Last night, I woke up to something that shook me in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. My bulldog Jeter, who’s ten now and basically my shadow, was shivering on the inhale while he slept. At first I thought maybe he was cold, or dreaming. Bulldogs dream with their whole soul, so that wasn’t unusual. But something felt off. The tremor wasn’t rhythmic like dreaming. It was sharp, almost like a nerve misfiring. When he got up from bed to walk to another room, he seemed weak like his legs weren’t receiving the normal signals from his brain. His shoulders and legs trembled slightly, his paws looked unsure beneath him, and he kept repositioning like he couldn’t get comfortable. That’s when my stomach dropped. I scooped him up, put him in the car, and Julie and I drove straight to MedVet. If you’ve ever loved a dog deeply, you know that feeling where you go from half-asleep to wide awake with one single thought: “Please let him be okay.” At MedVet they gave him a ketamine and methadone shot for pain, and they suspected a disc issue in his spine. They didn’t run an MRI that night, so we were left with the kind of diagnosis most dog owners get at first: “Likely disc compression, monitor closely.” In other words, an entire universe of things could be happening under the surface. When we finally got back home, Jeter was sedated, wobbly, and tremoring. He was trying to be strong bulldogs have a level of pride that honestly rivals ours—but he was struggling. And in moments like that, both as a practitioner and as a dog dad, you are forced to sit between two worlds: the scientific understanding of what’s happening, and the emotional weight of watching someone you love suffer. That’s what inspired me to write this for you today not just to share the story, but to teach you what’s actually going on inside a dog’s body when a disc bulges, why the symptoms show up the way they do, and how targeted regenerative peptides like Pentosan, ARA-290, TB-500, BPC-157, and SS-31 can create a powerful recovery pathway when used correctly.

Redox is one of those concepts that everyone has heard of but very few people truly grasp, and yet almost everything in human physiology depends on it. For trainers and clinicians, redox is the hidden language that tells you why someone can train hard one day and crash the next, why fat loss stalls even with perfect macros, why motivation drops without a psychological trigger, why inflammation rises mysteriously, or why protocols that used to work suddenly stop producing results. Redox isn’t a supplement, a lab marker, or a buzzword. It is the most fundamental process life uses to create energy, repair damage, and adapt to stress. When redox flows, people adapt. When it gets stuck, people stagnate. Understanding redox at a deep level gives you the ability to see beneath symptoms, beneath lab markers, beneath surface-level physiology, and down into the actual physics and molecular dynamics that determine whether a person is moving toward resilience or toward dysfunction. This redox deep dive will walk through what redox is, why it matters, how it gets stuck, what “stuck” actually means at the molecular level, and how different stressors push the system into different dysfunctional patterns. Throughout this, I’ll use analogies and imagery that make the invisible world of electrons and membranes feel intuitive and concrete, allowing you to visualize exactly what is happening inside cells when energy is being made—or when the system jams. You’ll see how mitochondrial membranes behave like electrical waterfalls, how electrons move like crowds of people flowing through hallways, how redox imbalance can freeze a system the way traffic jams choke off a city, and how trainers and clinicians unintentionally worsen stuck redox by focusing on quantity of activity instead of the phase of the system. Redox is short for reduction and oxidation the transfer of electrons. To understand why this matters, imagine every cell in your body as a tiny city. Energy isn’t created in one burst; it’s created by passing electrons down a series of steps, like handing a baton from one runner to the next. Reduction is when a molecule gains electrons, oxidation is when it loses electrons. In biology, electrons fall down an energetic staircase inside mitochondria called the electron transport chain. As electrons move, they power tiny pumps that push protons across a membrane, building what can be imagined as a “pressure gradient” or electrical tension. This tension the mitochondrial membrane potential is like the charged battery that lets ATP synthase spin and generate ATP. Think of it like water flowing through a hydroelectric dam: the higher the water pressure behind the dam, the more electricity you can generate. If the water level drops too low, the turbine stops. If the dam wall gets blocked and pressure rises too high, the system becomes dangerous. Mitochondria work exactly the same way. Redox is the management of electron flow across the mitochondrial inner membrane. Everything hinges on whether electrons are moving, whether they have somewhere to go, whether the membrane potential is balanced, and whether the cell can match energy demand with supply.

Day 12 – Transcendence: Becoming the Field Itself The final step in this progression isn’t about adding anything new; it’s about dissolving the separation between you and the systems you’ve been studying. Up to now, you’ve practiced coherence inside your own body learning how mitochondria, breath, mind, and rhythm all connect. Transcendence is the realization that those boundaries were never real. In biology, every cell lives within a field of communication: electromagnetic, biochemical, and informational. The moment a cell becomes coherent, it organizes the space around it. The same is true for you. When your internal state reaches harmony, you don’t just feel balanced—you become balance. Your presence shapes the field. This is why advanced biology and ancient philosophy meet at the same truth: everything is connected through resonance. When one node vibrates in order, others begin to entrain. A single coherent heartbeat can influence a room. A calm mind can redirect a conversation. A life lived in rhythm can ripple across generations. Transcendence is not an escape from the body; it’s the full expression of embodiment. It’s when your physiology becomes transparent enough for consciousness to move through it without distortion. You stop trying to manage your energy because you are energy self-organizing, self-aware, and endlessly renewing. At this stage, effort gives way to presence. You no longer need to force outcomes; you participate in them. Decision-making becomes intuition, training becomes meditation, conversation becomes transmission. The line between inner practice and outer world disappears. Quantum biology describes coherence fields extending beyond individual cells biophotons coordinating tissues through light. Social neuroscience shows that humans do the same thing through emotion, language, and body rhythm. When you are calm, others’ heart rates and brain waves synchronize with yours. When you live in coherence, you generate order in your environment without needing control.

Sorry if this may be a little off the human topic but many of us including I’m sure @Anthony Castore love our fur babies. Hopefully this is ok? I’ve spent countless hours researching and learning about how to improve health and longevity not only for myself but also my friends family and loved ones. I still have so much to learn. Lately I’ve been thinking “what about my beloved bulldog brew!” I want him to also have good health and longevity. I also know that many of the studies we reference in our research comes from animals. So there is a good amount of information out there for us to observe. My question for all of you awesome folks is do you have a health and longevity protocol for your pets? Specifically your dog. Do you use peptides, small molecules, or other supplements? Do you implement an exercise program or other modalities like laser treatment? If so what have been your results? As some of you may know, there are certain dog breeds that require more attention than others when it comes to health. English Bulldogs are one of them. They have constant skin issues, allergic reactions, breathing, eyes, and sometimes heart, and lung problems as well. My bulldog Brew is 2 years old going on three next month. He is usually pretty healthy and has no major issues but I have struggled with skin reactions he has from time to time where he gets sores on his belly and inside his legs. However they are such awesome and fun dogs and are worth the effort to keep them happy and healthy. He makes me laugh almost everyday and I enjoy our companionship. We go on many walks and adventures together. I want to do all the things for him that I have done for myself for a happy life, health, and longevity. I’ve asked lots of questions for myself now this one is for my Brewski!! Full disclosure, my daughter is a very successful Veterinarian. She gives my baby great care! However I’ve had a few discussions with her about alternative medicine and all the things. She is very intelligent and educated in her field. However we have hit some roadblocks when it come to discussing these treatments compared to her modern medical training. I’m not the smartest fella and our discussions usually become one sided with her educated opinion. She is interested in what I’m telling her about but I just don’t know enough about this field to have an engaging conversation. I would like to arm myself with better information on other treatments to share with her. If any of you know of any good resources, practitioners, books to look into I would appreciate you sharing them!

Fat loss is one of those phrases that sounds simple eat less, move more but beneath the surface lies a molecular ballet that’s so intricate it borders on poetry. To really understand how fat leaves your body, you have to zoom in beyond the mirror, beyond the scale, all the way down to the molecules themselves. Fat loss isn’t burning; it’s transformation. It’s chemistry, communication, and coordination at the cellular level. Every drop of fat lost is a story of electrons, enzymes, and energy signals passing messages like runners in a relay race. Let’s start at the very beginning: the spark. Imagine you wake up and decide to go for a fasted morning walk. That first step is not just physical it’s molecular ignition. Movement sends a mechanical signal through muscle fibers that says, “Energy demand is rising.” Inside each muscle cell, this signal activates AMP-activated protein kinase, or AMPK. Think of AMPK as the body’s internal accountant. When it senses that the cellular energy balance is off too much AMP (spent energy) and not enough ATP (usable energy) it flips a switch from “store” to “spend.” AMPK begins turning off the enzymes that promote fat storage and turning on those that liberate energy. It tells fat cells to open their vaults. These vaults are made of triglycerides, which are three fatty acid chains attached to a glycerol backbone. To free energy, the bonds must be broken a process called lipolysis. Hormone-sensitive lipase (HSL) and adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) are the locksmiths here. They respond to signals from adrenaline and norepinephrine, which are released by the sympathetic nervous system when you start moving. These hormones dock onto beta-adrenergic receptors on fat cells, kicking off a cascade of cyclic AMP (cAMP) signaling. cAMP is like an internal text message that tells HSL: “Go to work.” Once the fatty acids are cleaved from glycerol, they’re released into the bloodstream, but they can’t just float around on their own they’re hydrophobic, meaning they repel water. So they hitch a ride on a protein taxi called albumin, which ferries them to tissues that can use them for energy, primarily muscle and liver. This is where the story gets electric literally.