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

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 0:00 (drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

Narrator 0:04 The Joe Rogan Experience.

Joe Rogan 0:06 Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) Hello, Derek.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 0:13 Hey, how's it going?

Joe Rogan 0:13 Nice to meet you in real life.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 0:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:15 I've seen, uh, ah, man, fucking dozens of your videos, so, uh, it's cool meeting you in person.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 0:21 No, yeah, long overdue I feel like.

Joe Rogan 0:22 How did you get started?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 0:24 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-

Joe Rogan 1:21 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:21 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 1:43 Well, I love the fact that you have, like, the- your production is very minimalist. You have a- an air conditioner behind you-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:50 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:50 ... wood-paneled wall.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:51 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:51 It's like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:52 ... y- there's no attempt at all to, like, glitz and glamour-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:56 ... but it's just good content.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:58 I mean, a- you just hit a million subscribers, so obviously something- it's working, you know? It's working well.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 2:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:03 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 2:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:19 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."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 2:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:36 And then I watched some of your videos, I'm like, "Oh my God, they're cheating." (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 2:39 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.

Joe Rogan 2:56 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:07 Hm.

Joe Rogan 3:07 ... that were working with the athletes.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:09 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-

Joe Rogan 3:22 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:22 ... who's experienced enough.

Joe Rogan 3:24 Yeah, but the bros is what- how people get caught. Like, your bro's like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:27 Oftentimes.

Joe Rogan 3:27 ... "Bro, you just got to do this, you're going to test clean-"

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:29 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:29 ... "trust me." And then-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:31 ... you test positive and that guy's fucked and, yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:33 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?"

Joe Rogan 3:55 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 3:56 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-

Joe Rogan 4:09 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:09 ... so you're pretty much forced to do it to be competitive, but, you know, people are thinking in that same kind of way.

Joe Rogan 4:15 The Lance Armstrong one is the most ridiculous to me, because they took his jerseys away, supposedly-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:21 ... 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 4:29 ... behind him is all these framed jerseys of him winning the Tour de France.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:33 And it's like, "What are you gonna do, take my jerseys? I fucking won those bitches."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:37 Like, and he did win them. He did. And everybody-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:38 It's fucking ridiculous how they even... You know, pretty much everyone underneath him is doing the same thing.

Joe Rogan 4:44 18th place was the last guy that you could find that did not test positive.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:48 And even that guy, though, he might have just gotten it-

Joe Rogan 4:52 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:52 ... out of his system in time-

Joe Rogan 4:53 Oh, yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:53 ... because-

Joe Rogan 4:53 Probably.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 4:54 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 5:09 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:09 ... putting blood back into yourself, but they can't- they still can't even tell.

Joe Rogan 5:12 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:13 Yeah, well it's- that's why they try to use the biological passport, right? Like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:16 ... 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:26 But even that varies with sleep-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:27 No.

Joe Rogan 5:27 ... and diet, and...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:28 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?

Joe Rogan 5:54 Mm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 5:55 So hypothetically, I could just... I could go in quite confidently, if I had done the preliminary research prior-... leave.

Joe Rogan 6:02 And if you're doing something like Tour de France, of course you're gonna do that research.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:05 They have, they had teams behind them.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:07 Did you see Icarus?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:09 Yep.

Joe Rogan 6:09 That's a fucking great documentary.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:10 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:11 Goddamn, it's so good.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:12 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:13 It's so good when you realize that the entire Russian Olympic team was juiced to the tits.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:19 The whole team.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:20 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:28 ... to the figure skaters.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:29 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?

Joe Rogan 6:35 E-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 6:35 '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.

Joe Rogan 7:06 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:06 And they, they figured that out six years later.

Joe Rogan 7:10 Uh, well, whenever the, the host country wins, like, a shitload of medals-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:16 ... like that's when it all gets weird. Like Sochi.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:17 That was a big one with Russia. And then Beijing, the Chinese one was a big one. They had won so many medals.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:24 And, you know, you know that it's, it's, it's such a big thing for some nations, like to win the Olympics.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:31 It's a huge show of superiority.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:35 And they go all out, man.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:37 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.

Joe Rogan 7:56 (blows raspberry)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 7:57 Yeah, fucking wild.

Joe Rogan 7:59 Well, th- in their head it's everything.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 8:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:02 I mean, to lose is so painful and to win is so glorious-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 8:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:06 ... that they'll just take it. But-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 8:07 Yeah, and in professional sports, obviously the contracts are so ridiculous. Like there was one NBA player who just popped for drostanolone and testosterone like a week and a half ago or something. And when you actually look at it, the guy has only played, I think, in totality like seven minutes on the court or something. But his contract is like almost $8 million. So even guys at the highest level of professional sports, it's so lucrative the amount of money that's on the table, that if you think... Even if you're, you know, like a low tier... Like you're still a top tier athlete obviously if you're in the NBA, for example, but if you're at the bottom of the totem pole and you think you have leeway with you're not gonna get tested as much or whatever, the choices of drugs he used too were like... One of them was absurd and made no sense, but I s- assume he was just hedging against the chance that he would get randomly tested to... You know, if it helps you get this lucrative contract even if you're like just a seven-minute court player-

Joe Rogan 8:59 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 8:59 ... like it's a big fucking deal.

Joe Rogan 9:01 Well, it's probably... The, the guys who get caught doing something stupid, it's probably some dude from the gym, right? So-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:07 Maybe, yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:08 Somebody from the gym tells him how to do things. They're not being sophisticated about it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:13 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 9:13 Especially he's not a top tier athlete. He's just kind of a guy who plays occasionally and...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:18 Yeah. Yeah, I've heard in arm wrestling, it's like a more obscure sport obviously, but some of them are drug tested. The s- scrutiny is very low, but some of them don't even... They just take whatever they want and go sauce to the tits and assu- just hope they won't get tested. Like that's their strategy.

Joe Rogan 9:36 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:36 Yeah. So like they take whatever-

Joe Rogan 9:38 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:38 ... the fuck they want and just hedge against the probability that they won't get tested. And then if they get lucky, which a lot of the times they do, 'cause it's very low scrutiny testing, they just go in like full bore.

Joe Rogan 9:47 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:49 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 9:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:58 Like started out literally like most of the athletes were on something. It was-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:03 ... 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:17 Like if you go back and look at them, if you go back and look at like UFC 3, 4, and 5, like everybody-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:23 ... looked like a superhero.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:24 No, Vitor was insane when he first started.

Joe Rogan 10:26 Oh my god, dude.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:27 Like, uh, the fight where he... I forget... It was against Wanderlei and he just ran him across the ring.

Joe Rogan 10:32 Yeah, yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:32 That epic shot. Yeah, he was fucking cranked back then.

Joe Rogan 10:35 Yeah, well so was Wanderlei back then too.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:37 You know?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:37 But the physiques-

Joe Rogan 10:38 Yes.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:38 ... like disproportionately body-builderesque.

Joe Rogan 10:41 Yes, right. Well, Vitor at one point in time was 240 pounds.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:44 Mmm.

Joe Rogan 10:44 And then he eventually got... In the UFC was competing at middleweight, which is 185 pounds.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 10:49 Damn.

Joe Rogan 10:49 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:05 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:05 And he was, he was fucking enormous. Is that Vitor versus Randy? That might be the second fight. I think that is-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:12 UFC 15.

Joe Rogan 11:12 ... the UFC light heavyweight title.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:13 Right there.

Joe Rogan 11:14 Yeah, you want... That, that one in the upper... Right next to your cursor, go up. Yeah, right there. That's him. He was... Look how big he is. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:22 He was fucking huge. That one he was like 240. His arms were gigantic, but he gassed out quick.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:28 And Randy was a superior wrestler.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:31 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:31 That was back when you could wear shoes. Look, Randy's wearing wrestling shoes. That's old school UFC. Like that was, uh, early, early on and there was no testing. There was nothing.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:41 No, you had guys like Mark Coleman showing up-

Joe Rogan 11:43 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:43 ... looking like...

Joe Rogan 11:44 Just jacked.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:45 Mark Kerr was even bigger than Mark Coleman.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:48 Mark, Mark Kerr, the smashing machine. Had you ever seen that documentary?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 11:52 No, I haven't.

Joe Rogan 11:53 Very good documentary. It's an amazing document- y- 'cause it was in... Like Icarus in the sense that the way... If you haven't seen Icarus first, Br- uh, folks, Brian Fogel, the guy who's the director of it who's also the star of it, and what happened was Brian, who is a, an athlete and he does bike races, he decided as a cyclist it would be interesting if he did a race natural and then did the same race the next year juiced to the tits.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 12:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:18 And so he did the race natural.... documented it all, and then hired this guy, Grigory Rodchenkov. And Grigory was the head of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, which is not real. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 12:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:31 The Russian Anti-Doping Agency is the Russian "We dope everybody" agency.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 12:35 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:35 And so Grigory talked, um, Brian through the protocol, told him what to take, how to take it. I don't know if he supplied him with it, I don't really remember that. But along the way, the Russians get busted in the Sochi Olympics. Grigory has to flee the country, and then rats out the entire Russian Olympic team, and now he's got a hit out on him.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 12:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:56 So he's hiding in America, and still is. He's under witness protection, he's got 24-hour armed guards around him all the time, and you know, someone from Russia apparently is looking to kill him.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:08 So this poor guy's wandering around. Well, the Smashing Machine is like that in that what they were doing was they were studying Mark Coleman, or excuse me, Mark Kerr when he was at the peak of his popularity and pride. And Mark Kerr was-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:21 Holy shit.

Joe Rogan 13:21 ... a fucking gorilla. Look at him there.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:24 My God, just enormous wrestler, super powerful guy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:28 Just fucking smashed the shit out of people. But when, um, they start filming this documentary, he is falling apart.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:38 Like, they catch him falling apart. He's addicted to pain medication, so he's shooting up, and he's doing it right in front of the documentary crew.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 13:47 Jesus.

Joe Rogan 13:47 He's, yeah, he's just like out of his mind, he's doing steroids, he's doing painkillers. He's just completely addicted. And you see everything collapse. Like, they caught it right at the right time. Right when the cameras got to him was right when it was all falling apart. And it's a fascinating documentary. And that was in the J- Japan days of pride-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:07 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:07 ... where th- not only were there no testing, but-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:10 They literally write it on the contract.

Joe Rogan 14:12 Y- yeah, they literally write on the contract-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:13 ... "We will not test you for steroids." Anson Inoue, who fought over there, told me they wrote it in all caps.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:19 "We will not fucki- we will not test you for steroids."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:22 Yeah. That's wild.

Joe Rogan 14:23 And so, this documentary is like the gold standard, uh, documentary for MMA, um, l- like, fighters like that were substance abusers.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:31 Mm.

Joe Rogan 14:32 There's so many of them. They were so hooked on steroids. There were so many of these guys.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:37 And then USADA came along, and then their physiques just melted.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:41 But not all of them. Like, some guys figured shit out.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:44 Yeah. Yeah, some were pretty dramatic, like Johnny Hendrix, fell apart.

Joe Rogan 14:48 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:48 Vitor fell apart. Um-

Joe Rogan 14:50 Vitor was the most dramatic.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:52 Yeah, yeah, he's usually like the poster boy for USADA.

Joe Rogan 14:55 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 14:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:57 Yeah. He was, uh, he was the guy that 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?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 15:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:19 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."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 15:29 Mm.

Joe Rogan 15:29 "He needs medicine."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 15:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:30 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)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 15:40 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.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 16:02 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.

Joe Rogan 16:16 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 16:16 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.

Joe Rogan 16:24 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 16:24 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.

Joe Rogan 16:52 Explain that.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 16:53 So like there's testosterone that's bound to albumin and SHBG, which is your total test, like...

Joe Rogan 16:58 What does SHBG stand for?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 16:59 Sex Hormone Binding Globulin.

Joe Rogan 17:01 Okay.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 17:01 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.

Joe Rogan 17:31 Mm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 17:32 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.

Joe Rogan 17:47 Makes sense.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 17:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:49 And is there a way that w- I mean, there's, there's, they use carbon isotope tests to detect, uh, exogenous testosterone, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:00 And that's, that detects testosterone that's coming from wild yams, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:05 Yeah, it's kind of ironic how testosterone commercial grade is derived from soy, which is like the complete fucking opposite of what-

Joe Rogan 18:11 Yams or soy?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:13 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.

Joe Rogan 18:19 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:20 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-

Joe Rogan 18:29 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:29 ... because that's like the last thing you would think makes testosterone.

Joe Rogan 18:32 Well, soy boy is like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:34 ... that is the, the worst insult for someone.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:37 So this, um, this carbon isotope test which detects wild yams. So they figured out a way to extract testosterone from animal sources.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:48 Um-

Joe Rogan 18:49 'Cause I know that that was theoretical.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 18:50 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.

Joe Rogan 19:07 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 19:07 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.

Joe Rogan 19:48 Now, is that just theoretical or has, or has that been, has that been achieved?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 19:52 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-

Joe Rogan 19:57 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 19:57 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 20:35 Has that been done?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:37 Um, I believe so. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:40 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:41 But this is not, like there's no papers on this? It's just-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:44 They're not gonna say-

Joe Rogan 20:45 Right. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:45 ... "This is being done and this is how you do it."

Joe Rogan 20:48 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:55 I think-

Joe Rogan 20:55 ... the Chinese have done?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 20:56 ... 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.

Joe Rogan 21:25 Yeah, I think there's individuals doing it too. I'm just wondering if it's been proven that it can be done. Novitsky-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 21:30 Well, there-

Joe Rogan 21:31 Jeff Novitsky from USADA was the first person to tell me about it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 21:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:34 But his, his take on it was like, "We don't really know."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 21:36 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-

Joe Rogan 21:54 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 21:54 ... than out of a random plant.

Joe Rogan 21:56 Yeah. That does-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 21:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:56 ... make more sense. And you got to think, like out of all the stuff that China does, one of the things they do is these concentration camps. They take these, they have these prisoner camps.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:06 And, you know, people that did wrong speak or whatever, and they-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:10 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 22:10 ... shuffle them off there.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:11 I would imagine... I mean, the, the dark rumor was always like that's where you're getting some organ transplants, that some people would go over there to get organ transplants.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:20 You gotta think they're making testosterone that way too, just using people as like a fucking sponge to drain out.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:26 Maybe. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if there are countries doing it, athletes at a high level, in the UFC perhaps, as well as in professional sports in general.

Joe Rogan 22:35 Didn't Jon Jones block you?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:37 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 22:37 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:39 I don't think he likes me.

Joe Rogan 22:41 (laughs) What did you, uh, what did you do?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:43 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.

Joe Rogan 22:57 This is the stuff about the drug testing?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 22:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:00 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 23:00 'Cause there was that whole debacle with the, uh, you know, the pulsing and the turinabol metabolite and what...

Joe Rogan 23:04 Yeah. What, what's your take on that?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 23:07 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...

Joe Rogan 23:18 Substances.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 23:18 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.

Joe Rogan 24:43 Hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 24:43 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.

Joe Rogan 25:08 But didn't he say that the Clomid was from tainted food?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 25:11 Yeah, but he's still got it in his system. So it's like-

Joe Rogan 25:13 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 25:13 ... if you ingested Clomid, why is that not pulsing? If that-

Joe Rogan 25:16 So what causes something to pulse?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 25:18 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 25:18 Explain pulsing to people that don't know what we're talking about.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 25:21 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.

Joe Rogan 26:14 Hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:14 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.

Joe Rogan 26:27 Has that been proven or is that theoretical?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:29 Yeah, and it was proven in Clomid data, which is interesting-

Joe Rogan 26:31 Hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:31 ... because Jon Jones literally is popped for Clomid.

Joe Rogan 26:34 But didn't pulse for that?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:35 Yeah, so...

Joe Rogan 26:36 But it hasn't been proven before with this stuff?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:39 No, with Turinabol, never.

Joe Rogan 26:40 So, what's your take on that?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 26:43 Like, I think personally, um, like the amount of Turinabol he had was so small. A lot of times, like for certain compounds like Turinabol, the only way you're gonna get it is, like, underground. Like, you're gonna get it, it's not a pharmaceutical product that's designed for, like, a clinical application. So you're gonna get it designed by an underground lab who sells steroids to, you know, random bodybuilders or a chemist in, you know, China or something, and you're kind of just banking on the fact that it's not gonna be tainted, they're gonna use, like, clean equipment, it's gonna be whatever drug you're hoping to get. And there are a lot of different scenarios that might, you know, explain it, and there's different theories, like I could have that could hypothetically... Either one could be true potentially, but I think one of the options is a drug he thought he was getting that was potentially undetectable was tainted with Turinabol.

Joe Rogan 27:30 Hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 27:31 Or he thought he could get around the detection window by taking it, unaware of Rod Chankov's long-term data that came out. Or there's, like, a variety of different things that could be happening, but ultimately for him, he got it in his system, and on paper when you look at his testosterone levels and his ratios of testosterone to epi-testosterone, like when he fought DC, they were so out of whack that it would not be explainable, in my opinion, by anything other than some sort of suppression of your system via the usage of something. So to me-

Joe Rogan 28:04 Not, not hard training? Because hard training does suppress it, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 28:08 Yeah, but to the degree where he's literally, like, a female, probably not. So he-

Joe Rogan 28:13 Really? It was that bad?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 28:15 Yeah, so normally the levels would be over 10 times what he had in general. I'd have to pull it up to remember exactly, but he was, like, in the single digits for urinary testosterone, which otherwise should be, like... It was, like, 60, 60 plus or something. He was, like, four or something. And it was multiple data points of his testosterone being single digits to a point that would indicate significant suppression in my opinion.

Joe Rogan 28:41 What, what could be another possible explanation for it other than significant suppression?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 28:46 Of the super low test levels?

Joe Rogan 28:48 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 28:48 Um, psh, I don't know, castration? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:52 Really? It's that bad?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 28:53 Uh, yeah, it was pretty fucking bad, dude. It was like the equivalent of you only have your adrenal glands producing testosterone basically, like your balls are essentially non-functional.

Joe Rogan 29:01 But explain this then. If that's the case, then how would he per- perform well? Because if his... I- if he's going into a fight with his testosterone that low...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 29:10 'Cause if you have a drug that's suppressing your system, the drug you're taking presumably is what is driving your performance vectors that you deem useful enough to use in competition. So hypothetically-

Joe Rogan 29:22 Oh...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 29:22 ... if I was using Turinabol, like all those athletes in Russia or whatever using Turinabol, you're gonna have some suppression of your testosterone levels which, you know, on paper could inhibit performance, but you're using the, the drug to drive performance.

Joe Rogan 29:35 Okay.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 29:35 So even though your endogenous levels are lower, you're relying on this compound you're using that you deem useful enough to dope with potentially.

Joe Rogan 29:45 So here's my question. If they're using a test that's sophisticated enough to detect that he has these very low testosterone levels and he has this pulsing of Turinabol, like where is the room for this compound that's gonna significantly increase his performance?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 30:03 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.

Joe Rogan 30:32 Okay, so then we're talking about something like the Balco Clear, that kind of a deal?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 30:36 Potentially.

Joe Rogan 30:37 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 30:47 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:47 ... and all these different athletes. Undetectable, you rub it on your skin, and no one knew what it was.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 30:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:52 We think, "Oh, well, they caught that guy. They're more sophisticated now. You can't get away with that now."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 30:56 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:57 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?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 31:11 Uh, yes, like-

Joe Rogan 31:12 Like the Clear.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 31:12 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.

Joe Rogan 33:00 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 33:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:13 ... compound.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 33:15 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-

Joe Rogan 33:48 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?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 33:55 Yeah, like I have studies that I could pull out that-

Joe Rogan 33:58 Please do.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 33:59 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.

Joe Rogan 34:33 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 34:33 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.

Joe Rogan 35:00 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 35:09 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.

Joe Rogan 35:26 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 35:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:27 So this is just rare genetic anomalies?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 35:29 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.

Joe Rogan 36:15 That's crazy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:16 (laughs) So wh- what do they do if they find out that that person has that gene?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:21 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.

Joe Rogan 36:34 Oh.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:35 God, Tim, this is complicated. How do you ... W- what was your background in school?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:40 Uh, marketing. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:41 Marketing?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:43 And how did you-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:43 Which w- I r- was not useful whatsoever.

Joe Rogan 36:45 How do you know so much about this stuff?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:47 Just a fucking nerd, dude. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 36:49 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:51 So you just started reading it and getting-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:52 ... into it, and you have just an ability to remember these things?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 36:55 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.

Joe Rogan 37:04 You used to be, you used to be gigantic.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:05 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:05 You used to do your sh- your shows in a tank top, and you were-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:08 ... you had these fucking worlds on your shoulders, like moons.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:11 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.

Joe Rogan 37:19 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:19 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.

Joe Rogan 37:34 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:34 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.

Joe Rogan 37:41 I find it interesting too, but I prefer to just listen to you talk about it-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:44 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 37:44 ... and do my own research. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:46 It's way easier. You know, we were, uh, talking before the podcast about, uh, athletes and actors and, and-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:53 ... and people who are carrying massive amounts of weight, and, like, what kind of a toll that takes on your body-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 37:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:59 ... if you're a 300-pound, you know, 8% body fat guy who's 50.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:05 Yep, yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:06 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:07 No, yeah, there's a lot of, uh, a lot of guys that, you know, just don't talk about it. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:13 I think it's weird that they don't talk about it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:15 Yeah, like, I-

Joe Rogan 38:16 I don't get it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:16 ... 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-

Joe Rogan 38:29 Right. Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:29 ... you know, if you're walking around at fucking The Rock size, essentially.

Joe Rogan 38:33 Mm-hmm. Yeah, The Rock's a great example, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:35 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:42 No.

Joe Rogan 38:42 ... there's anything wrong with talking about doing mushrooms or smoking weed or-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:46 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?

Joe Rogan 38:53 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:53 Yeah. And he was like, "You think The Rock's on steroids?"

Joe Rogan 38:56 Oh, my God.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:56 And you guys are like, "What the fuck do you think, dude?"

Joe Rogan 38:59 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 38:59 And he's like, "Really? There's no way. Don't they test in the-"

Joe Rogan 39:02 Well-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:02 "... in wrestling?"

Joe Rogan 39:03 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:14 You know? Like, he is that guy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:16 He fucking loves it. So, like, for you to tell him that those guys are on steroids, he'd be like, "What?"

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:22 But he hangs around you guys, and he still, you know-

Joe Rogan 39:25 I know.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:26 ... at least has some sort of an inkling of perhaps, you know, people who use testosterone for, you know, medical uses and this and that.

Joe Rogan 39:33 I think he uses it now.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:34 Yeah. And he still, you know, thought that-

Joe Rogan 39:36 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:36 ... perspective. So you imagine-

Joe Rogan 39:37 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:38 ... the layman who just, random person-

Joe Rogan 39:40 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:40 ... anyone who just watches a random The Rock movie-

Joe Rogan 39:42 Yes.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:42 ... is gonna, you know, just think, "Oh, this guy just fucking trains hard." His, uh ... He's-

Joe Rogan 39:47 He definitely does train hard, but-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:48 Oh, he does. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 39:49 ... there's a lot of other shit involved as well.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:51 Yeah. N- never ... I think a lot of the time people don't want people to downplay their hard work.

Joe Rogan 39:58 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 39:58 So they don't wanna admit it. Like, even-

Joe Rogan 40:00 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:00 ... bodybuilders who couldn't argue out of taking stuff 'cause it's so obvious, they often will do this thing where they say the doses they use are lower, 'cause then it, you know, doesn't take away from the fact that they still train hard, they eat perfect-

Joe Rogan 40:13 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:13 ... you know, they're so-

Joe Rogan 40:14 ... Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:14 ... meticulous about their sleep, et cetera. Which, like, I sort of understand, but it's like, it's all fucking lying at all levels-

Joe Rogan 40:20 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:21 ... ultimately.

Joe Rogan 40:21 It's just not worth it. Oh, especially when it comes to testosterone replacement therapy, because for me, I am ... I'm a person where if I find something that's beneficial, I wanna tell everybody.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:32 Like, if I find something that works great for me, I just tell everybody.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:35 I just ... And also, like, my business, it's kind of okay to be a buffoon.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:42 You know?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:42 It actually helps me. It helps-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:44 ... me to be a moron.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:45 You know? It really does. It's, uh, it's beneficial, especially if you're a self-admitted moron.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:50 Like, it, it's like a nice, uh, parachute that you could pull any time.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:54 Oh, yeah, it gives you a nice little drop out.

Joe Rogan 40:55 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 40:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:56 So, when I talk about it, first of all, I talk about it because everything that I find beneficial, I feel like I have a, a, a obligation-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:04 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:04 ... to tell people. And the thing about the testosterone thing, it's like, I think it comes back from the Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, those guys getting caught doing steroids and everybody was so disappointed in-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:18 ... you know, in baseball in particular, that was such a big deal.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:21 If you got caught using steroids, or in the Olympics or anything else, like, "My God-"

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:27 "... you're a cheater."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:28 And I'm like, "Okay." I want you to think about this. Why are they doing that stuff? Well, they're doing that stuff 'cause it works.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:35 Well, you don't ... Y- y- you're not competing in the Olympics, okay?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:39 It's not like there's some sort of a sanctioned competition where you have an unfair advantage over other people because you're taking testosterone replacement therapy and the normal 50-year-old guy is not.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:48 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:49 Like, what are you doing?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:51 And, e- what do you think is gonna happen in 10 years from now? Well, 10 years from now, you're gonna have another 10 years of low testosterone.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 41:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:57 So during that time, you'll have significant breakdown of your tendon strength, muscle tissue, bone density. There's a lot of shit's gonna go wrong, man. Or not.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:08 Or not.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:09 You know? And, like, that's why I always tell people, like, I'm your poster boy. Like, I'll-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:13 ... I'll tell you what's go- I'll, I'll tell you what I'm taking.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:16 I'll tell you how it works. I don't take a lot of stuff.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:19 But I, I take it on a r- regular basis. I get my blood work done on a regular basis, and I'm fucking super healthy. Like, it works. Like, when I was a kid, when you were 54 years old, you were fucking dead.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:31 You were a dead man.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:32 You weren't swinging kettlebells and hitting the bag and doing rounds and doing jujitsu and swimming and fucking working out like a crazy person, but you can do that now.... you, you can do that now. You get your heart checked, everything's great, you're looking healthy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:44 That's possible today.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:46 Yeah, I think the longevity of pro athletes has definitely become a bit more, uh... Like, it seems like their careers are being extended a little bit too, and I ima-

Joe Rogan 42:54 For sure.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 42:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:55 But I think some of it is natural because of science, the understanding of nutrition and supplementation, hyperbaric chambers, all the things that are legal-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:04 ... that people do implement. I mean, there's a lot of legal things that you can do that can change your hormone profile. Sauna's a big one. You know, there's, there's a lot of different things that people do that do have, like, a measurable effect on your ability to recover, your ability, y- your ability to, uh, you know, your endocrine system to function correctly. Sleep, people know how valuable sleep is now.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:28 Where it's literally like a performance-enhancing drug. Like, people that work, th- that sleep four hours a day versus people that sleep eight hours a day, the markers are fucking astonishing.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:37 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?

Joe Rogan 43:44 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:44 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.

Joe Rogan 43:49 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:49 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-

Joe Rogan 43:59 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 43:59 ... high-energy dude. And you're just like, "Never fucking sleep, just, you know, kill it."

Joe Rogan 44:04 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:04 And nowadays, you know how deleterious that is to just, like, everything, including your actual efficiency when you're awake.

Joe Rogan 44:10 It's a big deal for me.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:12 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:19 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:20 I'm wrecked.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:20 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:21 My, my brain is, like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:22 ... firing on six cylinders.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:23 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:38 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:38 ... and I had to be (laughs) you know what I mean?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:39 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:51 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-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 44:59 Two shows?

Joe Rogan 44:59 ... something, something easy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:00 That must be-

Joe Rogan 45:00 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:00 ... fucking insane.

Joe Rogan 45:02 Yeah. It's, like, uh...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:04 'Cause they're at nighttime too-

Joe Rogan 45:06 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:06 ... which is, like, at the tail end of the day where your brain is at the lowest part, right?

Joe Rogan 45:10 I used to do three shows. Three shows are rough because the third show, you don't remember what the fuck you've said.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:15 Because you... Th- they all blend into each other.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:18 'Cause it's like when you're on stage doing standup, it's almost like you're in a trance.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:22 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?"

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:28 Especially if you don't have a rigid, um, uh, like, set list-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:32 ... 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:37 Do you have, like, a cognitive stack you use for-

Joe Rogan 45:40 Yes.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:40 ... shows?

Joe Rogan 45:41 Yes. Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:42 What, what is it?

Joe Rogan 45:42 I have a bunch of stuff. Um, one, I really like this NeuroGum.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:46 Okay.

Joe Rogan 45:46 You, you ever use that stuff?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 45:47 I think it rings a bell.

Joe Rogan 45:49 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 46:00 I'll give you some of it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:01 Awesome.

Joe Rogan 46:02 Take it. Oh, I'll give you a, a fresh one. That's my bottle.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:05 Yeah, I actually formulate nootropics for my company too, so this stuff highly interests me.

Joe Rogan 46:08 What do you use? What di- what are your, uh... What's your stack that you formulate?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:12 Um, the company I have, it's called Gorilla Mind, and the product is basically based around probably a lot of the same stuff, but cholinergics mainly.

Joe Rogan 46:21 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:21 So having-

Joe Rogan 46:21 Acetylcholine.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:22 Yeah. So having Alpha GPC, I find the most bioavailable form of choline that actually crosses the blood-brain barrier and then acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that inhibit the breakdown of acetylcholine. So you could use, like, Huperzine A is a good one.

Joe Rogan 46:33 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:34 And I have things like ginkgo, bacopa, stuff like that. And then dopamine precursors, I like to put in there too. And basically, just have it so your brain is as mentally sharp, capable of retaining information, uh, memory formation's at its peak, all that kind of stuff. It's-

Joe Rogan 46:51 What's your product called?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:52 Gorilla Mind.

Joe Rogan 46:53 Gor- oh, it's called Gorilla Mind.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:54 Um, so do you take this, uh, before podcasts, before you do your video podcast?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 46:59 Yeah, I take it pretty much every day.

Joe Rogan 47:01 And do you take it... What... Like, say, if you want to do something and be at your peak, do you take it an hour, two hours before? What's your...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:07 Um, for me, yeah, I'll usually do, like, an hour beforehand-ish.

Joe Rogan 47:11 Yeah. That's, I do-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:12 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-

Joe Rogan 47:27 What have you done for your sleep apnea?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:28 CPAP.

Joe Rogan 47:29 Oh man, those things suck, don't they?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:32 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-

Joe Rogan 47:40 I have a mouthpiece that I wear that keeps my tongue from falling back.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:44 Oh.

Joe Rogan 47:44 Like, a lot of the thick-neck guys like you and I-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:46 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:47 What happens is your tongue, like, falls back 'cause you have all this extra tissue around your neck.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 47:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:52 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:02 Oh, nice.

Joe Rogan 48:02 It's amazing.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:03 Yeah, I think, uh, that's one of the most overlooked silent killers of muscular guys.

Joe Rogan 48:09 Yes.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:09 And fat people.

Joe Rogan 48:10 Yep.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:11 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:11 'Cause you don't even know you're getting fucked up in your sleep.

Joe Rogan 48:14 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:14 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.

Joe Rogan 48:23 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:23 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.

Joe Rogan 48:29 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:29 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.

Joe Rogan 48:42 So, when you got this machine, did you struggle to sleep with it on your face for a while?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:47 (laughs) Well, when you first start, yeah, 'cause you're, you're not used to something blowing air into your airway-

Joe Rogan 48:52 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:52 ... and strapped to your head. So I'd often wake up and just be fucking, like, chucked across the room-

Joe Rogan 48:56 Exactly.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 48:56 ... or whatever. But some people, they don't get used to it. Like, they don't try to get used to it. They just do it a couple nights, and they say, "This thing sucks. Who wants this?" And, you know, some single guys have this idea that girls are gonna think it's weird and shit when you-

Joe Rogan 49:09 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:09 ... show up and you have the CPAP machine. Um ...

Joe Rogan 49:12 (laughs) It is kinda weird.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:14 I've never had, I've never had experience with that, though, personally.

Joe Rogan 49:15 So when you go over a girl's house, you're gonna spend the night, you bring, like, a vacuum cleaner with you? (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:20 Yeah. Yeah. And that's the thing too is, like, it's kind of, uh, presumptuous 'cause if a chick... You can't really get around implying you think you're gonna be staying at her place with a new chick if you have a fucking machine in your car-

Joe Rogan 49:34 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:34 ... that blows air. You know? Just like-

Joe Rogan 49:36 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:36 ... "What's this thing for?" Like, "Do you think that this is, like..."

Joe Rogan 49:39 Right, right, right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:40 If she wants to snuggle, and you're over there like Darth Vader. (imitates snoring)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:43 Yeah. But other, if you don't do that, then you're literally gonna be choking in her face.

Joe Rogan 49:47 Right, right, right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:48 So, you pick.

Joe Rogan 49:49 Yeah, yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:49 And one of them kills you quick, and one of them keeps you alive.

Joe Rogan 49:52 And how much of a difference did it make once you started using it?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:54 Night and day.

Joe Rogan 49:55 Night and day?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:56 Energy levels?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:57 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:58 Everything?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 49:58 Like, I wore a pulse oximeter, and that's how you assess if you have sleep apnea or not. And if you are even, like, a, a healthy guy otherwise, and you're lean, even if you're fucking shredded, if you're a big guy, highly recommend a sleep study to anyone 'cause it's-

Joe Rogan 50:13 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 50:13 ... something that even sometimes significant others, they may just think you're a horrible snorer.

Joe Rogan 50:17 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 50:18 And they think you're, they just go in another room maybe to get away from you, and they just think that's how you sleep, and you're just annoying and loud. But you might literally be dying in your sleep, gasping for air. Like, I used to wake up, sit up, and gasp for air 'cause I was literally at the point of about to pass out, and my body wakes me up and makes me breathe.

Joe Rogan 50:34 Yeah. I, I had been there too.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 50:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:36 I remember I was on a plane once, and, um, uh, there was a guy behind me. It was a long flight. I think it was an international flight. And there was a guy behind me. He was a big guy, very overweight, and he was holding his breath, choking for, like, 15, 20 seconds at a time. So he's like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 50:52 Damn.

Joe Rogan 50:53 ... laying back, like ... (choking sound)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 50:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:58 And then, um, he gets up eventually. I go, "Hey, man." I go, "Do you know that you choke in your sleep?" He's like, "What? Do I?"

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:06 "What do you mean?" I go, "You have sleep apnea."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:08 I go, "Listen to me. I have sleep apnea too. You gotta listen to me. You gotta go to a doctor." I go, "This is fucking you up." I go, "You tired all the time?" He's like, "Oh my God, I'm tired all the time." I go, "That's why."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:18 "You're not getting any sleep." It was wild to watch someone. How often do you get to watch a guy sleep? You know?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:23 But on a plane, you watch people sleep.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:25 I recorded myself before I got diagnosed, when I finally knew what this was. And I listened to the audio, and it was terrifying, dude.

Joe Rogan 51:34 (choking sound)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:34 Yeah. You're just sitting there, and all of sudden, you're like, like, literally gasping.

Joe Rogan 51:38 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:39 There's ways you could sleep where it's not as bad, right? Like, if you sleep on your side. Or I always felt like one of those massage tables would be the move.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:47 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:47 Like, sleep with your face-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:48 So you could lie on your face? Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:50 Yeah, sleep with your-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:50 'Cause I can't, I... With the mask thing, I can't lie on my stomach like I used to 'cause the thing will get pushed out of my airway.

Joe Rogan 51:56 Right, right. So you have to-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 51:57 So yeah, that might not be a bad idea.

Joe Rogan 51:58 How do you lie? Sideways?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:00 On my back.

Joe Rogan 52:01 On your back?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:01 Which gets annoying 'cause sometimes you wanna roll on your side, and then it can be-

Joe Rogan 52:05 And you can't?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:05 You can, but it's like some-

Joe Rogan 52:07 It knocks off your face?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:07 Sometimes it... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:08 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:09 You, you could use the full face mask, which is pretty much impossible to knock off, but, um, that makes, like, a bunch of lines on your face, and it encourages mouth breathing, which otherwise is... There's, like, research that's come out that implies that's bad for performance and just longevity and whatnot, so...

Joe Rogan 52:23 Yeah. Mouth breathing's supposed to be bad for you.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:25 Does your sleep apnea change if you, if you breathe out of your nose?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:30 Um, like, when I, if I use a nose mask for, versus a face one?

Joe Rogan 52:34 Yeah. Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:35 No, the quality is the same 'cause it's manually putting the amount of pressure I need to oxygenate me. But it encourages that subconscious mouth breathing-

Joe Rogan 52:46 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:46 ... that otherwise carries into your day.

Joe Rogan 52:48 So you use a, a nose one?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:51 And so what does it look like?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 52:53 Um, it's just, like, a big, long tube that connects to the machine that's on the ground, and then it has this, uh, just, like, a strap that goes on your head up here. It's a pretty thin strap here and here. It has these little nasal pillows that you just, like, put into your nose. And it's maybe, like, this big.

Joe Rogan 53:09 And do you tape your mouth shut?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:11 I used to. But it's, uh, the tape never, like, adhered properly to me.

Joe Rogan 53:17 Me neither. Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:18 It always fell off. And I always wondered, like, how the fuck does anyone use this stuff?

Joe Rogan 53:21 I think it's a beard thing. That's what I would guess.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:22 Yeah, but even when I was clean-shaven, it didn't work for me.

Joe Rogan 53:24 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:26 Maybe try duct tape.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:27 Yeah. I, I was con-

Joe Rogan 53:27 Try some serious tape. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:29 I actually... Okay, I actually use this thing now. I just remembered actually. It's called a... And, like, it... So I have the strap for the CPAP mask, which is the nose thing, and then I have another strap that goes around my chin to keep it locked 'cause-

Joe Rogan 53:40 Oh, to keep your mouth shut. I've seen those.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:41 Yeah, 'cause the, uh, the tape wasn't working, so I looked for, like, a chinstrap.

Joe Rogan 53:45 How do those work?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:46 It just ties around your head. So you have a strap here, a strap here.

Joe Rogan 53:49 Yeah, no, I know how it works, but I mean, how, like, how effective is it?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:52 Very.

Joe Rogan 53:52 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:53 Yeah, and it's, I find it better than tape.

Joe Rogan 53:55 Oh, so that's your move now? Chinstrap.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:57 Nose plug.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:59 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 53:59 So it's quite the fucking setup. And it does, it does look ridiculous, so I can see why some guys don't wanna do it, especially, you know, around women. But ultimately, like, they'll understand if they like you enough, so...

Joe Rogan 54:10 Changes your life, though, ultimately.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:12 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:12 Yeah. It is a, it is a big game-changer. I remember, I was always tired, and then I got it done. Well, two things I got done. One, I got my nose fixed. I had a deviated septum most of my life.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:22 I've highly considered getting that fixed too based on what you said.

Joe Rogan 54:26 It-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:26 'Cause you said it was very significant.

Joe Rogan 54:28 Oh, my God, it changed everything.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:30 There were so many people that warned me about empty nose syndrome and, like, weird shit that might happen when you do it.

Joe Rogan 54:36 What's that mean?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:37 Apparently, when you, uh ... Or is that ... No, that's for a turbinate reduction. So for me-

Joe Rogan 54:42 I had, I got turbinate reduction.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:43 Yeah. So that, apparently, if it's, like, too dramatic, it gets to a point where you can't even, like, feel the inside of your nose or something, and it feels-

Joe Rogan 54:51 Oh.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 54:51 ... like it's empty, 'cause all the stuff in there is just gone, and app- I can't imagine, like, what it's like, 'cause it's never happened to me, but people say it's the worst thing ever and it makes them suicidal from how it feels.

Joe Rogan 55:04 What?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:04 Yeah. There's some, like, real weird YouTube videos about guys talking about how they got their deviated septum fixed and the turbinate reduction and their lives have been ruined.

Joe Rogan 55:12 Whoa.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:13 Yeah. Yeah. So it made me look at that and think a little bit.

Joe Rogan 55:15 Empty nose syndrome. Like, you feel like there's a hole in the middle of your face? Like that kind of a deal?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:20 Maybe. (laughs) I don't know.

Joe Rogan 55:22 Spea- speaking of which-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:23 ... do you ever follow any of these guys that do, like, wild body modification projects?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:28 Uh, I've s- yes. Over the years, I've probably done, uh, videos on a few of them. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:33 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?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:38 Maybe. I might have.

Joe Rogan 55:39 Jamie.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:41 Go to the Instagram and look up the Black Alien Project. This guy recently just got two of his fingers removed.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:47 Oh.

Joe Rogan 55:47 So he can turn one of his hands into a claw.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 55:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:49 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?

Narrator 55:57 He says France.

Joe Rogan 55:58 France. So his entire body's covered in tattoos. Look at him.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:01 Jesus fuck.

Joe Rogan 56:02 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:22 Fuck.

Joe Rogan 56:22 Yeah. That's what his hand looks like now.

Narrator 56:25 What the fuck?

Joe Rogan 56:25 Yeah, what the fuck?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:26 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?

Joe Rogan 56:40 I don't know if you can.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:43 Yeah?

Joe Rogan 56:43 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:54 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:54 Um, well, also, like, what kind of a fucking doctor removes your fingers?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 56:57 And how expensive is this too? Like imagine the amount of resources of your income you're allocating-

Joe Rogan 57:02 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:02 ... towards these procedures with the amount of shit he's done.

Joe Rogan 57:04 The thing about the, the removing the fingers too is, like, how ethical is that? If you're a doctor-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:09 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:09 ... and you're removing fully functional fingers.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:11 Must be, like, an elaborate thing you have to sign.

Joe Rogan 57:14 I, I mean, maybe. He's in France. Maybe they don't give a fuck over there.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:18 (laughs) Maybe. I don't know.

Joe Rogan 57:19 You have a croissant and sit down. We're gonna cut your fingers off.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:21 I've seen the real life Ken doll. He looks like a human still, but-

Joe Rogan 57:25 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:25 ... he-

Joe Rogan 57:26 That is bizarre.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:28 And he doesn't look anything like Ken at the end of the day.

Joe Rogan 57:31 No. No.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:31 But he has, like, fake abs, fake chest, fake everything, and-

Joe Rogan 57:35 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:35 ...

Narrator 57:35 What you're looking at there.

Joe Rogan 57:35 So that was what the guy used to look like. He was a handsome guy, which is crazy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:39 Yeah, it's wild.

Joe Rogan 57:40 Look at him. He's a fucking good-looking guy. And then now he's this freak. Oh, Jesus, look at that picture.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:46 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Like, what is he doing with his lips? Is that new?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:49 (laughs)

Narrator 57:50 Wow, that's, that's crazy.

Joe Rogan 57:51 Look what he used to look like.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 57:53 Let me do it.

Joe Rogan 57:53 He's a good-looking dude. Like, I, I gotta imagine there's, like ... There's body dysmorphia involved in that. I mean, this is some armchair psychology here. Whoa. What is that?

Narrator 58:03 That's what he's getting the claw tattooed into, I think. This is, uh, from his Instagram story, it looks like.

Joe Rogan 58:08 So before and after. So he got the fingers removed, so now is he gonna get the bones removed that are at the base of the hand to make it look like that? Like, that's the only way he's gonna achieve that look.

Narrator 58:21 Uh, he must have.

Joe Rogan 58:22 Oh, criminy.

Narrator 58:24 Woof.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 58:25 (laughs)

Narrator 58:25 All right.

Joe Rogan 58:25 Okay. Black Alien Project Evolution. It says 25%.

Narrator 58:29 Is this Kickstarter?

Joe Rogan 58:30 So now he's at before and ... He's got a Kickstarter-

Narrator 58:33 No, I'm always asking.

Joe Rogan 58:33 ... so you can help him pay?

Narrator 58:35 I was asking. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 58:35 Oh my God.

Narrator 58:35 I don't know like what-

Joe Rogan 58:36 No.

Narrator 58:36 ... what this is about.

Joe Rogan 58:37 Is that real?

Narrator 58:37 No, no, no. I was just wondering.

Joe Rogan 58:38 It's not a Kickstarter?

Narrator 58:39 No.

Joe Rogan 58:39 Um, so I guess he wants to not just remove those last two fingers, but remove all the bones that connect to the wrist from the actual palm of the hand.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 58:50 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 58:51 Look at that face. That's so crazy, dude.

Narrator 58:53 Has he got a bra on?

Joe Rogan 58:55 Sure he's got a bra on. Super bra. It says bra.

Narrator 58:59 (laughs) All right.

Joe Rogan 59:00 (laughs) See, that's the ... Jamie's, like, looking at all the weird shit about it and was like-

Narrator 59:04 That's what-

Joe Rogan 59:04 ... "Hey, is that a bra on?" (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 59:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:06 Outta all the weird shit this guy's got, only the bras would freak you out. Yeah. The, that ... Body dysmorphia is a very strange anomaly. Like, um, I was in, uh, Hawaii last week, and there was this one lady that came out of the water. And, uh, we were looking at her like, "Oh my God, this poor lady. Like, what does she think she looks like?" She was a skeleton.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 59:30 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 59:31 Like, there, there's no question at all that this lady had some sort of anorexia. So she was walking around like, like a skeleton.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 59:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:38 It was, it was disturbing as fuck, 'cause, like, she probably thinks she looks good. Or maybe she even thinks she looks fat.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 59:45 Yeah, there's this girl on YouTube. Her name's, like, Eugenia Cooney. I don't know if you've ever seen her before.

Joe Rogan 59:49 No.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 59:49 But she has ... She's probably the biggest YouTuber who's anorexic, I guess, and just her entire comments section is inundated with people saying, like, "This is bad. Gain weight. You look-" You know.

Joe Rogan 1:00:01 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:01 "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."

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 Does she read it?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:20 She's aw- she must be very aware of how people think about it, 'cause people make videos about it all the time too.

Joe Rogan 1:00:26 About her being skinny?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:39 Oh my God.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:41 See, look at all the comments, just the top ones.

Joe Rogan 1:00:46 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.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:00:59 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-

Joe Rogan 1:01:12 Is this her first video? No, that's 2021. Goddammit, dude.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:14 Dude, they took away dislikes, which is fucking ridiculous, but-

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 Isn't that weird?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:17 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.

Joe Rogan 1:01:26 So, that's her first videos.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:27 2013.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 That's pretty thin.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 But fairly normal.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:31 So, at that point you're like-

Joe Rogan 1:01:32 She's just a skinny girl.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:34 Yeah, at that point you're like, okay, you're like borderline emaciated.

Joe Rogan 1:01:38 Yeah, well, she's pretty fucking emaciated.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 Look how tiny her legs are. God, that's crazy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:43 Yeah. And then-

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 Imagine walking around like that.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:44 No, it looks like you're just gonna fucking snap and fall over.

Joe Rogan 1:01:47 Yeah, like a good breeze.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:48 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 But at least it looks like she eats a little.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:52 Whereas now she looks like she's genuinely starving to death.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:01:55 Yeah, so if you sort by ... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:57 God, now she looks like ... Like, poor girl. And that's, it's a disease. It's, uh, very similar to what bodybuilders have or what, what women have when they get like Triple J tits.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:08 You know, when they go off the deep end and they just keep getting bigger and bigger implants and then they crush beer cans with them and shit.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:13 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:14 You see those?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:15 Yeah. With bodybuilders it's wild, too, 'cause it's almost like the opposite extreme where you, you actually are aware you're killing yourself very quickly while you're doing it.

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 Oh.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:24 Yeah. Like you still walk, want to walk around at like 260 plus, even though you know how stressful it is on all your organ systems, your heart.

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 You just want to look jacked.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:33 Above all.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:34 Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:02:35 It's such a strange thing. And some guys, some guys like Dorian Yates, they get out of bodybuilding and then-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:41 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:42 ... they become healthy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:42 I commend guys like that-

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:45 ... so much who had ... 'Cause it's one thing to realize something is unhealthy and fix it, but when your entire persona is built around this physique, and you're like superhuman, to watch it literally disintegrate and be mentally okay with it-

Joe Rogan 1:02:59 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:02:59 ... that takes like a very strong, like, willpower, in my opinion.

Joe Rogan 1:03:03 Well, it, it's a shift of perception and consciousness, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:06 Because you can no longer think of yourself as this gorilla.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:09 You have to think of yourself as a normal human. I'm a normal human now. Like, Dorian has a great perspective. He's a really interesting guy. Have you ever talked to him?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:17 No. I've seen your episodes with him in them.

Joe Rogan 1:03:18 He was great. I really enjoyed talking to him. He's super down to earth, really easy to talk to.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:24 And, you know, he basically, uh, his mindset was when he was a bodybuilder, he was gonna work harder than anybody. He was just gonna get fucking massive, just absolutely enormous and huge, crush everybody, and then when he was done he's like, "All right, fuck this. I'm done with this." He wants to be a regular person now.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:39 Yeah, that's wild, being able to shift your perspective that dramatically-

Joe Rogan 1:03:42 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:42 ... where you're like, the physique is just for competing.

Joe Rogan 1:03:44 Yep.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:45 And you can't get away from the comments of people saying you're smaller, too.

Joe Rogan 1:03:48 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:48 Like even, even for me in my comments section, if it's, you know, the difference between me at peak versus now, it's, "Oh, Derek, you stopped caring about muscle. Oh, what happened?"

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:03:58 And it's like, it's not like I was a bodybuilder level competing at a, you know, a pro level or anything like that, and he was literally the pinnacle of the sport. 260, 70, fucking shredded.

Joe Rogan 1:04:08 He was one of the biggest ever.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:09 Yeah, and he lost-

Joe Rogan 1:04:10 He was so massive.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:11 Yeah, and he lost like 70 pounds or something insane.

Joe Rogan 1:04:14 Yeah. He looks like a normal athlete now.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:16 Like a normal guy who's athletic.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:18 But he's, he's got a lot of fl- like muscle problems, joint problems, shoulder pr- his shoulders are kind of fucked. It's like ... These guys, they all get ... The worst I've ever seen, though, is Ronnie Coleman.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:26 Oh, yeah, this guy's-

Joe Rogan 1:04:27 Who's-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:28 ... done, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:29 ... a fucking great guy. He's the be- He's got a great attitude about it all.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 Like, uh, always, uh, like, you know, they always say, "Ronnie, would you do anything differently?" "Yeah, I'd lift more weights."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:39 Like-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:40 He doesn't have any re- regrets at all.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:42 And I think he said at one point in time ... I forget the number of actual back surgeries, but it's very high. It's more than 10, I believe.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:04:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:51 And his whole ba- his whole back is essentially fused and there's massive scar tissue and inflammation. He has trouble walking. And, you know, the, the nerves are all like impinged and it's all fucked.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:02 See, that's the brutal thing, too, when you get to that size is, progressive overload. You get to a point where you're forced to use weights that are so exorbitant to overload, 'cause you're way too strong, that it's impossible to not literally fucking dismantle your entire infrastructure while you're supporting those loads, 'cause you're-

Joe Rogan 1:05:19 (sighs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:19 ... though you're squatting, you know, hundreds and hundreds of pounds, benching hundreds and hundreds, doing this and this. And like your bones can't just-

Joe Rogan 1:05:27 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:27 ... you know, just adapt and be totally fine.

Joe Rogan 1:05:29 And your disks.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:30 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:30 And your tendons and the, the cartilage-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:33 ... in your shoulders and the, your labrums, all just, everything's getting destroyed.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:37 It's so crazy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:39 And they can't fucking help it. They just fucking, "Yeah."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:44 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:44 Like that Rich Piana guy.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:46 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:46 That was a wild one, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:48 The guys who try to retain their size going like 40 plus-

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 Mm-hmm.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:52 ... almost always end up kicking the can-

Joe Rogan 1:05:55 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:55 ... real quick.

Joe Rogan 1:05:56 He was big.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:05:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:58 And weird, right? Because he's not really a bodybuil- a professional bodybuilder, right?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:02 He tried competing to become a pro, and he just doesn't have the genetics from a structural aspect. So even though he's a massive fucking dude on stage, he doesn't, you know, have the proportions, the symmetry, et cetera, to make it far, but he just loves, loved the lifestyle so much that ... And his brand was built around it. Again, the problem of being one of these guys-

Joe Rogan 1:06:21 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:22 ... like The Rock, where your entire persona is built around your presence, and you just end up retaining it into an age where you can no longer support the drug use, the body weight, et cetera, and ...

Joe Rogan 1:06:33 Yeah. Like what else do you do when you're a 300 pound tattooed up bodybuilder guy-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:40 ... and everybody's like, "Dude, you're a freak. You're a freak."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:43 Like everything was, he was a freak.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:45 You know? Is there videos of him competing?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:47 Yeah, if you type in Rich Piana, uh, bodybuilding competition, you'll probably find him competing. I think it was like a California state show or something.

Joe Rogan 1:06:55 Was he all tattooed up back then, or was he-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:06:57 Not as much, no. And he didn't have the PMMA injections yet.

Joe Rogan 1:07:00 What's that mean?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:01 He got like implants in his arms, I think.

Joe Rogan 1:07:03 What?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:05 Oh, so that's him bodybuilding?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:07 He looked pretty fucking good.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:08 Yeah, if you click, uh, that Reddit one, second to the left in the second row. That one. Like, that's pretty solid, dude.

Joe Rogan 1:07:14 Yeah, man.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:15 He looked great.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:16 Yeah. But then if you, uh, look at more -

Joe Rogan 1:07:18 Well, what, what's, but what's wrong with his genetics there? That looks like ...

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:21 Um, well ...

Joe Rogan 1:07:23 Oh.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:23 When he's on stage, it's just, uh, you know, could be conditioning, could be the lack of a developed back. Like, there's a million reasons why he might not go pro, but that's his arms, you know, post implants in Mexico, apparently.

Joe Rogan 1:07:36 So, he put implants in his arms?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:39 Yeah, apparently.

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 What, what kind of implants is someone ... Like, go down to that lower right. Yeah, that one right there. What's going on with his arms?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:48 It was called a PMMA, I think.

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 PMMA?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:07:53 Yeah. You'd have to Google that, 'cause I forget exactly what it is, but that, uh, that is, uh, what I think he had done.

Joe Rogan 1:08:01 Bro, he's -

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:01 At least that's the circulating rumor.

Joe Rogan 1:08:03 It looks like he's constantly about to take a shit. (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:08:07 Like ... (groans)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:08 Look at that. So w- when, what do they do, in terms of, like, putting an implant in your arm? It's like plastic or what is it?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:17 Um.

Joe Rogan 1:08:17 Like a breast implant type thing?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:20 Probably, but I'd be talking out my ass, so you might want to just type in PMMA (laughs) and see-

Joe Rogan 1:08:24 P-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:24 See what it is on, uh, the Google result.

Joe Rogan 1:08:28 What is that? Is that a, a ...

Narrator 1:08:29 That was a picture on Twitter.

Joe Rogan 1:08:30 Is that a picture of before and after?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:32 Or maybe just type in, "What is PMMA?"

Joe Rogan 1:08:34 But that, Jamie, if you just back up to where you just were. It said, "Rich Piana's girlfriend shows pictures before PMMA oil." Oh, it's oil. Like Synthol.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:44 You have to ... Nah. The g- ... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 No?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:46 I would not trust-

Narrator 1:08:47 Yeah, I was, I was gonna try to find it, yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:48 ... the random person who uploaded that.

Narrator 1:08:50 I was trying to find something that seemed better.

Joe Rogan 1:08:50 Oh, okay.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:08:51 Yeah.

Narrator 1:08:51 I was trying to find something that seemed better.

Joe Rogan 1:08:52 That's the problem with the internet.

Narrator 1:08:54 Uh, I'll do it again real quick.

Joe Rogan 1:08:54 Well, if you lo- if you sc- but before you do that, scroll down real quick. What, where ... Right there, that picture with the tank top. Yeah. That does not look normal.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:01 No.

Joe Rogan 1:09:02 Like, those, those arms-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:04 ... they look f- inflated. Like, the triceps, they don't look normal size.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:09 Yeah, that's what happens when you do, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:09:11 Oil.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:12 Synthol is one thing, where you do inject just sterile oil in such a bolus amount that it eventually stretches the fascia of the muscle, and you can, you know, manipulate the shape of body parts, and a lot of pro bodybuilders do it. But PMMA is literally, like, a, a filler, apparently.

Joe Rogan 1:09:28 So, there's the, the, the term. What do, how do you say that? Polymethylmethacrylate? Is that it?

Narrator 1:09:39 I think so.

Joe Rogan 1:09:40 Jamie, help me out here.

Narrator 1:09:40 I think you hit all those syllables there.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:41 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:41 If you go to PMMA before and after, maybe we'll see, like, other examples of what people use it for on images.

Narrator 1:09:48 Penile girth, it said.

Joe Rogan 1:09:49 Whoops. They use it in their dicks?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:51 Yeah, get a fat hog, bro.

Joe Rogan 1:09:52 Woo.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:52 Just put that PMMA in it.

Narrator 1:09:53 Make sure we get the right picture.

Joe Rogan 1:09:54 You get your fat booty, too.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:09:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:09:55 Look at that. That girl's getting it in her booty. Oh my God. I, I watched some, uh, video that was horrific, of this woman who had ass cancer.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:04 (laughs) Oh my God.

Joe Rogan 1:10:04 That she got from, she got it from butt implants.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:07 Some chick died recently, some mega influencer, who got butt implants.

Joe Rogan 1:10:11 Really?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:12 She ... Look at that. Oh, God.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:14 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:15 Removal of silicone hydrogel biopolymer Synthol. Oh my God, her ass rejected it, and there's just rotting-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:25 ... necrotic tissue.

Narrator 1:10:26 I'm not showing that picture, by the way, just-

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 Don't show that picture.

Narrator 1:10:28 ... a warning.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:28 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:28 But show that one next to it with that booty, with that girl's on the ... Like, right there. Maybe it's worth it.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:32 (laughs) I, I find they look disproportionately, like, out of balance, to a point-

Joe Rogan 1:10:38 It is.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:38 ... that it's not ... You know.

Joe Rogan 1:10:40 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:40 You can tell something's fucking off.

Joe Rogan 1:10:41 Well, a girl with a big ass that also has big thighs is hot. That's like a nat- Oh, Jesus.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:47 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:47 What am I looking at there?

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:49 (laughs)

Narrator 1:10:49 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:49 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:50 So that's a girl who's got the injections and had a, a re- ... Body rejected it. Well, now her legs are destroyed. It's just lazy. Just do squats.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:10:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:59 But the thing is, is, like, it takes so long for a woman to develop, like, a big ass and big legs from squatting.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:05 And if they wanna ... So, I could imagine, 'cause some of them just want, like, a fat ass, and to get that amount of size, you might otherwise need to make the rest of your body a size you don't want it to be, to get to that point. So, like-

Joe Rogan 1:11:17 Right.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:17 ... I understand why they might want the injections, but ...

Joe Rogan 1:11:21 Right, you have to get your shoulders bigger, your back bigger.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:23 Yeah, and like, most chicks don't want that. So ...

Joe Rogan 1:11:25 Right. Well, it is weird.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:28 When, when a girl looks like she might be able to wrestle you to the ground.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:32 It's uncomfortable.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:33 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:36 (laughs)

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:36 But a girl with a big ass, like a muscular big ass, and big thighs, is hot.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:40 But when they have a big ass and then they have little legs that don't feel like they can support them, then it looks like a diaper.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:11:46 Like you're wearing a diaper. You have diaper butt.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:49 Yeah, I don't get how they can't tell that it looks ... Like, I guess once you've done it, you're fucked, 'cause you already have it.

Joe Rogan 1:11:54 Yeah, so-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:11:54 So ...

Joe Rogan 1:11:55 I think it's that same thing. It's just body dysmorphia. It's like the, the bodybuilders that don't know how the regular people look at them, and you know, it's like how the anorexic doesn't know.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:12:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:12:05 It's strange. When they start fucking with their face, that's when it gets really weird. Like the saddest thing for me is when chicks do their lips. What's the matter, Jamie?

Narrator 1:12:13 Huh?

Joe Rogan 1:12:14 Oh, I thought you made a noise. (laughs) Sometimes he finds things and you hear, "Oh."

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:12:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:12:19 And then you know you're gonna get a treat.

Narrator 1:12:20 This is, this is a dark place to keep going down. If you guys wanna look, feel free to Google it.

Joe Rogan 1:12:24 Go ahead. Give me one more.

Narrator 1:12:25 Oh, I mean, just-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:12:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:12:26 What else you got?

Narrator 1:12:26 I'm just clicking around. Injections in lips and-

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:12:28 No, the lips one is, I agree, makes a ... I don't ... It's weird, because a lot of the time when you hear girls say what they would love to have done-

Narrator 1:12:36 Yeah.

Derek (More Plates More Dates) 1:12:37 ... you can, you can transparently tell them no guy wants to see that-