Vitamin D can help allocate surplus calories to muscle instead of fat via myostatin and leptin. This is likely part of why building lean tissue feels more effortless in summer - as long as you're providing adequate stimulus for muscles to grow. When your vitamin D is optimal: - Myostatin is suppressed (the biological brake on muscle growth) - Leptin sensitivity improves and signals the hypothalamus to route surplus to lean mass rather than fat tissue - supports testosterone synthesis - Mitochondria in muscle produce ATP efficiently - Protein synthesis can actually proceed But most people are not making the most vitamin D during summer that they can. Because UVB, triggering your skin to produce vitamin D, gets blocked if you wear suncream, wear sunglasses, spend the days indoors even behind glass. Even if you're outside, if you're under a sunlounger with your head down looking at a phone all day, you're not getting that much UVB either. This is important because, seeing as vitamin D is fat soluble, it's stored in fat tissue and acts as a reservoir for the winter months, where there is less UVB. And adequate vitamin D levels during winter are of course essential as well. The modern world also depletes your vitamin D levels through heightened stress, magnesium deficiency, gut dysbiosis, among other things. So proper sun in summer is absolutely essential, alongside following all the other health fundamentals - light, sleep, nutrition, purpose, movement, human connection. Summer is the anabolic season. So time to sunmaxx and grow this summer (always listen to your body in the sun and be sensible ofc)

Dozen oysters with squeeze of lemon and dash of tabasco. Post ocean swim fresh OJ. Watermelon and pomegranates. Tartares and ceviches. Raw milk cacao milkshakes. Eggs. Raw ice cream. Sun. This is what peak summer nutrition looks like for health and vitality. The conventional nutritional approach teaches you that nutritional balance is achieved by filling nutritional buckets one by one. But nutritional balance is achieved when you feed your body foods where every nutrient arrives in its natural relationship to every other nutrient. Because your biology is not a series of separate nutritional buckets you fill up individually. It is one integrated network where each nutrient influences every other nutrient and every hormone. And every environmental signal, such as the sun for example, determines how all of those relationships express themselves. The oysters have zinc, copper, iodine, selenium, B12, taurine and DHA in the precise ratios your hormonal, neurological and metabolic systems were designed to receive together. The tartares and ceviches have glutathione, CoQ10, carnitine, taurine, b vitamins - the compounds and cofactors that are crucial for efficient metabolism. Raw milk has lactoferrin neutralising gut endotoxin, fat soluble vitamins A, D, E and K2, bioavailable calcium and phosphorus and live bacteria. The relationship between the nutrients in the individual foods themselves are the actual important part, as well as the relationship between the foods themselves - meaning the combination of certain foods are important as well. Most isolated supplements do not bring order to the body - they potentially introduce a perturbation at one point of an interconnected system that reorganises unpredictably around it, often producing more imbalance than the problem they were trying to fix. A good example is bryan johnson - the 100s of supplements he takes will continuously perturb the nutritional tensegrity structure at multiple points of the system. However, there is absolutely a time and a place for certain supplements. But the context of when and how is important. Also, your nutritional requirements shift with your environment because we co-exist with the environment - we are not separate from it. The sunlight changes your carbohydrate metabolism. The cold ocean swim changes your mitochondrial demand. Eating fresh, hydrating ceviche, oysters, tartar, raw milk under the summer sun is the perfect coherence between nutritional and environmental signal. Eat more of these amazing whole foods for health, radiance and an energetic summer.

An underrated way to supercharge your metabolism, body composition and movement is by working on your fascia. The neck and shoulders especially are heavily tied to your sympathetic nervous system. And most people have dense, restricted fascia in this area - storing the physical pattern of chronic stress and unresolved emotional tension that the nervous system encodes into these areas. It’s what tenses up when you're scared, shocked, or nervous - if you're also sitting down for most of the day, you likely have tension and restriction in this area as well from poor posture and biomechanics. We are only meant to be in that state for short bursts of time and then return. But modern life has made it so that its very easy to be stuck in it 24/7 - signalling chronic stress to your brain. And when this happens your body enters a hypoxic state, and mitochondria stop working properly - making your cells stop producing energy, co2 and water, slowing metabolism and triggering more fat storage as an evolutionary response to the stress and lack of energy. Lacrosse massage balls and gua sha blades are great tools to run over these areas and release them - bringing fresh fluids and electrons back into the rehydrated fascial matrix. When combined with proper nutrition and hydration, light environment, natural biomechanics and stress management, your nervous system will feel back in safety again, energy and body comp gains will return. Healthy fascia is crucial for a healthy body.

Eat more raw meat dishes for metabolic supremacy People talk about sugar for increasing metabolic rate and shredding fat. Which is valid. But efficient glucose oxidation requires a system involving specific heat sensitive metabolic compounds, which raw meat dishes provide perfectly - cooking significantly reduces, and sometimes completely destroys, some of these crucial compounds. B vitamins - B1 (thiamine) is the gatekeeper of metabolism. It runs PDH (pyruvate dehydrogenase), the enzyme that converts glucose into usable energy. This is the reason a lot of ray peaters supplement B1, which I'm not completely against in certain scenarios. But pork is especially high in it as well as liver, and other raw meats have good amounts of it. B vitamins are water soluble meaning heat degrades them. Taurine - Raw meat is one of the richest sources. Taurine directly supports mitochondrial function, bile acid conjugation, and blunts cortisol which prevents metabolism from tanking. CoQ10 - especially found in heart. It's what the electron transport chain runs on. So if there is insufficient CoQ10, there's no efficient ATP production. While not an essential nutrient seeing as your body endogenously produces it too, it relies on healthy mitochondria to produce it, and raw meat helps keep mitochondria healthy. Carnitine - shuttles acetyl groups (which acts as a brake for energy production) out of the mitochondria, allowing PDH to support mitochondrial glucose entry to produce energy cleanly. Creatine - present in its active form in raw meat. Cooking converts a lot of it to creatinine, which is considered a waste product. Active creatine supports cellular energy buffering and reduces the oxidative burden on your NADPH pool - the same pool required for testosterone to DHT conversion. Glutathione - your master antioxidant. Significantly reduced when cooked. Oxidative stress (from intense exercise, gut endotoxin, seed oils etc) suppresses thyroid function and therefore metabolism. But glutathione works to protect it. Enzymes - raw meat contains its own proteolytic enzymes that aids in tenderising and digesting the protein. Less digestive burden means more metabolic energy available. Eat more oysters, ceviche and steak tartare.

Classic gym training may be doing more metabolic harm than you think. Not that classic gym movements are necessarily wrong . But because chronically repeating these same linear patterns of movement over time without any multidirectional natural movement actually gradually dehydrates the fascia. And dehydrated fascia drains your overall physical and metabolic energy, leading to reduced performance and easier fat gain. The fascial matrix is the body's primary semiconductive water network - which essentially means it acts similarly to a high speed internet cable, carrying energy and information to every cell. So when fascia dehydrates through repetitive loading in restricted planes this semiconductive network loses its coherence. And then cellular energy production becomes less efficient, atp, water and co2 production drops and mitochondria begin running stress chemistry rather than clean oxidative metabolism. The downstream consequences are exactly what most typical "gymbros" experience - chronic fatigue despite adequate sleep, poor recovery between sessions, stubborn body fat that refuses to shift despite consistent effort and the flat depleted feeling that more training only seems to worsen. Among the other harmful things which the typical gym goer does, the fascia is a big part of why they feel stuck. The solution is not to stop training - because there's nothing inherently wrong with classic isolated gym movements like the bench, squat and machines if executed well. It is to add what the gym removes - multidirectional natural loading that actually hydrates the fascial matrix. Climbing, surfing, sprinting, crawling, swimming, all on natural terrain. Task oriented purposeful movement that loads the fascia in every movement plane, forcing fresh fluid in and stale fluid out. What's the point of having muscle if you cannot use it functionally anyway? just do both. You'll have the muscle and actually be able to move like an athlete - a true, free human.

It's summer. Which means it's naturally time to carbmaxx. Eat more carbs to get leaner, optimise your hormones, and feel like your most energetic self. UV light from summer sun increases nitric oxide and vitamin D - both of which directly improve insulin sensitivity and glucose handling, shuttling glucose into muscles and liver glycogen and not fat. Summer carbohydrates also drive mTOR, the anabolic growth pathway that builds tissue, synthesises proteins and drives the fertility and vitality that we are naturally meant to have in summer - and carbs provide the electrons and protons entering mitochondrial Complex I that fuel this energy and vitality production. Adequate carbohydrates lower SHBG - freeing up bound testosterone. They fill liver glycogen - giving your body a signal of abundance that reduces the cortisol that makes you store fat. They support T3 activation - supporting increased metabolic rate and body composition. And they provide the glucose that the pentose phosphate pathway uses to produce NADPH, which is the cofactor for the enzyme (5 alpha reductase) that converts testosterone to DHT. They're also incredibly hydrating and a great source of electrolytes - especially given the fact that sweating from the sun depletes them. Summer is your body's natural growth season. Eat carbs to get leaner, muscular, more aesthetic.

Got off screens for two days and my morning wood multiplied by 2x

An underrated way to supercharge your metabolism, body composition and movement is by working on your fascia. The neck and shoulders especially are heavily tied to your sympathetic nervous system. And most people have dense, restricted fascia in this area - storing the physical pattern of chronic stress and unresolved emotional tension that the nervous system encodes into these areas. It’s what tenses up when you're scared, shocked, or nervous - if you're also sitting down for most of the day, you likely have tension and restriction in this area as well from poor posture and biomechanics. We are only meant to be in that state for short bursts of time and then return. But modern life has made it so that its very easy to be stuck in it 24/7 - signalling chronic stress to your brain. And when this happens your body enters a hypoxic state, and mitochondria stop working properly - making your cells stop producing energy, co2 and water, slowing metabolism and triggering more fat storage as an evolutionary response to the stress and lack of energy. Lacrosse massage balls and gua sha blades are great tools to run over these areas and release them - bringing fresh fluids and electrons back into the rehydrated fascial matrix. When combined with proper nutrition and hydration, light environment, natural biomechanics and stress management, your nervous system will feel back in safety again, energy and body comp gains will return. Healthy fascia is crucial for a healthy body.

Raw meat dishes - tartare, ceviche, oysters, rare steaks, raw egg yolks - provide crucial, intact compounds needed for metabolism that cooking can destroy. Fresh fruits, juices, raw milk and occasional starchy carbohydrates provide the substrate that run mitochondrial energy production. Add an optimal light environment coordinating the rhythms of every essential hormone and energy producing process. Then add an adequate training stimulus, ideally done outside - calisthenics, weights, manual labour. These 4 things combined is the near perfect recipe for gaining muscle, losing fat, tightening the waist and producing clean sustained energy.

If you're having a really slow day, supercharge your cognitive abilities and energy even more with this drink. Fresh OJ Pinch of sea salt Natural L theanine Nothing quite like the euphoria from drinking this in the sun

Eat more raw meat dishes for metabolic supremacy People talk about sugar for increasing metabolic rate and shredding fat. Which is valid. But efficient glucose oxidation requires a system involving specific heat sensitive metabolic compounds, which raw meat dishes provide perfectly - cooking significantly reduces, and sometimes completely destroys, some of these crucial compounds. B vitamins - B1 (thiamine) is the gatekeeper of metabolism. It runs PDH (pyruvate dehydrogenase), the enzyme that converts glucose into usable energy. This is the reason a lot of ray peaters supplement B1, which I'm not completely against in certain scenarios. But pork is especially high in it as well as liver, and other raw meats have good amounts of it. B vitamins are water soluble meaning heat degrades them. Taurine - Raw meat is one of the richest sources. Taurine directly supports mitochondrial function, bile acid conjugation, and blunts cortisol which prevents metabolism from tanking. CoQ10 - especially found in heart. It's what the electron transport chain runs on. So if there is insufficient CoQ10, there's no efficient ATP production. While not an essential nutrient seeing as your body endogenously produces it too, it relies on healthy mitochondria to produce it, and raw meat helps keep mitochondria healthy. Carnitine - shuttles acetyl groups (which acts as a brake for energy production) out of the mitochondria, allowing PDH to support mitochondrial glucose entry to produce energy cleanly. Creatine - present in its active form in raw meat. Cooking converts a lot of it to creatinine, which is considered a waste product. Active creatine supports cellular energy buffering and reduces the oxidative burden on your NADPH pool - the same pool required for testosterone to DHT conversion. Glutathione - your master antioxidant. Significantly reduced when cooked. Oxidative stress (from intense exercise, gut endotoxin, seed oils etc) suppresses thyroid function and therefore metabolism. But glutathione works to protect it. Enzymes - raw meat contains its own proteolytic enzymes that aids in tenderising and digesting the protein. Less digestive burden means more metabolic energy available. Eat more oysters, ceviche and steak tartare.

Overtime, the regret of not taking risk to create something becomes a greater pain than the pain you would have gotten from taking that risk. And at it's core, the reason why people don't take this risk anymore is a mitochondrial cellular ENERGY problem. The modern world has made it near impossible for us not to have this problem. Barely enough energy to exist, let alone enough energy to take risks, start and learn new things, build things, have purpose and actually progress in life and not stagnate. This energy problem then creates the modern hormonal state of the person with low drive, low willingness to take risk and overall chronic purposelessness. High glutamate:gaba ratio, high cortisol and adrenaline, low testosterone, high prolactin, low dopamine etc. The hormones/neurotransmitters and the metabolic state then enter a vicious bidirectional feedback loop, where the suboptimal hormones impair metabolism, and the impaired metabolism and mitochondria struggles to synthesise hormones/neurotransmitters. This is why even if someone eats clean food, trains hard and gets sunlight, oftentimes they will still not feel quite right - because you need to look at nutrition from 3 angles: intake, absorption and utilisation. Clean food in itself doesn't guarantee feeling optimal because absorption and utilisation within the body may be impaired. Because there may be gut problems preventing the food from being absorbed, or nutrients and specific cofactors missing that act as the enzymatic machinery in the energy creation and utlisation process. And most of these issues come from inadequate diet and not doing the fundamentals of health - light environment, sleep, community, movement, myofascial release/mobility, stress/trauma work. Energy powers your cells, which powers your hormones, which power your decisions, your courage, behaviour and your capacity to build and create. Energy is everything.

Sashimi, rice, fruit, L glutamine and zinc carnosine is still one of the best post training meals I've tried. Every component addresses a different bottleneck in the recovery process. Raw fish for amino acids, intact vitamins and minerals for hormones and optimal metabolic and thyroid function. Rice for glycogen replenishment. Fruit for hydration. L glutamine and zinc carnosine for gut integrity and reducing the intestinal permeability that can occur after training, reducing the LPS endotoxin - induced inflammation. Makes you wake up the morning after with filled muscles in an anabolic way that few meals do.