      And, you know, you know that it's, it's, it's such a big thing for some nations, like to win the Olympics.

    26. DD

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      It's a huge show of superiority.

    28. DD

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      And they go all out, man.

    30. DD

      Now what's that, uh... Have you ever heard of the, um, I think it's like the Goldman Dilemma or something, where it's like, if you were to die in five years or win gold for your country, what would you take? And it was like over 50% of athletes said die in five years and take the, and take the win versus, you know, live a normal life.

  5. 9:49 – 15:40

    Early MMA was ‘all juice’: PRIDE contracts, USADA, and the fall of TRT exemptions

    1. JR

      Well, the UFC, um, and mixed martial arts in general is a very interesting sport because, uh, from that perspective, because it started out all juice.

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Like started out literally like most of the athletes were on something. It was-

    4. DD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... you know, you'd have to be a real rebel to not be on juice. Like the, the rare BJ Penn type guy who was like just a super athlete, who just didn't eat anything and fought natural. But so many of those guys were on juice. So many.

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      Like if you go back and look at them, if you go back and look at like UFC 3, 4, and 5, like everybody-

    8. DD

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... looked like a superhero.

    10. DD

      No, Vitor was insane when he first started.

    11. JR

      Oh my god, dude.

    12. DD

      Like, uh, the fight where he... I forget... It was against Wanderlei and he just ran him across the ring.

    13. JR

      Yeah, yeah.

    14. DD

      That epic shot. Yeah, he was fucking cranked back then.

    15. JR

      Yeah, well so was Wanderlei back then too.

    16. DD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      You know?

    18. DD

      But the physiques-

    19. JR

      Yes.

    20. DD

      ... like disproportionately body-builderesque.

    21. JR

      Yes, right. Well, Vitor at one point in time was 240 pounds.

    22. DD

      Mmm.

    23. JR

      And then he eventually got... In the UFC was competing at middleweight, which is 185 pounds.

    24. DD

      Damn.

    25. JR

      So like, yeah, that... He's pretty juiced up there. But if you go to Vitor versus Randy Couture, that was a fight where he lost, where his body was so big his traps started at the top of his head.

    26. DD

      (laughs) Yeah.

    27. JR

      And he was, he was fucking enormous. Is that Vitor versus Randy? That might be the second fight. I think that is-

    28. DD

      UFC 15.

    29. JR

      ... the UFC light heavyweight title.

    30. DD

      Right there.

  6. 15:40 – 18:37

    TRT physiology crash course: SHBG, free testosterone, and detection limits

    1. DD

      Yeah, something a lot of people don't consider about TRT too that goes overlooked when it comes to these TUEs is, even if you're within the natural reference range, like he was pushing it to super physiologic levels. That's why, you know, he was getting more scrutiny too. But even if he kept his levels at like 700 nanograms per deciliter, and that's like a normal level, that's like a chronic bleed of hormone you're getting all day.

    2. JR

      Right.

    3. DD

      That's not going to dip based on diurnal rhythm. It's not going to dip based on shitty sleep, based on excessive training, based on weight cutting, lack of substrate for actually producing the hormones and nutrition while you're weight cutting aggressively, fucking anything.

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. DD

      It just stays chronically at 700 the entire time. Whereas like a natural who has 700 would be like 700 in the morning, goes down to like 500, 600, blah, blah, blah.

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. DD

      And obviously when you're weight cutting aggressively, eh, if you're a guy who loses, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 pounds in a matter of, you know, a co- few months to make weight for a, uh, event, obviously your test levels are going to go in the gutter too. But then you maintain that that entire time, and your performance metrics obviously stay far better. And also, you get a disproportionate drop in SHBG, which spikes your free test to a level that otherwise would never be achievable.

    8. JR

      Explain that.

    9. DD

      So like there's testosterone that's bound to albumin and SHBG, which is your total test, like...

    10. JR

      What does SHBG stand for?

    11. DD

      Sex Hormone Binding Globulin.

    12. JR

      Okay.

    13. DD

      So it's like a binding protein that regulates how much hormone is like freely in circulation to get to target tissues. So if you have a higher SHBG, you have less free testosterone that actually is available to do activity. You know, like do, you know, all the things that testosterone does in the brain and the muscle, et cetera. So if you have this drop in SHBG from exogenous administration of testosterone, you get a disproportionate rise in your free test because there's less of this binding protein to hold onto it.

    14. JR

      Mm.

    15. DD

      And when you get that disproportionate rise in free T, you get more psychoactive activity, aggression, muscle building. There's a reason why guys on TRT, I guarantee you, hold more muscle than they would have otherwise at the same level on paper of a total T with natural levels.

    16. JR

      Makes sense.

    17. DD

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      And is there a way that w- I mean, there's, there's, they use carbon isotope tests to detect, uh, exogenous testosterone, right?

    19. DD

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      And that's, that detects testosterone that's coming from wild yams, right?

    21. DD

      Yeah, it's kind of ironic how testosterone commercial grade is derived from soy, which is like the complete fucking opposite of what-

    22. JR

      Yams or soy?

    23. DD

      It comes from like yams, stigmasterol, um, I forget all the... Like, it's basically like soy-derived ultimately at the end of the day.

    24. JR

      Really?

    25. DD

      Yeah, it's like Mexican yams, and it's like all these-... the way they reacted down, it comes from, I think, the current way to do it is soy, which is just interesting-

    26. JR

      (laughs)

    27. DD

      ... because that's like the last thing you would think makes testosterone.

    28. JR

      Well, soy boy is like-

    29. DD

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      ... that is the, the worst insult for someone.

  7. 18:37 – 22:35

    Can athletes use ‘undetectable’ testosterone? Animal-derived synthesis and practicality

    1. JR

      So this, um, this carbon isotope test which detects wild yams. So they figured out a way to extract testosterone from animal sources.

    2. DD

      Um-

    3. JR

      'Cause I know that that was theoretical.

    4. DD

      Commercial-grade testosterone, like the stuff you get from a pharmacy for your TRT, is all derived from l- the soy-derived. So the carbon isotope of it, the ratio of it, is indicative of like plant-derived testosterone.

    5. JR

      Right.

    6. DD

      So when you do a carbon isotope ratio test and you combust it down and you see what kind of like carbon content is in it, when you're checking the urine, you see a disproportionately, um, that carbon-13 to carbon-12 ratio is disproportionately in flavor of, favor of plant-derived testosterone to a point where there's no way a human could produce this through like endogenous steroidogenesis from cholesterol. So if you hypothetically wanted to skirt around this test, if you had animal-derived cholesterol and you reacted it down, you could hypothetically get a human-looking derived testosterone that's completely immune to detection through the carbon isotope ratio test.

    7. JR

      Now, is that just theoretical or has, or has that been, has that been achieved?

    8. DD

      Well, it's not like I could pull... Uh, it's not like you would ever be able to get that from a commercial company that's going-

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. DD

      ... to provide it to you. But hypothetically, if you got, I don't know, from like a medical supply company, you got animal-grade testosterone, or I mean, cholesterol. And then you had a chemist who you hired because you're, you know, an athlete who has access to the resources available to pay somebody to do this. And you had the lab equipment, you could hypothetically manually take that cholesterol and react it down all the way down to testosterone just like your body would endogenously. And then once you have that, you have testosterone that's been derived from animal-based cholesterol that has a carbon isotope ratio equivalent to that of what looks to be animal-derived rather than plant. And then it kind of like gets around that system.

    11. JR

      Has that been done?

    12. DD

      Um, I believe so. Yeah.

    13. JR

      Really?

    14. DD

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      But this is not, like there's no papers on this? It's just-

    16. DD

      They're not gonna say-

    17. JR

      Right. (laughs)

    18. DD

      ... "This is being done and this is how you do it."

    19. JR

      Right. But it's, I w- I was wondering like, I wonder who, like is this something the Soviets have done or the Russians have done? Is this something-

    20. DD

      I think-

    21. JR

      ... the Chinese have done?

    22. DD

      ... athletes in all sports... I don't, I don't think it's prevalent, like especially in the UFC. Some of the people who get caught even at like high-level fighters, TJ Dillashaw, he used recombinant EPO, which is highly detectable if you're looking for it. So even the highest level of fighters I don't necessarily think have access to the resources to hire these chemists necessarily or even think to do this kind of stuff. But ultimately, I do think at a very high level there are individuals doing this.

    23. JR

      Yeah, I think there's individuals doing it too. I'm just wondering if it's been proven that it can be done. Novitsky-

    24. DD

      Well, there-

    25. JR

      Jeff Novitsky from USADA was the first person to tell me about it.

    26. DD

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      But his, his take on it was like, "We don't really know."

    28. DD

      No, I don't think there's... If you can literally take a fucking yam and turn it into test, I can a hundred, I cannot imagine it's impossible to take actual, you know, human identical cholesterol, which is literally what your body uses to make test, and react that down. Like that's way... To me, it makes more sense how you'd get test out of that-

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. DD

      ... than out of a random plant.

  8. 22:35 – 33:00

    Jon Jones case study: turinabol ‘pulsing,’ suppression signals, and competing explanations

    1. JR

      Didn't Jon Jones block you?

    2. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. DD

      I don't think he likes me.

    5. JR

      (laughs) What did you, uh, what did you do?

    6. DD

      Oh, I guess it's just... I've made a few videos just dissecting his case and giving my opinion on what I think he did. And I don't... He just doesn't like it obviously 'cause it's just bringing up shit that is in his past that he doesn't want dug up, I guess.

    7. JR

      This is the stuff about the drug testing?

    8. DD

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. DD

      'Cause there was that whole debacle with the, uh, you know, the pulsing and the turinabol metabolite and what...

    11. JR

      Yeah. What, what's your take on that?

    12. DD

      Um, personally, I think that if you go back historically to the beginning, like obviously the guy is pretty loose on what he's willing to do in terms of, you know...

    13. JR

      Substances.

    14. DD

      Yeah. So with him, um, if you go back to his first positive test results, I believe he tested positive for clomiphene and letrozole way back in like 2016 or something. So if you look at those two drugs, one of them is an aromatase inhibitor that you would use to prevent gyno formation usually. And then Clomid is like a fertility drug you would use to restore testosterone production, or in women, you use it to aid in fertility. So using those two drugs back then, to me, seemed like something you would be doing to either, you know, prevent the gyno from what you were using at a time when it was less scrutinous perhaps, and then the Clomid, you know, to recover or something was tainted is what his claim was. But we already have, you know, history of him doing this or getting popped for something pretty stupid to get popped for way back in, you know, 2015, 2016 era approximately. After that, he tests positive for turinabol and then thereafter the pulsing. But the thing that's interesting about that is when Novitsky talks about this pulsing M3 metabolite, he refers to... Well, it's not him, he's just reiterating the research and it's ultimately they used this reference point of Clomid pulsing as a...... kind of a proxy to exemplify, look, here's a drug that stores itself in fat tissue and pulses over time. So they use Clomid as an example of a... 'cause they can't just give a- a human a shit ton of Turinabol and like try and figure out if this is gonna work or not.

    15. JR

      Hmm.

    16. DD

      So they give him this fertility drug, or they've looked in the data and found, parsed out this information about Clomid pulsing, and they use that as a reference point for like, look, there's a drug that can pulse over time. But the interesting thing is, Jon Jones literally popped for Clomid before, but he's never had that pulse. So he has this Turinabol that keeps pulsing, but the Clomid they use as the reference point of a drug that can pulse never pulsed for him.

    17. JR

      But didn't he say that the Clomid was from tainted food?

    18. DD

      Yeah, but he's still got it in his system. So it's like-

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. DD

      ... if you ingested Clomid, why is that not pulsing? If that-

    21. JR

      So what causes something to pulse?

    22. DD

      (sighs)

    23. JR

      Explain pulsing to people that don't know what we're talking about.

    24. DD

      Like the idea would be that metabolites of these hormones... Like, first of all, with Turinabol, (smacks lips) after Icarus came out and, like, shortly around that, the- Rod Chankov is the one who came up with the M3 metabolite test and, like, extended the detection window of Turinabol. And that's actually, when I mentioned the Summer Olympics and how many people retroactively got their medals stripped or they got popped for the Summer Olympics for, like, 12 years in totality, a lot of those positive test results for, were for Turinabol after they used Rod Chankov's data to, like, retroactively test the urine samples and see. They thought at the time it was undetectable because they got it out of their system based on the current detection windows, but then when Rod Chankov came out with his, he came out with his data, and when they went back and tested it using his assay, you could figure out, oh, past that date, they actually detected for that, you know, the longer term metabolites.

    25. JR

      Hmm.

    26. DD

      So, the- the idea between, behind the pulsing is these metabolites that linger, they can store themselves in, like, fat tissue essentially, and they can, like, liberate themselves over time sporadically.

    27. JR

      Has that been proven or is that theoretical?

    28. DD

      Yeah, and it was proven in Clomid data, which is interesting-

    29. JR

      Hmm.

    30. DD

      ... because Jon Jones literally is popped for Clomid.

  9. 33:00 – 36:35

    The next frontier: microdosing bioidenticals and genetic ‘blind spots’ in urine testing

    1. JR

      So, explain how someone would create something that would m- mimic the effects of hyper-human levels of testosterone, but be a novel steroid. Like, a new-

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... compound.

    4. DD

      Well, I think the main loopholes in testing at this point are through bioidentical compounds, so things that your body naturally produces. So, if you're trying to mimic the benefits of a high dose of testosterone, I think the main go-to, to be honest, is literal testosterone. So, I wouldn't even... I don't think people are often deferring to these, you know, oral agents that would shut you down in trying to design like a THG, the Clear kind of thing. I think they're using literal micro-doses of actual testosterone, actual EPO, actual GH, things of that nature to get around-

    5. JR

      They're just micro-dosing it throughout the day and the idea is that it diminishes quickly, so that y- if you get tested, it's not gonna show up?

    6. DD

      Yeah, like I have studies that I could pull out that-

    7. JR

      Please do.

    8. DD

      Yeah, so for right now, the detection of these things, if they're identical to what you naturally produce, it's kind of difficult to prove one way or the other. Like, at least with a synthetic drug, if you develop a test for it, you can prove retroactively you used something that should never be in your body. But with testosterone, EPO, GH, et cetera, it's a lot more finicky because it's supposed to be there. So, I think that, again, even with randomized testing 24 hours, you have to give a one-hour whereabouts of where you're gonna be every single day.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. DD

      Hypothetically, after that one-hour window, if you micro-dose test, GH, EPO, all these bioidentical compounds, the likelihood that you're gonna get detected is like... It depends on the individual, and you would do this preliminary data going in to your longitudinal testing beforehand ideally. I'm not saying how to do it or anything, I'm just, you know, hypothetically saying. And you would kind of know beforehand what it looks like when you take this micro-dose of a compound and what it does to your, you know, det- detection parameters.

    11. JR

      So, you'd have someone who measures what it's like for you if you take it and you wait four hours, five hours, what have you.

    12. DD

      Yeah, so like hypothetically... Like there are studies that literally show people micro-dosing EPO and GH and getting away with it and almost nobody getting caught. And then there are certain genetic polymorphisms that cause it to be nearly im- impossible to tell if somebody's using even mega-doses of testosterone.

    13. JR

      Really?

    14. DD

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      So this is just rare genetic anomalies?

    16. DD

      Some of them, yeah. So there's some individuals that have a genetic... It's like they're literally missing the gene that encodes for the enzyme that excretes testosterone that they test in your urine. So they test in your urine for testosterone, um, like glucuronidated testosterone. They add, uh, glucuronic acid to the testosterone in your body, that's a process that happens to allow you to like piss it out essentially. And some individuals lack the gene that encodes for this enzyme, so it makes it so you literally piss out barely any of this, you know, marker that they test for, so you... There's people who use upwards of like half a gram of testosterone, 500 milligrams, which is like a fucking actual bodybuilder cycle essentially, and getting no detection.

    17. JR

      That's crazy.

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      (laughs) So wh- what do they do if they find out that that person has that gene?

    20. DD

      Um, that's why you have the biological passport, because you could assess over time what does your testosterone look like, and then they develop their own little like as- a much narrower and smaller...... threshold for red-flagging you.

    21. JR

      Oh.

    22. DD

      Yeah.

  10. 36:35 – 37:46

    How Derek learned all this without a science degree: bodybuilding, longevity fears, and rabbit holes

    1. JR

      God, Tim, this is complicated. How do you ... W- what was your background in school?

    2. DD

      Uh, marketing. (laughs)

    3. JR

      Marketing?

    4. DD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      And how did you-

    6. DD

      Which w- I r- was not useful whatsoever.

    7. JR

      How do you know so much about this stuff?

    8. DD

      Just a fucking nerd, dude. I don't know.

    9. JR

      (laughs)

    10. DD

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      So you just started reading it and getting-

    12. DD

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... into it, and you have just an ability to remember these things?

    14. DD

      I used to be really into bodybuilding, much more so than I am now. I'm still very into it, but not, like, actively pursuing, trying to gain stupid amounts of size or anything.

    15. JR

      You used to be, you used to be gigantic.

    16. DD

      Yeah. (laughs)

    17. JR

      You used to do your sh- your shows in a tank top, and you were-

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... you had these fucking worlds on your shoulders, like moons.

    20. DD

      Yeah. (laughs) Yeah. So, so for me, just trying to figure out how to do that stuff, I've seen so many bodybuilders die in, like, their 30s and 40s.

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. DD

      So, a lot of my research has been developed around, like, my research has been developed around trying to not die and live a long, healthy life, while using things like testosterone, having a higher body weight than otherwise, you know, may be optimal for longevity.

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. DD

      Stuff like that. And I don't know, I just find it, like, highly interesting. I just, like, go down these rabbit holes of things and just end up learning about it.

    25. JR

      I find it interesting too, but I prefer to just listen to you talk about it-

    26. DD

      Yeah. (laughs)

    27. JR

      ... and do my own research. (laughs)

    28. DD

      Yeah.

  11. 37:46 – 43:37

    Why celebrities won’t admit PED use: stigma, The Rock, and the ‘hard work’ narrative

    1. JR

      It's way easier. You know, we were, uh, talking before the podcast about, uh, athletes and actors and, and-

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... and people who are carrying massive amounts of weight, and, like, what kind of a toll that takes on your body-

    4. DD

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... if you're a 300-pound, you know, 8% body fat guy who's 50.

    6. DD

      Yep, yeah.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DD

      No, yeah, there's a lot of, uh, a lot of guys that, you know, just don't talk about it. Yeah.

    9. JR

      I think it's weird that they don't talk about it.

    10. DD

      Yeah, like, I-

    11. JR

      I don't get it.

    12. DD

      ... I don't know, especially if you're ... I don't know. Like, I guess, at the end of the day, even if you claim it's, "Oh, I'm just on medical prescribed testosterone," people ultimately know that it's not TRT-limit levels-

    13. JR

      Right. Yeah.

    14. DD

      ... you know, if you're walking around at fucking The Rock size, essentially.

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, The Rock's a great example, right?

    16. DD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      Um, I've always been real honest about it, 'cause, uh, I've always been, like, uh, I just, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Just like I don't think-

    18. DD

      No.

    19. JR

      ... there's anything wrong with talking about doing mushrooms or smoking weed or-

    20. DD

      There's definitely a huge stigma around it, though, still. Like, even ... I saw your podcast with, uh, Schaub and, uh, I think it was, uh, Hinch- Hinchcliffe, Toney?

    21. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    22. DD

      Yeah. And he was like, "You think The Rock's on steroids?"

    23. JR

      Oh, my God.

    24. DD

      And you guys are like, "What the fuck do you think, dude?"

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. DD

      And he's like, "Really? There's no way. Don't they test in the-"

    27. JR

      Well-

    28. DD

      "... in wrestling?"

    29. JR

      First of all, let me tell you something about Hinchcliffe. I love him to death, he's the best, but he is the ultimate wrestling nerd. He gets up to the precipice of believing it's real.

    30. DD

      Yeah.

  12. 43:37 – 47:12

    Performance basics still matter: sleep as a ‘drug’ and cognitive stacks for shows

    1. DD

      Yeah. And back in the day too, especially from the entrepreneurial side of things, people would always advocate this whole, like, sleep when you're dead. You know?

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DD

      If, if you go to bed and sleep for six hours, you get an extra two hours of work that you wouldn't have otherwise.

    4. JR

      Right.

    5. DD

      Yeah, 'cause stuff like that was popularized maybe, like, accidentally by guys like Gary V., for example. He's just, like, the most hyperaggressive, fucking-

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. DD

      ... high-energy dude. And you're just like, "Never fucking sleep, just, you know, kill it."

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. DD

      And nowadays, you know how deleterious that is to just, like, everything, including your actual efficiency when you're awake.

    10. JR

      It's a big deal for me.

    11. DD

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      I mean, I'll tell you right now, I got five hours sleep last night, and I just did a workout with Jon Wolf over at Onnit, me and Bert Kreischer just worked out.

    13. DD

      Hmm.

    14. JR

      I'm wrecked.

    15. DD

      (laughs) Yeah.

    16. JR

      My, my brain is, like-

    17. DD

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      ... firing on six cylinders.

    19. DD

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      It's like, (imitates engine revving) but if I get a good eight-hour sleep and I come in... Like, if I was going to, uh... If I needed to do something where I had to be at my fucking very best, like some, like, super complicated podcast with a shady character-

    21. DD

      Yeah. (laughs)

    22. JR

      ... and I had to be (laughs) you know what I mean?

    23. DD

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      I'd have to be, uh... I'd have all my resource, uh, resources and all my research at my fingertips so I could just pull it out at any moment, I would make sure that I got a lot of sleep and didn't work out that day.

    25. DD

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      Yeah. Like, if I'm doing two shows in a night, I won't work out hard during the day. I'll have a light workout. I'll do, like, 45 minutes of cardio or something-

    27. DD

      Two shows?

    28. JR

      ... something, something easy.

    29. DD

      That must be-

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  13. 47:12 – 55:22

    Sleep apnea for big guys: CPAP realities, mouth-breathing, and life-changing treatment

    1. DD

      And I'll usually combine it with, like, some sort of stimulant, either just caffeine through, um, you know, a coffee or an energy drink if I want or, um, yeah. Sometimes I use, uh... I have sleep apnea so I've been prescribed modafinil for a long time too, which is-

    2. JR

      What have you done for your sleep apnea?

    3. DD

      CPAP.

    4. JR

      Oh man, those things suck, don't they?

    5. DD

      Uh, they're not very... Like, they're kind of annoying to have to wear, but I'm so used to it at this point that it's just part of my routine, but-

    6. JR

      I have a mouthpiece that I wear that keeps my tongue from falling back.

    7. DD

      Oh.

    8. JR

      Like, a lot of the thick-neck guys like you and I-

    9. DD

      Yeah, yeah.

    10. JR

      What happens is your tongue, like, falls back 'cause you have all this extra tissue around your neck.

    11. DD

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      So your tongue will fall back and cover your air hole, that's why you choke and snore real loud. Well, this tongue depressor, it's like a mouthpiece, and it holds my tongue down so it keeps my airway open.

    13. DD

      Oh, nice.

    14. JR

      It's amazing.

    15. DD

      Yeah, I think, uh, that's one of the most overlooked silent killers of muscular guys.

    16. JR

      Yes.

    17. DD

      And fat people.

    18. JR

      Yep.

    19. DD

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. DD

      'Cause you don't even know you're getting fucked up in your sleep.

    22. JR

      Yeah.

    23. DD

      And you wake up, and you just feel terrible. Like, I used to go to university classes and sit there and not understand why I'd fall asleep after five minutes every day.

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. DD

      And the te- you know, the lecturer just thought I was a shitty student, but in reality my sleep was just atrocious the entire time.

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. DD

      And the CPAP is a game changer for me 'cause otherwise, you know, I was getting, I don't know, like- (sighs) I forget how many episodes of apneas I was having per hour, but it was exorbitant to the point that I probably would be dead by now if I didn't get a CPAP otherwise.

    28. JR

      So, when you got this machine, did you struggle to sleep with it on your face for a while?

    29. DD

      (laughs) Well, when you first start, yeah, 'cause you're, you're not used to something blowing air into your airway-

    30. JR

      Yeah.

  14. 55:22 – 1:19:58

    Body modification and dysmorphia: Black Alien Project, anorexia online, and extreme cosmetic procedures

    1. JR

      Spea- speaking of which-

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... do you ever follow any of these guys that do, like, wild body modification projects?

    4. DD

      Uh, I've s- yes. Over the years, I've probably done, uh, videos on a few of them. Yeah.

    5. JR

      There's this one guy. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. The Black Alien Project. Have you ever seen this?

    6. DD

      Maybe. I might have.

    7. JR

      Jamie.

    8. DD

      (laughs)

    9. JR

      Go to the Instagram and look up the Black Alien Project. This guy recently just got two of his fingers removed.

    10. DD

      Oh.

    11. JR

      So he can turn one of his hands into a claw.

    12. DD

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      He's gonna do both hands. He'll just get one, and then it's gonna heal up and then get the other one done. He, uh ... I forget what country he's from. It's a different country. Was it?

    14. NA

      He says France.

    15. JR

      France. So his entire body's covered in tattoos. Look at him.

    16. DD

      Jesus fuck.

    17. JR

      Yeah. His eyes are tattooed. He's got, like, uh, implants all over his head. He got the tip of his nose removed, so there there's these openings that go straight into his head. And then his left hand, where you're seeing ... Right now, you see all his fingers. Now, um, he got those f- those two fingers removed.

    18. DD

      Fuck.

    19. JR

      Yeah. That's what his hand looks like now.

    20. NA

      What the fuck?

    21. JR

      Yeah, what the fuck?

    22. DD

      Sometimes I wonder, when it comes to nature verse nurture of being a parent, like how much it's just you're predetermined to be ... your brain chemistry a certain way versus how you're raised. Like, how do I avoid having my kid do this? You know?

    23. JR

      I don't know if you can.

    24. DD

      Yeah?

    25. JR

      I mean, I think if you ... I don't know. I would, I would imagine this has gotta be some abuse. Someone had to abuse him. I just, I can't imagine that this is just normal brain chemistry.

    26. DD

      Hmm.

    27. JR

      Um, well, also, like, what kind of a fucking doctor removes your fingers?

    28. DD

      And how expensive is this too? Like imagine the amount of resources of your income you're allocating-

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. DD

      ... towards these procedures with the amount of shit he's done.

Episode duration: 3:06:51

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode LiWyf3wNEmQ

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

iOSAndroidClaudeChrome