The Supplement Industry Is Lying to You + What Actually Works

Most people in the fitness and optimization space are spending money in the wrong order, and the person telling you this is someone who profits when you spend it, which is exactly why it's worth hearing, because the incentive runs against the advice and that should tell you something about how strongly the evidence supports it.

Your body needs a small number of inputs to function, recover, build muscle, maintain hormonal health, and feel good, and those inputs are sleep, movement, real food, and in some cases, properly managed hormone support, and everything else, every new molecule, every trending peptide, every amino acid powder in a neon tub, sits on top of that foundation, so if the foundation isn't built, nothing you stack on top of it will do what you want it to do, which means before we talk about what works and what doesn't, that's the frame, because the base layer comes first and everything else is a maybe.

I own a supplement company, I own a peptide company, I own a testosterone replacement clinic, okay? I own two coaching companies. That's Josh's disclosure, and it matters because the guy selling the stuff is the one telling you to stop buying the stuff unless you've already handled the basics. When someone with financial skin in the game tells you to slow down on spending, the signal is different than when a minimalist blogger with no product line says the same thing. The incentive points one direction and the advice points the other, which means the advice is probably grounded in watching hundreds or thousands of clients waste money and time chasing the wrong things first.

So what are the wrong things?

You don't need the fucking vitamins and minerals, you don't need the BCAAs, you don't need the MOTCs and the fucking SS-31s and all the bullshit. That's a direct claim, and it deserves a look at the actual data, because the supplement industry has built entire empires on some of these categories.

Start with BCAAs, which stands for branched chain amino acids. These are three specific amino acids, leucine, isoleucine, and valine, that your muscles use during and after exercise. The supplement industry has marketed them for decades as recovery accelerators and muscle builders. But a 2022 systematic review published in Nutrients by Martinho and colleagues looked across the body of research on BCAA supplementation in athletes and found that the evidence for performance enhancement and recovery is inconsistent at best. Some studies showed small benefits in reducing markers of muscle damage, but those benefits often disappeared when total protein intake was already adequate, meaning if you eat enough protein from real food, the BCAAs in a tub are giving you what you're already getting from the steak on your plate.

Older research points the same direction, because Mero's 1999 review in Sports Medicine examined leucine supplementation alongside intensive training and concluded that while leucine does play a role in muscle protein synthesis, supplementing it on top of a sufficient diet didn't produce meaningful additional gains, so the amino acids work but you're already consuming them if you eat animal protein, which means you're paying a premium for something you already bought at the grocery store.

And what makes the BCAA marketing so effective is that the underlying mechanism is grounded in real biology, because leucine does trigger something called mTOR signaling, which is a pathway that tells your cells to start building new protein, and that part holds up under scrutiny, but the leap from "this molecule activates a pathway" to "you need to buy this molecule in powder form" skips over the fact that a serving of beef or eggs already delivers those amino acids in a complete package alongside dozens of other nutrients that work together, so the supplement isolates one piece of a system that already functions when you eat properly.

The same logic applies to the trendier compounds. MOTCs, SS-31s, and the rotating cast of peptides and mitochondrial enhancers that show up on optimization podcasts every few months. Many of these compounds have interesting preclinical data, meaning they've shown effects in cell cultures or animal models, but the human evidence is thin, the dosing protocols are largely borrowed from rodent studies, and the long term safety profiles in healthy humans are mostly unknown, so that doesn't mean they're worthless and it doesn't mean they can never help anyone, but it does mean they're being purchased out of sequence by people who haven't nailed the things that actually move the needle, which is the whole point, because you guys are throwing thousands of dollars at shit you don't need.

Don't waste your time with the trend, okay? Your dick's gonna stop working or you're gonna be angry and throw yourself through the drywall like Kyle, okay? Don't do the DECA because then your dick will really stop working. This is about anabolic compounds, specifically nandrolone decanoate, which is a steroid that bodybuilders and recreational users take for joint relief and muscle growth. The problem with DECA is well documented in clinical and anecdotal literature, because it suppresses natural testosterone production aggressively and converts to a metabolite called dihydronandrolone, which is far weaker than the dihydrotestosterone your body normally produces, and the result is that your androgen signaling at the receptor level gets disrupted in tissues that depend on DHT, including penile tissue, which isn't a scare tactic but just the pharmacology of what the compound actually does, and the "DECA dick" phenomenon exists because it directly interferes with the hormonal cascade that maintains erectile function.

And the estrogen piece is just as real. You'll look like you have a fucking water balloon for a head because you don't know how to manage your estrogen, okay? When people take testosterone or other anabolic compounds without understanding aromatization, which is the enzyme driven process that converts testosterone into estradiol, they end up with estrogen levels that cause water retention, facial bloating, mood instability, and in some cases gynecomastia, and estrogen management isn't optional on hormone therapy because it's built into the protocol the same way that dosing is, and most people running self prescribed cycles from internet forums aren't managing it, which is why they end up looking and feeling worse than when they started.

So what actually works?

Walk on the fucking treadmill for 45 minutes, three times a week, okay? No beer, no fucking whiskey, liquor, make sure you sleep, steak, reda, testosterone, HGH. That's it.

The walking is where you begin, and a 2018 study by Seo and colleagues in Experimental Gerontology looked at the effects of exercise training on erectile function in middle aged rats and found that regular aerobic exercise caused a partial but measurable improvement in erectile function through two mechanisms: increasing endogenous testosterone production and upregulating something called eNOS, which is endothelial nitric oxide synthase, the enzyme that produces nitric oxide in blood vessels, and nitric oxide is what dilates blood vessels and allows blood flow to tissues including, yes, the penis, so walking on a treadmill three times a week isn't just cardiovascular maintenance but is directly supporting the same outcomes people are trying to buy in a pill or a vial.

Removing alcohol supports this same system from the other direction, because alcohol suppresses testosterone production, disrupts sleep architecture particularly the deep sleep phases where growth hormone is released, increases aromatase activity which converts more testosterone to estrogen, and adds caloric load that promotes visceral fat accumulation, and visceral fat itself is an endocrine organ that produces more aromatase, creating a feedback loop where the more belly fat you carry, the more estrogen you produce and the less testosterone remains available, so dropping alcohol doesn't just remove empty calories but breaks a hormonal loop that's actively working against everything else you're trying to do.

Proper sleep belongs in that same non-negotiable category, because growth hormone release is pulsatile and peaks during slow wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of your sleep cycle, and if you're drinking alcohol, staying up late, or sleeping in fragmented patterns, you are directly suppressing the single most powerful endogenous recovery and anabolic signal your body produces, so no peptide or supplement replaces what happens during proper sleep because those compounds are all downstream of the foundation that sleep builds.

Food works the same way, and steak and what Josh calls "reda," which likely refers to red meat broadly, provides complete protein with all the amino acids including those BCAAs people are buying separately, plus heme iron, zinc, B12, creatine, and saturated fat that serves as a substrate for steroid hormone production, because your body makes testosterone from cholesterol and dietary fat, particularly from animal sources, provides that raw material, and the pathway from cholesterol to pregnenolone to DHEA to testosterone is textbook endocrinology that requires adequate fat and cholesterol intake to function properly, which means the food isn't a minor detail but the actual feedstock for the hormones people are later trying to supplement.

And then, only after all of that is in place, testosterone and HGH. A 2024 evidence synthesis published in Health Technology Assessment by Cruickshank and colleagues reviewed the effects and safety of testosterone replacement therapy for men with hypogonadism and found that TRT consistently improved sexual function, mood, and body composition in men with clinically low testosterone. Pantalone and colleagues, publishing in Basic and Clinical Andrology in 2019, found that testosterone replacement therapy did not increase the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes or mortality when properly monitored, which addresses one of the most persistent fears around TRT. The key phrase there is "properly monitored," meaning bloodwork, estrogen management, hematocrit tracking, and dose adjustment. This is not a self administered guessing game.

Growth hormone occupies that same position in the hierarchy, because when used under medical supervision in people who actually need it, it supports recovery, sleep quality, body composition, and connective tissue repair, but when used recklessly or without indication it causes joint pain, insulin resistance, water retention, and potential organ growth, so the compound itself isn't the problem so much as the context in which it's being used, and that distinction matters because it's the same distinction that separates nearly every tool on this list into something useful or something harmful depending on whether the foundation underneath it is solid.

The pattern across all of this is the same. The things that work are boring, and because they're boring, people skip them and jump to the expensive, complex, novel interventions that feel like progress but aren't. Walking, sleeping, eating red meat, not drinking, and only then adding medically supervised hormones if indicated, and that list doesn't sell well or generate content or fill shopping carts, but it's the actual hierarchy and the sequence that the evidence supports.

The supplement industry's greatest achievement isn't any single product. It's convincing people that optimization starts with what you add, when it actually starts with what you do and what you remove, and the foundation you're building isn't a stack of products but a set of daily behaviors, and the people who get that order right are the ones who eventually stop needing most of what's being sold to them.

References:

Martinho DV, Nobari H, Faria A et al.. Oral Branched-Chain Amino Acids Supplementation in Athletes: A Systematic Review. Nutrients. 2022. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36235655/

Mero A. Leucine supplementation and intensive training. Sports Med. 1999. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10418071/

Kent E, Coleman S, Bruemmer J et al.. Comparison of an Antioxidant Source and Antioxidant Plus BCAA on Athletic Performance and Post Exercise Recovery of Horses. J Equine Vet Sci. 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36577471/

Davis SR, Wahlin-Jacobsen S. Testosterone in women--the clinical significance. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2015. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26358173/

Cruickshank M, Hudson J, Hernández R et al.. The effects and safety of testosterone replacement therapy for men with hypogonadism: the TestES evidence synthesis and economic evaluation. Health Technol Assess. 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39248210/

Pantalone KM, George J, Ji X et al.. Testosterone replacement therapy and the risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes and mortality. Basic Clin Androl. 2019. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30976419/

Seo DY, Lee SR, Kwak HB et al.. Exercise training causes a partial improvement through increasing testosterone and eNOS for erectile function in middle-aged rats. Exp Gerontol. 2018. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29627420/

Ribeiro VB, Pedroso DCC, Kogure GS et al.. Short-Term Aerobic Exercise Did Not Change Telomere Length While It Reduced Testosterone Levels and Obesity Indexes in PCOS: A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial Study. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34769797/

Tota Ł, Piotrowska A, Pałka T et al.. Muscle and intestinal damage in triathletes. PLoS One. 2019. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30657773/