Our body's ability to relax, de-stress, recover, and sleep deeply is heavily determined by one area of our body overlooked more often than almost any other — our Microbiome.

This colony of trillions of bacteria living in our large intestine helps produce the calming, relaxing, cortisol-lowering, and sleep-giving neurotransmitters GABA and serotonin.

These bacteria have more to do with our overall health, calmness of mind, nerve function, ability to sleep, ability to burn fat and build muscle, and even our hormones than you might think.

This colony, made up of about 500 different species of bacteria, is called the Microbiome.

But these bacteria, while being fully separate from us, act as if they were an organ unto themselves within our bodies. And what they do, amongst each other and in coordination with the cells in the lining of our colon, is truly extraordinary.

When working out, blood flow is very important for both muscle building and fat loss.

It’s how the nutrients, water and oxygen needed for energy creation and muscle creation flow to our cells.

If our blood flow is lower, our cells do not get these nutrients or oxygen fast enough and our energy levels go down during high intensity workouts.

And it slows recovery.

Achieving healthy blood flow then is important for maximum results and maximum overall health.

We've spoken a lot about hormones on the Lean Body/Lean Bulk Program, but not how toxins affect these.

Testosterone levels have been dropping for decades and the largest lab testing company, Lab Corp, actually lowered the standard of what “acceptable” testosterone levels are.

At the same time, estrogen levels have risen sharply in both women and men, and thyroid has become a growing issue. 

All of this affects our ability to build lean muscle, lose body fat, and maintain heathy levels of lean muscle and fat. And it lowers our overall mood and health.

But while we've covered individual factors that can cause specific hormones to go too high or too low, there is another factor that affects them more broadly, and significantly.

There are exact chemicals in the environment (in our food, air, and water) which didn't exist before.

And these chemicals can do several things in the body:

They can block certain hormones from being created.

They can block them from being able to communicate their instructions to a cell, or disrupt the cell's normal actions.

Or they can impersonate certain hormones entirely, giving our cells the message a hormone normally would, but not when the brain says to.

And while this affects muscle-building and fat loss significantly, its effect goes far beyond this. 

It isn't a small issue. And every year its effects grow.

In this article we cover what's happening and what you can do about it.

As we go through this challenge, our hormones are balancing to allow for maximum muscle building and swifter fat loss.

So I want to cover the points that can either prevent muscle gain, or slow it, and the things that allow us to maximize muscle gain and fat loss, and speed recovery from workouts.

And the first thing we’re going to cover is what slows muscle gain, or out-right prevents it, by slowing the protein synthesis necessary for the recovery, repair and building of lean muscle.

Ask anyone about bulking and cutting and they’ll bring up calories and macronutrients.

“You have to count your calories and macronutrients and make sure that you eat more than you need to build muscle (and body fat) and eat less than you need to burn fat.”

And that’s true… to a degree.

But there’s more to it. And if you just follow the above, you’ll more than likely miss your goals.

Yes, we need to measure the amount of calories to make sure we get enough energy, but not too much. And we need to make sure we get enough protein, fat and carbohydrates so we can build muscle or have energy to power us through the day.

But… which proteins, fats, and carbs? And how do they affect the hormones that will determine how they’re used?

Because it's our hormones that decide how these macronutrients will be used in our body.

Will the carbs and fats be turned into body fat? Or used as energy? Or will they become part of the structure of the body?

It’s our hormones that decide.

Will this protein be used to build muscle? Or will it be turned into sugar or body fat?

Hormones decide.

It’s not how much you eat that decides. It’s which exact food you eat and how that exact food affects your hormones.

Anyone who works out, runs, bikes or does any type of intense exercise, knows about DOMS — Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.

This is the soreness you feel not right after a workout or exercise, but 24-48 hours later.

At one point it was thought this was caused by lactic acid build up, but this isn’t the case.

(Lactic acid is an acid that starts to build up just before we reach our VO2 Max and can’t go any further in our exercise or workout.) But lactic acid actually helps you. Your body can metabolize it (burn it and use it as fuel).

So what really causes DOMS? And how can we prevent it or lessen it?

Let’s see.

When we look at Lean Bulking, building lean muscle without the excess body fat, we need to look back at what the original body builders did, the golden age body builders.

Because it was very different to what is done now.

And I'm not talking about the 70s or 80s when counting macros and Bulking & Cutting became popular.

We're going earlier.

To the time of Jack LaLanne and the other greats, before egg protein powders, whey powders, creatine, and BCAAs were first introduced.

Back then body builders ate very differently. But very effectively.

If you’re over 40 years old, you’ve probably noticed that weight loss can become harder.

When we’re younger, in our teens, 20’s and 30’s, we can often (not always) get away with a lot. We can eat more carbs without gaining weight, and keep up our energy and strength levels.

But after 40, things change. And this is a factor in aging. A factor related to changes in our hormones as we age.

Cardiovascular Disease, or Heart Disease, is the number one cause of death not just in the US, but in the world.

And, despite spending more on medical treatment for this, per person, than any other country, the US has one of highest rates in the world, higher than most so-called developing countries that don’t have the same money to spend on medical treatment for it.

As of 2019, approximately 7,617 in 100,000 Americans had heart disease. And many more are on the path to it, with this number growing every year.

Compare that to the early 1900s when there was very little heart disease.

(This is actually a created problem, and we’ll get to that.)

But the saddest thing is that while it is, in most cases, preventable (even when we’ve already started on the path to it), the solutions provided only allow us to “manage it” or slow it to a degree. Not reverse or prevent it.

And they don’t even do that very well.

If we want to lower our risk of heart disease, then we need to know the exact factors that do cause it so we can prevent them.

And it starts inside our blood vessels, at a very thin mucous lining that runs all along the inside walls of these blood vessels, protecting them from harm.

In the last article in the Heart Health Series we covered how consuming cholesterol is not actually the cause of heart disease.

And how lowering cholesterol levels with drugs, to lower high blood pressure, actually increases the risk of heart disease among those 60 and above.

But while the idea that cholesterol intake causes heart disease may be a myth, heart disease itself is quite real.

In this article we’ll dive more into this, covering what high blood pressure is, why and how it occurs, and what’s actually behind it.

Before we cover what actually causes Heart disease, I want to cover something that doesn’t, or at least not in the way most people think: cholesterol.

You’ve probably heard of the Cholesterol Hypothesis.

This hypothesis states that higher levels of cholesterol, particularly LDL Cholesterol, are associated with higher rates of Heart Disease.

To prevent heart disease then, we take drugs known as statins that lower our liver’s ability to produce cholesterol.

This hypothesis has been so deeply ingrained in our understanding of how the body works, that the idea of challenging it is almost laughable. (Even though it’s still just a hypothesis after all this time.)

However, over the last decade, more and more scientists and doctors have been doing just that, and for one very glaring reason: there is no evidence to support the hypothesis.

Let's see what's happening here.

As of today, about 42% of Americans are considered clinically obese. This is a large rise from the 1970’s when only about 10% were.

To combat this, recently, many have turned to the medication, Ozempic. This is a medication originally approved for the treatment of diabetes, but which has shown results in lowering appetite and blood sugar levels, and so allowing for loss of body fat.

However, it works by bypassing the body’s natural systems and in some cases lowering the body’s ability to naturally perform these actions as the body gets used to receiving it.

And, for some, it can come with severe side effects to one degree or another: increased risk of heart attack, bowel obstruction, gallstones, thyroid cancer, vision loss, muscle loss and weak or brittle bones especially for those in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, and severe stomach paralysis.

Not to mention the possible permanent lowering of digestive ability once off of Ozempic, along the return of the body fat lost, if the situation that originally brought about the obesity has not been addressed.

So understanding this medication, how it works inside our body, what it can and can’t do, its long term side-effects, and what to do if you intend to take it or already are is quite important.