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How to Use Peptides for Optimal Health: A Readiness Guide · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

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The problem that we're seeing with peptides nowadays is that people are thinking that peptides
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are a way to control what I eat or peptides are a way that I can skip a gym and still
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build muscle.
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Peptides are a way that I can sleep better.
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There's no shortcut to just having good health hygiene.
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So there are some things that need to be done before you really get into this and start
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paying attention.
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Hey guys, it's Dr. Mark here with Age Defiantly and I wanted to bring you a message
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about a topic that I get asked a lot.
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Okay.
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We're in our mailing list.
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I get a lot of people who reply back and ask these questions and it all relates to
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a topic that everybody's talking about and that's peptides.
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I want to give you some background information here on peptides, the use of peptides, what
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it all means.
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And I specifically want to touch who should be using peptides?
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Who shouldn't be using peptides?
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What are the mistakes the people are making with peptides?
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Because I don't want you to make foolish mistakes.
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Number one, because of your health, number two, because of the money that you're going
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to spend doing that and there's no reason to spend the money on something that's going
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to not do you any benefit anyways.
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So first thing I want to touch on is this topic of who should be taking peptides and who
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should not.
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The first thing I want to point out, so let's talk about what's a peptide though.
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Peptides are short chain amino acids and amino acids are the building blocks of proteins.
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So what we're looking at here is you're putting in the ingredients that makes a protein.
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They are creating bigger strands, bigger strands from that become proteins, right?
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And proteins control the functions that are in your body.
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Now your body has about a million different types of proteins.
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In fact, it's estimated that we don't even know, we've only named about 15% of them.
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So you can imagine when it comes to peptides, we're really, really ankles deep in this
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based on what there is to know.
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But what we're trying to do is use them to manipulate very specific systems in the body.
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Here's the issue, all peptides.
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When you start with the basic ingredients of a protein, you're creating building blocks.
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And building blocks are always going to amplify whatever else is already going out in your
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system.
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So starting with who shouldn't be taking peptides?
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Pretty much anybody who is not already optimized what's going on in their body.
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If you haven't already dealt with the basics, don't try going for the stretch of a peptide.
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Think of like back when steroids were such a big deal, right?
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Well, sure, but it was leading to longer term damage.
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The problem that we're seeing with peptides nowadays is that people are thinking that peptides
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are a way to control what I eat or change what I eat or peptides are a way that I can skip
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a gym and still build build muscle.
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Peptides are a way that I can sleep better.
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The reality is guys is there's no shortcut to just having good health hygiene.
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And by that, I mean things like you need to be eating correctly.
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You need to be sleeping correctly.
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You need to be mobile.
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You need to be lifting heavy things.
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All of that stuff needs to be in place.
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Then peptides are a way that you can amplify your results, but you already need to be on
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the path to results.
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The one big thing I want to point out here, and this was came to me as news as a matter
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fact, probably a year or two ago is the first time I heard it and I stopped in my tracks.
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I'm like, my gosh, that's so true.
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My belief is that nobody should be using a peptide if they haven't been checked for cancer.
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And my reasoning behind that is because, again, peptides are building blocks of proteins.
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And if proteins in your body are already dysfunctional, they are growth agonists.
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Any time that you're using any type of peptide, it is amplifying whatever else is going
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on in your body.
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So while amplifying bad health habits is bad, amplifying cancer cells is worse.
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So there are some things that need to be done before you really get into this and start
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paying attention.
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But I want to take a look at our readiness checklist is what I refer to it as.
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Let's start with sleep.
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Sleep is your body's repair mode.
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It literally is the time that your body is able to shut down all of the systems at once
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and reboot.
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So think about it like a computer, right?
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You've turned your computer off and what does it do?
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It gives you that message and says, oh, you still have a couple of applications open.
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What do you want us to do with those?
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And most of us are like, I restart anyways, right?
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The reality is is that you damage the program when it doesn't shut down properly.
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A lot of times you end up with corrupt files, your body runs the same way.
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It's the reason why we tell you don't eat for about four hours before you go to bed.
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Why?
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Well, because if your goal is during sleep to shut down your body and let all of your
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systems reboot, how does your digestive system actually reboot if it's still active?
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It's still actually having to run through the night because you fed it too soon before
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going to bed.
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So sleep is a huge important thing and probably one of the most underrated biohacks, if I can
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use that word, biohacks that you can possibly have seven to eight hours, dark rooms.
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We don't want to be drowning ourselves in melatonin by the way.
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That is people's new hack for, I'm going to take melatonin and then I'm just going
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to fall asleep because that's great.
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And then they wake up groggy and they're miserable and then they end up pounding caffeine
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all day long.
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The reality is asleep is a very specific biohack that cannot be minimized.
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You must be paying attention to that.
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I recommend wearables.
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I wear an aura ring and it tracks my sleep.
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It tells me how often I woke up if I was restless, what was going on, some of my hacks.
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I make sure that I'm not eating for hours before I go to bed.
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I make sure that I'm not staring at screens, hours before going to bed because we have
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messed up our circadian rhythm in such a way that what's happening is our TVs, our artificial
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lighting in our homes, our cell phones, they're making our brains think it's daytime.
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When the rest of our body recognizes that it's night and we're falling out of synchrony
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between those two things, my recommendation is that you need some time, okay, whether
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that's two hours before you fall asleep, you know, we need to start dimming lights.
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Perhaps you see people wearing like blue-blocking glasses, but it doesn't even need to be that
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dramatic.
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Just you need some time and dimmer lights.
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Let your body get the signal that it's time to go to bed.
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Your body's going to naturally create melatonin.
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You don't need to supplement that if you're winding down the correct way.
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Read a book.
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Do something else.
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I actually have gotten in the habit of turning on the TV in my living room and it has some
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of those like spa tracks and stuff like that.
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Literally, I turn one on and it's amazing how I just immediately downregulate.
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I just downregulate lights in my house.
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I keep at a softer level so that it's not I've got like my main light in my living room,
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dining room area.
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It's on a dimmer.
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I just turn the dimmer down a little bit.
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I don't need spotlights in the middle of the house.
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The second thing I want to point out is the temperature when you sleep.
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I sleep on a chili pad, which actually keeps my body temperature lower because the colder
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you are, the easier it is for your body to recuperate.
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Dark rooms, pull the shades, get the cell phone out of your room like how many people are
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sleeping with EMF exposure right at your head all night long.
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Use your body trying to reset and you're pumping magnetic waves through it all night long.
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That's not fair.
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Give yourself a chance here.
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Get the phone out of the room.
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Nothing is that important.
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If you need to know if there's an emergency, turn the ring around high and leave it in
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the kitchen.
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You can hear it from there.
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Let's get that sleep dialed in.
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The second thing I want to pay attention to is protein.
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Our diets are not accidental.
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We have this tendency to eat and I always say that we eat with our ears, which is kind
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of a funny phrase, but my intention behind it is, when the last time you went out with
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a friend, what is the phrase you use?
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I don't know what sounds good.
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What sounds good is irrelevant because that's your body just paying attention to its cravings.
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That's not your body paying attention to its needs.
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Diet needs to be intentional.
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And really, I mentioned protein than necessity of getting and they're estimating 0.7 to one
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gram of protein for every pound, not every pound that you weigh, but for every pound of
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your ideal weight.
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So for me, that calculates my ideal weight is around 180 pounds because I'm a big guy.
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I'm six foot four.
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180 pounds means that I need to be eating about 180 grams of protein a day, about 150 grams
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of protein minimum.
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And when we talk about longevity and aging defiantly, muscle is the currency of longevity.
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The more muscle you have, predictably, the longer you live.
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And I don't need examples of people saying, oh, but bodybuilders, most of that is enhanced.
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Let's just pay attention to the average human being.
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And when you're focusing on muscle, you will actually live longer because your systems
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are getting fed properly.
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And that's everything from your body's ability to to flush glucose, to keeping insulin resistance
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down, to stability to actually not fall to muscle feeding bone density.
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All of these things are true.
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Get up, move, particularly after you've eaten.
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The third one I want to pay attention to is that working out, that resistance training
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really married to this protein intake is the idea that we need to be working out.
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We need to be there.
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And for some people, they're like, oh, I just don't like going to the gym.
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Well, you don't need to work out in the gym.
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Literally, this can be a matter of somebody going and working out because they walk for
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30 minutes after dinner or a person who goes and plays tennis or pickle balls a big thing
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now.
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Like find an activity that you enjoy, but get off the chair, get off the couch like we
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sit all day long.
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I just read a study recently and it was titled so provocatively that sitting is the
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new smoking that we talked about how smoking was so bad and how are people so stupid because
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they smoked back in before people knew what was going on and whatever.
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And it's like, here's the reality like we sit all day long.
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We have these sedentary lifestyles that just don't get us up and moving.
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And then we wonder why our body doesn't know how to function in activity or the body
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stays so sedentary.
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And then what do we do?
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We take 45 minutes a day and then we just beat that out of our bodies and call that exercise.
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Exercise and movement should be part of our daily routine.
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That's a take dinner, take a walk, make sure that you're getting up and doing something
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in the morning, stretching squats, something you can do.
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Get some sunlight, take a walk, walk the dog, whatever it is.
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I know a lot of people even in our office will go out and walk in the afternoon or have
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done that.
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It's lunch and then a couple of the girls will go walk around the building a few times.
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That's so healthy and it's helping you stay mobile.
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The fourth thing that I want to pay attention to is blood work.
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And I know I mentioned earlier about like if you have cancer or any kind of progressive
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issue, you want to make sure that you know what's going on in your body before you amplify
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it because if it's great, you amplify great and if it's terrible, you amplify terrible.
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I recommend to everybody that at least annually, you should be getting panels of your blood
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work done and storing those results.
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Now, I know a lot of people actually store those results on you know, spreadsheets or
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they just keep all the printouts and then they compare them side by side.
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The reality is is that my my hack to people is find a way to gamify your health.
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Like literally I change my supplement stack about every six months because something's
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different in my body.
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Some of that just may be stress levels.
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Some of that could be because I've taken enough of a supplement for six months that my
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body says we're good.
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I don't need that anymore.
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Some of it could be a change in my diet.
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It can be because I traveled extensively during that period of time.
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It could just be nutrition.
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Any of those things can affect what's going on in my blood work and I need to be very cognizant
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of it.
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And I'll tell you what recently I had blood work done and it was a result I didn't like
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and a couple of categories and I'm like, wow, like that completely caught me off guard.
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But here's the way I do it.
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I'm like, okay, I'm going to make some very fast fixes in that area and I'm going to have
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my blood read down in about two weeks because two things.
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Blood work is only a one snapshot in time.
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And the second thing is I want to know if my decisions are actually getting to a better
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outcome.
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So I'm going to make those fast fixes.
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I'm going to test again.
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And then I'm going to test again.
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And I have mine done about every six months because I want to know what's going on inside
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of me.
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And part of that is you've all been there like over the holidays this year.
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I was terrible.
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And I'm like, I'm used to feeling really good.
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And man, coming out of the holidays, I felt like garbage.
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And as I hate that feeling, I don't want to grow old feeling like garbage.
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I want to age, but I want to do it in a defiant manner that keeps my energy, keeps everything
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about me.
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My mindset, my clarity, all of that I want at top performance.
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In fact, I use a lot of AI tools to actually track a lot of my own health results.
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And my AI knows that everything about me needs to be measured against a 30 year old, not
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a 50 year old because I want to function like a 30 year old.
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And you know, and it's funny because my health assistant in my AI world is always asking
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like, well, what do you mean by that?
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Do you mean energy?
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Do you mean libido?
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Like, what does that all mean?
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Like, all of it.
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All of it.
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I don't want to be baseline to get someone my age.
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I want to be baseline to get someone 20 years younger than me because that's how I think.
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That's how I choose to show up in the world.
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And I want to know everything there is to get me there.
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So I want to talk a little bit now like these things that I'm going to tell you, we need
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to make sure that all of this is functioning.
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We need to make sure that you're moving that you're diet and everything else.
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And now I kind of want to move into what are we talking about with peptides?
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What are the ones that everybody's talking about and what do they really matter?
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The obvious.
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I'd be remiss in not calling out GLP ones, right?
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Everyone's talking about GLP one agonist.
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The latest is retractitude, which is the redder GLP3, which is a triple agonist.
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These are great.
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I'm going to be honest with you and say, I'm a big fan.
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A lot of people talk about how they don't like them.
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I'm going to tell you I'm a big fan of GLP ones, but probably for a different reason.
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And I'm not a big fan because they just happened to curb appetite and possibly increase metabolism
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on a one definitely on a three.
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My reason for liking GLP ones is because I don't know about you, but sometimes life runs
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off the rails and I just want to push a reset button.
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And not too often in life do you get to do that?
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Like, could you imagine just not having to pay the rent for six months?
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Like that would be amazing.
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Like, not pay the rent for six months, catch up, put some money in the bank and now you
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can breathe a little better.
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Same thing happens with our diet.
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Same thing happened with our exercise.
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Like I would love to just have a period of time that I'm like, man, I wish I just didn't
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have to eat for three months because that would make me really reset a lot of my habits.
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Kind of GLP ones are giving us that opportunity.
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They're actually slowing down our digestive system.
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They are causing in some people some problems because they're getting gastrointestinal back
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up.
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And a lot of people, about 60% of people are having some issues with them.
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I'll say side effects, you know, things like reflux, things like I'm going to say anxiety,
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but maybe a little bit of that too, but people are getting nausea.
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That sort of stuff is happening with these, but it's still worth it.
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My opinion, however, is that it should give you a pause on your habits.
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If you come off of a GLP one at whatever weight you come off of a GLP one and you aren't
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better suited to go have better habits in the world, you're making a huge mistake because
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all you've done is gotten thinner and now you're going to go back to your old way of life
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and you're going to put all that weight back on because those are the same habits that
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got it there to begin with.
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The goal of the GLP one is to give yourself a hiatus from your habits to reprogram them,
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restructure them, find different things that you can do and you get the reward of pretty
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rapid weight loss.
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But the biggest thing is that it allows you to fix the habits.
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The same goes for physical fitness, the same goes for sleep.
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All of these things need an interrupt if there are a problem.
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The GLP ones that I'm referring to the ozempics, the manjaros, the semeglotides, all of that
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stuff, whether it's a prescription brand or an off-label peptide, the reality is they're
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doing the same thing.
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I'm a big fan.
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Some of my other favorites, which are for muscle gain, are things like C.J.C., E.P.
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Moralin, Tessamoralin, all great things, all muscle growth agonist.
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All of these things actually trigger greater production of human growth hormones.
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You're getting a growth hormone boost while you're on these, but again, here's the problem.
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You can't grow if you're not working out.
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These are going to trigger greater muscle growth only if you are growing muscle already.
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There isn't an end between there.
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Those are the big categories that people look at.
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There's plenty of other peptides I have a tendency to use Melanitane 2.
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Why do I use Melanitane 2?
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Well, simply because I like having darker skin.
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Melanitane actually will trigger tanning.
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It actually increases melanin production in the skin.
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I live in South Florida.
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It's really easy for me to walk out in sunlight and get a tan naturally.
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Melanitane doesn't really fast.
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I like the way I look.
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Great.
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I've biohacked my way into a tan.
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Here's the problem.
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I shouldn't be doing it in exchange of spending time in actual sunlight.
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Because being in the sunlight is good for you.
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For me, I use it as a protective measure because I do spend time in the sunlight.
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So if I already have a tan being out in the sunlight, I don't burn as easily.
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I love that.
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When I'm out playing beach volleyball, that I'm the only person who's not on the beach
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slathering myself in sunblock because I'm okay.
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That's a good use of a peptide.
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Something I want to talk about now, though, is this idea of sourcing?
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It's a big issue right now.
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In January of 2026, everything seemed to change because at the end of 2025, the government
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put a lot of restrictions on what peptides could be sold.
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We're also seeing that a lot of the major peptides, such as GLP3s, patents to them are now
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owned by things like Lilly Pharmaceuticals, so we're getting pharma companies that are shutting
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them.
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We're getting the government coming in to shut things down.
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My opinion right now is I'm happy to see that Bobby Kennedy Jr. is stepping in and
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saying, no, no, no, we need to get peptides available to people because these are a way
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that people could actually control their own health.
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Here's my one issue with that, and it's the entire reason why I'm having this conversation
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with you right now.
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I'm a big fan of things being available to people so that they can actually experiment
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and control their own health decisions.
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My problem with it is I think people make a lot of mistakes for lack of information,
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but we live in a world where information is absolutely everywhere.
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My goal is to tell you, I'm a big fan of peptides, I think peptides are a great way to magnify
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the good things that are already going on in your life, hopefully not the bad things,
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but education about safety, education about the proper sourcing that are being used in
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making these peptides.
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Further, using the correct dosages is probably one of my biggest fears for people.
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That is, peptides are most actually labeled for not for human use, so there is no specific
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dosing because you're buying them over the shelf or online and this type of stuff, and
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because of that, it doesn't tell you how much to take.
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Being able to reconstitute a peptide in the exact way that even the instructions are
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given can be confusing for people.
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I get those calls all the time, safety first.
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When you're using a peptide, I definitely recommend that if you're new to this, you need to
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get in touch with a friend or someone you trust to health coach, even if it's not a doctor,
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but I want you to get a hold of somebody that can help you titrate on to these things so
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that you are actually pacing yourself to go.
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Guys, I'm specifically talking to you when I tell you, I completely understand if one
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is good, 12 is better, right?
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That's just the way our brains work.
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If 25ccs of semeglotide helps curb my appetite, well, 50, you'll just shut it right down.
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True.
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It may also shut down your entire digestive system to the point that you can't even have
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a stomach that works.
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We're getting people that are getting super bloated, getting intestinal backups and all
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this because they're shutting their bodies down.
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All this is meant to do is slow things.
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In the case of muscle growth, you're getting guys that are getting completely sick.
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Here's the thing.
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I'm a fan of things like CJC, test moral and whatnot.
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I'm a fan of exogenous testosterone.
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Here's the thing.
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When you introduce things to your body that already are natural to your body, your body
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reads it as that it doesn't have to produce its own anymore because we must be okay.
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There's plenty here.
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Imagine the case that you were the chef, but all everybody was already full because they
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already had food on the table.
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You'd quit cooking.
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There was no one left to feed.
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The same thing is happening with GLP1 users who are on it for too long.
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GLP naturally exists in your body.
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When you're taking a GLP1 that's shorthand, it's a GLP1 agonist, which literally means
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that you are triggering GLP production in your body, the natural kind.
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When you're doing that, your body will over time stop producing its own GLP1 or significantly
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slow it.
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My recommendation to friends is if you're going to use a GLP1 two weeks on, one week off,
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pace that, cadence it so your body doesn't forget how to do what it should.
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But all of that to say, titrating, making sure that you're slow on, you're slow off,
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making sure that you're dosing is correct, making sure that you are responsibly buying only
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peptides that are high quality, making sure that you are having a conversation with people
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in your life that you are taking this type of stuff who can help you make those decisions.
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But further, we need to make sure, as an example, if something were to happen negative
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to you, that somebody would be able to tell a doctor or a hospital what else you had in
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your body aside from dinner.
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We need to make sure that that information is shared, if not with your doctor, somewhere
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someone needs to know what you're on so that that stuff can be treated in a medical environment.
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The goal of this guy is that peptides are amazing.
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peptides are doing some amazing things.
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I'm a huge fan, I regularly use things like BPC157 for tissue regrowth and GHKCU for
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for skin and for hair and nail health, like all of that stuff is important.
23:27
That's just copper.
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You're introducing things to your body that are normal to your body.
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I'm a big fan, but I'm just going to go on record to saying, be careful.
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Reach out to me.
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I'll gladly help you in any way that I can.
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Find friends in your community that are already doing this.
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Let's keep it safe, but here's we're going to go back to the basics here, right?
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Four things.
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I need to make sure that your sleep is under control, that your diets under control, that
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your workouts are under control, and that you actually have labs to know where your current
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body is so that you can make smart decisions.
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Safety first, making sure that you're watching out for this stuff, and I encourage you, do
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your reading, jump on ChadGPT, do what you got to do, but know what you're talking about
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before you go introducing things into your body, all right?
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Encourage you, age defiantly, and stick with us for next time, we'll see you soon.