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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 – 15:00

    (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast,…

    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.

    25. 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.

    26. DD

      Yeah.

    27. 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."

    28. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    29. JR

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

    30. 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.

  2. 15:00 – 30:00

    Yeah. …

    1. JR

      was probably responsible for them getting rid of the TRT program. The TRT program is very controversial because the whole idea behind it was some of these guys need testosterone. It's just like anything else, like thyroid medication. We're just gonna give it to them. But the problem is like, why do they need testosterone? Why does a 26-year-old man have low testosterone?

    2. DD

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Well, the reality is, a lot of them were on juice. And so their natural s- endocrine system shuts down, and then they get tested during that time period. They go, "Oh my God, this poor guy."

    4. DD

      Mm.

    5. JR

      "He needs medicine."

    6. DD

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      And so you give them testosterone, and Vitor, like whatever the natural level was, Vitor was at hyper human levels to the point where they were worried he was going to die. (laughs)

    8. 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.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. 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.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. 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.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. 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.

    15. JR

      Explain that.

    16. DD

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

    17. JR

      What does SHBG stand for?

    18. DD

      Sex Hormone Binding Globulin.

    19. JR

      Okay.

    20. 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.

    21. JR

      Mm.

    22. 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.

    23. JR

      Makes sense.

    24. DD

      Yeah.

    25. 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?

    26. DD

      Yeah.

    27. JR

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

    28. DD

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

    29. JR

      Yams or soy?

    30. 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.

  3. 30:00 – 45:00

    Yeah, so let's just…

    1. JR

      increase his performance?

    2. DD

      Yeah, so let's just say hypothetically Turinabol or any random oral steroid is not... Like, presumably this isn't 100% factual, this is just speculating based on the levels and whatnot, but if he has a certain... Even if he has crushed test, the room... If they're not looking for a certain drug that's not on their list and you're using it full board, whatever dose you want because they can't detect it 'cause they don't even know it exists...... then that's going to be significantly performance-enhancing.

    3. JR

      Okay, so then we're talking about something like the Balco Clear, that kind of a deal?

    4. DD

      Potentially.

    5. JR

      So, it... See, the thing is like when they catch someone with something like, what, uh, Victor Conte had g- come clean with, that they used for Barry Bonds-

    6. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      ... and all these different athletes. Undetectable, you rub it on your skin, and no one knew what it was.

    8. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    9. JR

      We think, "Oh, well, they caught that guy. They're more sophisticated now. You can't get away with that now."

    10. DD

      Mm-hmm.

    11. JR

      Do you think it's possible there could be some new designer steroids or some new compound that's not on the list of things to be tested for because we don't even know it exists, but yet it is significantly enhancing performance?

    12. DD

      Uh, yes, like-

    13. JR

      Like the Clear.

    14. DD

      If you don't have an assay developed for it, detecting it is essen- you can't prove anything exists in the body if you don't have an assay to detect it. So, even though you have this elaborate list of steroids that are known about, if you have a novel drug and you don't know to de- to detect it, even if you have other markers that look fucked up, like his testosterone level's in the gutter, there's no threshold amount where you pop because your test is in the gutter. They look for high tests, they don't look for low. So, if you're really low randomly, they might be like, "Huh, that's weird," and keep an eye on it, and maybe fur- test you further for other stuff. But it's n- doesn't mean you couldn't be using something gung-ho the entire time. So, I do think designer drugs exist. I don't necessarily know that they're being leveraged highly in the designer steroid family, because you could hypothetically probably be able to determine this compound derived from testosterone, was manipulated, and you know, see something iffy and, you know, dig into it and get a... Perhaps find out pretty clear pretty soon what it is and retroactively, you know, penalize that guy. But I do think there are novel agents being developed from the growth hormone side of things, EPO side of things, um, the testosterone. Obviously, there's the carbon isotope ratio proof, cholesterol-derived t- testosterone which you could also potentially argue the guy was using basic, like, TRT and came off and, like, crashed his system, you know, at the time of the test or something. Like, there's a million different reasons, but ultimately seeing that level in his urine, testing for a random compound, having in the past tested positive for a fertility drug and an aromatase inhibitor you would only use in the context of, like, drug use essentially, intentionally in most cases. It's just, like, highly improbable, I don't think, that he's at least tried to do some shit to get around the system.

    15. 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-

    16. DD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      ... compound.

    18. 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-

    19. 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?

    20. DD

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

    21. JR

      Please do.

    22. 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.

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. 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.

    25. 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.

    26. 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.

    27. JR

      Really?

    28. DD

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      So this is just rare genetic anomalies?

    30. 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.

  4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

    That must be- …

    1. JR

    2. DD

      That must be-

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. DD

      ... fucking insane.

    5. JR

      Yeah. It's, like, uh...

    6. DD

      'Cause they're at nighttime too-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DD

      ... which is, like, at the tail end of the day where your brain is at the lowest part, right?

    9. JR

      I used to do three shows. Three shows are rough because the third show, you don't remember what the fuck you've said.

    10. DD

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      Because you... Th- they all blend into each other.

    12. DD

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      'Cause it's like when you're on stage doing standup, it's almost like you're in a trance.

    14. DD

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      And then you're in this trance for the third time in the night, and you're like, "What am I talking about? Did I already say this?"

    16. DD

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      Especially if you don't have a rigid, um, uh, like, set list-

    18. DD

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      ... of all the bits and how you're gonna say them and when, where, and when you're gonna say them, it can be a problem.

    20. DD

      Do you have, like, a cognitive stack you use for-

    21. JR

      Yes.

    22. DD

      ... shows?

    23. JR

      Yes. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

    24. DD

      What, what is it?

    25. JR

      I have a bunch of stuff. Um, one, I really like this NeuroGum.

    26. DD

      Okay.

    27. JR

      You, you ever use that stuff?

    28. DD

      I think it rings a bell.

    29. JR

      We have some over here. We used to... It was a sponsor at one point in time. I buy a lot of it on Amazon. And the other stuff is one thing that my company, Onnit, makes. It's, uh, Alpha Brain. This is the new one, Alpha Brain Black Label.

    30. DD

      Mm-hmm.

  5. 1:00:00 – 1:12:40

    Yeah. …

    1. DD

      weight. You look-" You know.

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. DD

      "This is scary." And she just gets ... From the start of her YouTube channel to current, she's gotten progressively more skinny to the point that she's, like, a bone rack. And she still posts videos regularly and she has millions of subscribers and her entire comments section is just telling her how bad this is. "This is a mental disorder."

    4. JR

      Does she read it?

    5. DD

      She's aw- she must be very aware of how people think about it, 'cause people make videos about it all the time too.

    6. JR

      About her being skinny?

    7. DD

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      What the fuck is that? You wanna pull that up? Post it up so we can see this lady. Oh, no. Oh my God. That's crazy.

    9. DD

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      Oh my God.

    11. DD

      See, look at all the comments, just the top ones.

    12. JR

      Wow. I'm genuinely impressed that she's still alive at this point. All I can say is God bless, to be honest. God bless, huh? Yeah, that's, uh, that's atrocious. That's crazy, man.

    13. DD

      Yeah. What's wild is, if you go on her YouTube from ... and you sort by oldest to newest, you can actually see, she was still, um, obviously underweight in the first video, but it gets progressed-

    14. JR

      Is this her first video? No, that's 2021. Goddammit, dude.

    15. DD

      Dude, they took away dislikes, which is fucking ridiculous, but-

    16. JR

      Isn't that weird?

    17. DD

      Yeah. So now you can't see how downvoted her videos are to reflect the opinion of how people think of her, you know, body composition choices.

    18. JR

      So, that's her first videos.

    19. DD

      2013.

    20. JR

      That's pretty thin.

    21. DD

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      But fairly normal.

    23. DD

      So, at that point you're like-

    24. JR

      She's just a skinny girl.

    25. DD

      Yeah, at that point you're like, okay, you're like borderline emaciated.

    26. JR

      Yeah, well, she's pretty fucking emaciated.

    27. DD

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      Look how tiny her legs are. God, that's crazy.

    29. DD

      Yeah. And then-

    30. JR

      Imagine walking around like that.

Episode duration: 3:06:51

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