Make America Healthy Again — The Real Fix Isn’t in a Pill

In this episode, I sit down with Steven Villagomez, a clinically trained exercise physiologist and one of the most grounded, data-driven health professionals I know. We unpack the real foundations of health—sleep, nervous system regulation, and metabolic recovery—and why none of your efforts in diet, fitness, or supplementation will work without getting these right first. Steven breaks down how simple tools like mouth taping, air quality, and HRV-based coaching can shift everything from glucose regulation to mental clarity.

We also dive deep into the current conversation around testosterone, the FDA’s quiet reversal on long-standing TRT fears, and how most men are overlooking the root cause: lifestyle stress. Steven explains how regulating SHBG, improving recovery scores, and leveraging hormetic stressors like cold exposure and breathwork can dramatically increase natural testosterone levels—no prescriptions needed. This is a masterclass on what real health optimization looks like when you combine evidence-based practice with lived experience.

Most importantly, we explore the mission behind the Make America Healthy Again movement and why it’s time to reclaim our agency from a system driven by pharmaceutical profits. Steven and I talk about the urgent need for preventive care, functional diagnostics, and coaching that connects the dots—because health doesn’t come from symptom management; it comes from understanding your body, asking better questions, and showing up with intention.

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Timestamps:

[00:00:39] Importance of sleep for recovery.

[00:05:21] Exercise physiology and its misconceptions.

[00:08:35] Specialized generalists in health.

[00:12:25] Make America Healthy Again.

[00:17:14] Treating the patient, not symptoms.

[00:20:57] Building trust with clients.

[00:25:40] Testosterone FDA black box warning.

[00:31:29] Testosterone and stress regulation.

[00:35:08] Importance of sleep for health.

[00:40:56] Message over money.

Chapters

• 0:00 Teaser
• 5:21 Exercise physiology and its misconceptions
• 8:35 Specialized generalists in health
• 12:25 Make America Healthy Again
• 17:14 Treating the patient, not symptoms
• 20:57 Building trust with clients
• 25:40 Testosterone FDA black box warning
• 31:29 Testosterone and stress regulation
• 35:08 Importance of sleep for health
• 40:56 Message over money

Transcript

Steven Villagomez:
Everybody has this misconception that you have to do a million things. No, you just have to do a few things really, really well. Why? Consistently. Yeah, a few things out of the diet. Exercising. Getting in, I think the biggest thing, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one, because I still think it's the most important, and it's the toughest nut to crack. You could do everything right. You could eat perfectly, you could exercise, you could take every supplement, you could take everything.

Andrés Preschel: If you don't sleep, I was about to say, that's the first thing I start with with all my clients. Sleep, sleep, recovery, nervous system regulation. And the sleep issue can be as simple as changing your breathing. It can be as simple as getting some mouth tape, as simple as getting a, you know, like a blindfold or what is it called? A sleep mask, right? It's like, it can be really simple things, getting an air purifier to just breathe better. Yes, absolutely. Sleep is the number one. That's the highest. That's the furthest upstream of all these other habits. Eating becomes more intuitive and you're not eating impulsively. You can truly eat what your body needs. You're better regulating blood glucose. You have higher sensitivity. You have now more energy to exercise. And now you have the nutrition and the recovery, right, because of the sleep. And now, when you exercise with more energy, you derive more benefit from that. And now you cover all those things, your mind's going to be in a better place. Now that you're more clear, more sharp, you're more aware, you reinvest in all those areas.

Steven Villagomez: It's so, it's, you know, the other thing with people, I like, this is the analogy I give people too, so like sleep, sleep, sleep. I'm like, when does the body repair itself?

Andrés Preschel: Sleep. Yeah. Have you ever tried it? Recover, regenerate, refresh. I mean, everything. It's like the neurotransmitters, the hormones. Everything. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: You can repair the freeway during rush hour. Yeah. You could try, but it's going to take forever. Yeah. So I'm so glad that we were so aligned on the importance of sleep and you see how in everybody to the audio. The most important thing I do. Yeah.

Andrés Preschel: Sleep. The trust and the sleep. That's like, if you got those two things right, everything else is easy. Let's jump right in. We're gonna start on time. Why don't we start with a little about who you are and why you do what you do.

Steven Villagomez: Well, that's a great question and thank you. So, I'm a clinically trained exercise physiologist. Spent a lot of time doing my graduate work at the University of Texas at Austin. My first role was in endocrinology. I moved from Austin, Texas to New York where I took a very, very interesting role with a very prestigious Yale trained endocrinologist. Um, she taught me everything that I know now. She also forced me into an academic role. So I was a full-time tenured professor as well as a full-time clinician, uh, right out of graduate school. And, uh, from there I won some awards, became a, a really well-known exercise physiologist. And then I quit my job and went into working in pro sports.

Andrés Preschel: Nice. And for those who don't know, what is exercise physiology as an exercise physiologist asking each other?

Steven Villagomez: I think that's a very, very good question. Um, exercise physiology is anything above basal metabolic rate. There we go.

Andrés Preschel: If you know, you know, let's, let's elaborate that. What does that mean?

Steven Villagomez: So everything that happens at a basal metabolic rate is what we're doing right now.

Andrés Preschel: We're slightly above because we're using our brains, we're using some glucose.

Steven Villagomez: As soon as we get moving and start intertwining our environment and life in general, things tend to things get tend to get pushed a little bit harder, depending on what system, whether you're looking at family history, genetics. If we look at like SNPs, which means environment, I mean, we could have the healthiest person, put them in an incredibly stressful environment and just have them sit there. Yeah. Right. It's things like that. So looking at all of those factors as you are very well versed in, looking at all of those factors and how they affect the individual, or as I like to say, the end of one, the person that we're looking at, all of those systems change. And that's how you really have to know, as you would like to say, you have to really know your physiology because each one of those things gets tweaked.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah, I think there's a common misconception. I think when people hear exercise physiologist, they think of like a high end personal trainer or they think of like physical therapist. Why is it called exercise physiology? What is the exercise and exercise physiology really mean?

Steven Villagomez: That is a very, very true statement. And it is sometimes we do get pigeonholed. into those things.

Andrés Preschel: I'm going to start saying that. That's exactly it.

Steven Villagomez: We get pigeonholed. We get pigeonholed into these things. And you know, to your point, exercise physiology is a very big umbrella. It is a very big umbrella and there's a lot of things that fall underneath it. And what happens is people don't understand that. So that's where the pigeonhole comes into. We know nutrition. We know lab work. We know, we know medicine.

Andrés Preschel: We know- Psychology. Yeah. I mean, it's disease prevention, longevity, all of the action that are relevant. Help us understand how these healthy habits actually help to transform and, you know, live a better life.

Steven Villagomez: Absolutely. It's, um, we have, you know, it's one of those sayings of being like an expert of everything or jack of all trades.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. Jack of all trades.

Steven Villagomez: We, we do know a lot more and I'm proud to say that we know a lot more than what people give us credit to. And you know what, I'm fine with that. You know why? Because it gives us a very, very unique perspective that when people start working with us, we provide that perspective. And that's when they're like, Oh, I didn't know that. And I kind of live for those moments because when we get to that point, people right there begin to trust us a lot more.

Andrés Preschel: Well, we connect the dots in a very unique way. I was on a podcast yesterday. I think you'll appreciate this. I was being interviewed and I told this lovely young lady, I told her I'm an expert in three things. Health, data-driven health and performance coaching. Fishing. I don't know. So they're like, I'm a jack of all trades. And, you know, as an exercise physiologist, the background in neuroscience, psychology, nutrition, whatever. Um, I'm very good at saying, I don't know, but I also really good at finding a relevant expert that does know and collaborating with them, seeing eye to eye with an individual. I think that's a unique skill that we have, you know, not to toot our own horns here, but I think it realistically is a, is a really valuable skill. I feel like other specialties are just so isolated. It's difficult to. you know, have a conversation that could help somebody understand what they're going through and how they're going to get out of a tough spot.

Steven Villagomez: I can't agree. I can't agree more with that statement. Um, I find it very humbling to be able to say, I don't know, on the same token, it's going to be very hard for you to find things that I don't know, but I will humbly say, I do not know. But what I will, what I also tell the person in front of me, I am going to the first person that I know to get that answer for you. I am not going to stop until I figure out that answer to that question.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. Yeah. You're relentless for sure. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: Yeah.

Andrés Preschel: Um, what, what do you think, what is there to say about exercise physiology as it pertains to the modern perspective on health? Uh, what I mean by that is like, you know, most people, are getting excited. A lot of people are getting excited about health right now. They're listening to the podcast, they're reading the books, they're doing the cold plunge, the sauna, the HIIT training, right? So what kind of perspective do you think exercise physiology plays in helping them meet that intention with the right process? Versus just kind of like, you know, working with a personal trainer or following a health influencer. What do you think exercise physiology? How do you think it supports someone in actually getting healthier and finding what works for them?

Steven Villagomez: That's a very good question. And the first thing that comes straight to my mind is we are the bridge to all of those things. We understand how all of like, we were just discussing the interconnectivity of all of these things where specialists specialize. We are, I would like to say- Specialized generalists? Specialized generalists. I like to say this in my career, being in a background of endocrinology, background in exercise physiology, spent a lot of time in nutrition, a lot of time in physical therapy. We are the ultimate, I am, at least I feel, right? I'm not gonna say, is being the ultimate middleman. Oh, for sure, yeah. You come to me with an issue, a question, a concern. I might not know how to have the answer, but I know exactly who I need to get you to. And that's where a specialist will be like, well, I don't know. Or you go to a normal doctor, well, you need to go here. Yeah, where it's like, give me one second and we could find that. We know how to connect the dots like you said.

Andrés Preschel: So I did the math here, and I want people to, this applies to many realms, not just exercise physiology, what we're talking about specifically, but you know how people can, anyone can get excited about being the top 1% of something, right? And that's really rare, to be the top 1%. Like, you know, you've got your PhD, so you're very specialized. Yes, you have an incredible foundation, but you're also specialized in a specific topic, right? Anyone with a PhD is very, very specialized. Okay. You can be in the top 1% of something, but if you're in the top, let's say, being generous, top 20% of like three skills, and then you find a way to blend those skills, if you do the math, so 0.2 times 0.2 times 0.2, 0.008 multiplied by 100, you're in the top 0.8% of that unique blend. You're more rare than being in the top 1% of one thing. That's very, that's just top 20% is being generous in the top 10% of like three things. You know, it's even higher. It gets even higher. Let's hear in the top 5% like and how much, what's the gap between being the top 5% versus being the top 1%? You know, so you blend those skills and now you're suddenly a specialized generalist.

Steven Villagomez: And the unique thing about our field is, we do share this, is exercise physiologists, especially the good ones, were able to blend many different, very, very complex topics. Because when you understand physiology and then you know how to, when the engine gets revved and you see all of the systems, Here's a good analogy is doing a graded exercise test, which everybody's going to be like, oh, oh. But what we're looking at is we're looking at the person. We're looking at a 12 lead EKG. I'm looking at what fuel source you're burning. I know exactly how hard you're burning.

Andrés Preschel: You're talking like a metabolic heart. A metabolic heart. VO2 max test.

Steven Villagomez: Yeah. Looking at ventatory gas exchange.

Andrés Preschel: RIQ.

Steven Villagomez: I love me some RIQ. You look at that. We know exactly what's going on. multiple systems, not just your heart.

Andrés Preschel: It's multiple systems. And how to influence those systems while you're in that, you know, exercise bout, like you're going to shift your breathing. You can engage the diaphragm. You can, there's so much that you can do that will shift RQ, respiratory quotient. And that alone is, you know, responsible for what, well, you know, it influences substrate utilization or using more glucose or using more ketones or, you know, what have you. That's fascinating, man. So, okay, let's, uh, shift gears. Um, uh, let's talk a little bit about making America healthy again. Please. Okay. Please. So, so, uh, why don't you kind of, why don't we start with, um, your current view, your, your position and, and how you want to leverage your specific knowledge to impact, you know, our country?

Steven Villagomez: Well, What an amazing topic and what a absolute fascinating time we live in. And I know it's very difficult with all the things that are going on. It pulls and it dilutes what's really going on. But the Make America Healthy, again, with RFK Jr., anybody in this field is either terrified, or absolute Whitefield. Well, a lot of medicine, a lot of doctors are going to be very, very scared of this. I know, I know many doctors in New York City that their practices are drying up quickly because we now know that if you are not sick, Doctors are kind of a slippery slope to go to. I'm not going to say any more than that, but the truth remains is if there's nothing wrong, they will find something wrong with you because that is what the system is. The Make America Healthy movement is about one, giving people the truth and then letting them kind of figure this out for themselves.

Andrés Preschel: Giving them their agency back.

Steven Villagomez: Yes, we have been lied to no matter how we look at this. How does big pharma make 1.2 trillion dollars on curing us? How do health care insurance companies make half a trillion dollars by denying people's health care? These things first need to be brought to light. And then two, look at what he's trying to do. Let's remove things that we know have been bad for us for the last 40 years. Why do we have dyes and things in our food source where they took them out from cosmetics 40 years ago, but it's okay for us to consume them? We can't put it on our skin, but we could consume it. That's me. There's nothing okay about that. There are a lot of things that are being given back to us, finally. Peptides. The truth of what peptides do. We finally have somebody that wants to give us tools that help us. And that to me is something that I'm really, really behind. I'm lucky enough, won't mention names, of knowing some people that are in his camp. And it's a really exciting time to know that there is somebody at the top that actually cares about the American people. Where it is, it's our health, is more important to him than money and that is the first time and to me that is a I'm very I'm very excited and very proud to be kind of behind that movement.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah and you know no one's perfect obviously no movement is perfect and he's received a lot of criticism anyone who stands for RFK Jr. has received a lot of criticism but Ultimately, why do you think that we should trust RFK and the Maha Movement for the well-being of ourselves and the well-being of our country?

Steven Villagomez: That's a great question. And I think that what I know is one, working in medicine for as long as I have and seeing some of the dark truths of what's going on.

Andrés Preschel: And if we just so that we can fill the viewers in, what is your typical day-to-day like? What are your current responsibilities? What kind of people do you work with? How do you do your work?

Steven Villagomez: So, I work with a few different, I work in a few different realms of medicine. I help direct a lab that does all of the testing that we're discussing about the VO2 max testing, the DEXA scans, the PFT, pulmonary function tests.

Andrés Preschel: Where do you do that?

Steven Villagomez: I do that in New York City. Okay. It's in a private practice that utilizes very, very sophisticated testing to actually look underneath the hood of the car, right? With that, with advanced blood work, we could really kind of forecast on what's going on. The overall philosophy of this is why put out a forest fire when we could have put it on the trash cap, right? So that's some of the day-to-day. And then some of the other day-to-day is through tele-wellness. Um, not, not just through tele-wellness. I need a company I work for, but just do like tele-health. Um, what has gone on is there's such a mistrust within the medical community now that they're coming to people like us. They're searching for answers where if they go to a doctor and they get lab work and everything is within reference range, you're fine.

Andrés Preschel: Why aren't you like other doctors?

Steven Villagomez: Because I know how to treat the patient and not the symptom.

Andrés Preschel: How did you learn how to do that? 20 years of really hard work. Was it mentorship? Was it just intuitively what came to you? Was it your parents?

Steven Villagomez: This is a good shout out for Dr. Florence Comité. Great experiences it was working with her. She was a very, very difficult boss. And I have nothing but all bosses should be. Yeah. Trust me. Anybody who's watching this that knows her will actually will be like, Oh boy, she's going to be interested to see this. Um, she was a genius in light years ahead and she taught me one thing and this is right out of graduate school. Steven, you need to be an open-minded skeptic.

Andrés Preschel: Hmm.

Steven Villagomez: Right. And that's a good one. Being open minded skeptic and to really cut through what's going on. You see the person of everything on paper says, I, this, this, this patient is healthy and you're spending the time with them. You're like, this doesn't add up.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. Then you have to dig deeper. And how do you dig deeper? What does it take between you and the patient to dig deeper?

Steven Villagomez: First, the conveyance of trust. Once that person trusts you, and remember we're talking about this very briefly, is the psychology of it. You have to be part-time psychologists, psychiatrists. You have to get them to be really telling you, be like, what as we've, as I've been discussing with many people over the last few days, is when people talk to you, talk to us about their health, they are giving us full and utter disclosure in, in trust on what we're about to talk about. And that is one, it's very scary for them. And two, A lot of them have this disenfranchisement with the current medical system. We're just talking about, yo, you're fine. You're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with you. Take this pill. They're not treating the patient. They're treating the symptoms. So it's conveying that trust and truly listening to their needs. And you've seen this, and it could be, it could be something very, very large that's wrong, or it could be something as little as they're not taking the right form of magnesium at night. Yeah. Or they're not, they're not. Yeah.

Andrés Preschel: He can be like the small, he could be really the smallest thing and it's right there in front of us. But it exacerbates other, you know, issues or just like it's the first domino, you know, to go. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: It's sometimes it's not. And then here's this other thing with this kind of philosophy is sometimes It's, we shouldn't be looking for the right answer. We should be asking the right questions. And that's where you spend the time with these people, these patients, these clients. A lot of them actually have turned into close friends.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. All my clients ended up being like great friends because of that trust and that relationship that we built. Thank you for saying that. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I've never spoken about this openly.

Steven Villagomez: Neither have I. This is actually, this is the very first time where people ask me, why do I work so much? And a lot of people are going to see this for the first time because they're my friends.

Andrés Preschel: I'm going to the farmer's market tomorrow with one of my clients. Like just hang out. We were going to go to the Bahamas this weekend together to do some fishing. It had to, we have to move it. And now we're going to the farmer's market.

Steven Villagomez: I've traveled with so many of my clients and patients. They have become great friends. They come to our, we go to each other's birthday party. Everybody's like, so how do you know each other? We're like, you're my patient.

Andrés Preschel: All the time. Same here.

Steven Villagomez: I'm glad you said that. I'm glad like, well, that's out in the open now. There we go, everybody. Why would it be worse? Why do we work so much? Because you guys become our friends and our family.

Andrés Preschel: If you're going to help someone at that level, I mean, it really is about building trust and it goes both ways. You know, like sometimes, I mean, even though I'm the professional, I have to maintain a certain frame. I'll open up and I'll get vulnerable with them to show them that I understand their pain. Oh, I mean, I know how it feels. And I can put myself in their shoes. And then when they feel understood, you know, it allows me to tap into their experience and what they're dealing with and how I can go in and help. So inevitably, I mean, as a consequence, without the negative connotation, we end up being great friends, you know, establishing a meaningful relationship.

Steven Villagomez: I have laughed, I have cried, I have been through the emotional spectrum with so many patients, clients over the last 18 years that it almost, in our field, and I think you'd like this as well, it almost doesn't feel like work at sometimes. It doesn't, right?

Andrés Preschel: I gave you like 10% of it.

Steven Villagomez: Yeah, like you get up and what we do is, when people come to us and we really get and we could see the change and we I don't take credit I'm like oh no leaders don't take credit man I give my clients a hundred percent of the credit thank you they had the courage to show up to have the conversation with me to say hey I need help I admire that about them I'm here to guide them but they're doing the hard work I just pointed in the direction you guys are the hard work and it doesn't even I I Most days people are like, why do you get up at 445? Why do you, why do you go to bed at one in the morning? Because it's, it's a passion project and it does not feel like work at all. And that's the other thing. It really feels like it, when I say it's a calling, it's, I don't, it puts wind in my sail. It gives me my purpose that every day I get up early and I get to help people. We get to extend their lives. We get them to feel better. You've seen this, especially with a lot of, a lot of the female clients that I work with that with, I've helped them with the weight loss. I, that stuff is powerful.

Andrés Preschel: You give them their confidence back. I mean, it's unbelievable. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: You, yeah, I was going to say the confidence in, you could just see them change. They metamorphosize into this butterfly and it's just them. Like I just helped. I just was just the, you listened to me, you trusted me and I helped you get there. And that is, how do we call that work?

Andrés Preschel: Yeah, it's not work, it's a dream.

Steven Villagomez: I'm glad we just got those two Davidsons, like really main concepts. I've never talked about that.

Andrés Preschel: It's difficult for me to talk about that. I imagine the same for you. Cause it's, it's a very unique role that we play and it's, I guess most people wouldn't be able to understand that. Oh, but you're just an exercise physiologist. Like, no, it's like the nature of my role, you know, connecting these doctor people and helping them realize how much better they can be and how to get there. I mean, it's, it's incredible. And like actually taking a data-driven evidence-based approach to do that is, is unbelievable.

Steven Villagomez: I cannot agree more and it's so… Like going back into this, the Mahayali, right, right, right.

Andrés Preschel: The question was like, why should we trust this movement and RFK Jr. and your position in that?

Steven Villagomez: That was, that was first off a wonderful tagent. Yeah. It's because, again, there, we don't always have to agree with all of the things that anybody says or does. But the message right now is clear, is His big thing too is he, we want, we want to get pharma, big pharma off the TV. You know how much money the media makes from pharma?

Andrés Preschel: It's nuts. I mean, and nobody understands it. This is a meme at this point, right? It's like all these commercials about, you know, these meds and they have to disclose the side effects and symptoms and it's like, may cause death. It's like, you're watching T, fuck me.

Steven Villagomez: You know? Have you seen the one movie, we're just having fun with this, it's like there's like a skit where they're like having a picnic and they're like having a good time and they're like, may cause bleeding from eyes and one person's like, the one friend's is like, what is going on? And the other person's like, arm falls off and the last one may cause cannibalism, right? And the other friend is eating, it's like, those are legit side effects. These are legit side effects where they say it may cause- That's on TV, and alcohol's on TV, it's like-

Andrés Preschel: You mentioned earlier, and again, I know we're going on so many changes, I want to eventually answer this question. Yeah, go, go. For you, just before we got on the show, we were talking about this latest update with testosterone and the FDA.

Steven Villagomez: What's going on there? So everybody in the end of February, they finally took off the black box warning. And that's the highest like do not take off of testosterone. And so what the FDA has told us is that we lie. Sorry, in layman's terms, what does that mean to take the blood? Oh, so it's pretty much if you take this, you have a high chance of death.

Andrés Preschel: OK, so now now they don't think that that's the case. Yeah, they now they realize it's safer than we imagined.

Steven Villagomez: It's not only safer, it's not only just safer, and we could go into this, but to the black box warning by taking testosterone, they told us it does not cause prostate cancer like the fear mongering it did. Two, it does not cause strokes. And three, it does not cause heart attacks.

Andrés Preschel: Why do they suddenly disclose this? Well, I think there are so many, almost a hundred years, I mean since 1942, right?

Steven Villagomez: Yeah, the 42 is the first prostate cancer kind of earmongering correlation. Okay, right. It's, it's, you know what it is too? Is it Maha that's behind that? Like why is it suddenly coming to light? Isn't it strange how the FDA just told us that eggs are healthy again after 40 years? Yeah. Hold on, hold on, 40 years, eggs are healthy now. It's along these same things where the Maha movement, he's shaking the tree and they're starting to put red dye now. No one asked them to do it. No one asked him to do that, but they're like, oh, oh, hey, we just get rid of the red dye. Yeah, yeah.

Andrés Preschel: Exactly. They're going to look like fools when we do shake the tree hard enough.

Steven Villagomez: Yeah, and they're trying to like, what it is is like, it's kind of like, just let's kind of cover our paths a little bit because this is bad. And so with that testosterone running, and everybody else in medicine that's watching, which I think this will really tie to the audience is, 10 years ago, testosterone reference range was 700 to 900 was normal, right? Everybody, let's look this up. Now it's 300 to 700. So 10 years ago, if you had a testosterone of 500, we need to treat you. You must feel like garbage. We got to help you. You go to a doctor today, your testosterone's 400, which is half of what it could have been 10 years ago. You're fine. Yeah. Get out of here.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: Nothing we could do for you. You're within reference range. Why is this the case? What's the conflict of interest? Well, this is the thing too is now testosterone is we're kind of going down this, which is a very, very good topic to talk about. Everyone's like, Oh, testosterone is how many men when testosterone is the highest. when you're going just through, right after puberty, let's just say 21 to 27, right? Just say 20s. How many men develop? I'm about to turn 28, man.

Andrés Preschel: No, no, no, no. But this is the thing.

Steven Villagomez: This is the thing. How many of your colleagues develop prostate cancer right now? Zero. How many die of heart attacks? My colleagues? Yeah. 28-year-old. None? What about strokes? Zero.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. And yet your testosterone's the highest. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: It's kind of weird how we are told things, but when you get to the science and really the data-driven science of this, looking at why did these things change? Why? How did this happen? And then to know that now, now knowing that testosterone does not cause these things and showing that the reference range has I think this is where the empowerment where we're here to tell people if you do not feel like yourself as a man right let's say you're 35 before you don't feel go to the doctor and tell the doctor treat me as a patient, do not just treat these numbers. You need to treat the person in front of you. And that's where I think that's where some of the movements going where I think people have such a disenfranchised with medicine because they will not do anything where now the people that I've been working with, I tell them to go to your doctor and demand them to do their job. listen to the person in front of them, take the time. I don't feel right, right? What are my options? Please help me. And that's where I think that if you have enough people doing that, I think that's a movement that could really change some of the landscape of medicine right now.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I've got a lot of men that, you know, you look at their T and they could be candidates for TRT. But I think the vast majority of men that eventually go on, on TRT, I mean, this is the made up figure, but I think at least 90% are completely dismissing lifestyle habits that could increase it naturally, no matter what age, you know, you're at.

null: 100%.

Steven Villagomez: And you know what, Andres, thank you for kind of bringing this back to a very centering point. Yeah. To your point. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too, is the lifestyle. Just looking at SHBG.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: Sex hormone binding globulin. You don't need testosterone. Sometimes you could supplement. You can lower your SHBG.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah, that's it. That's all you need to do. Like the DIM or whatever.

Steven Villagomez: Yeah, take DIM, take boron. Thank you, Dr. Brent Egan for that one. I'm going to give him a quick shout out because I thought when he told me that I looked at him, I'm like, what? It's a simple mineral that helps drive down sex hormone binding globulin for the audience. Sex hormone binding globulin, when that is high, your free testosterone versus your total testosterone, there's a real disconvergence. And when SHBG is high, your free testosterone is lower, so you can't do its job.

Andrés Preschel: So typically the way that I describe this is to kind of like bring it full spectrum is I'll tell guys like, look, you know, testosterone is a hormone that does a lot. But one of the main objectives of testosterone is to help drive and reinforce behaviors that are consistent with our reproductive capacity. So if you're under the perception, if your physiology is under the perception of stress, like if, you know, psychologically, physically, physiologically, you're dealing with a lot of stress, why would your body want you to seek out? Why would you want to have high libido? Like, why would you seek out reproductive behavior if your body's not ready to reproduce? It's not primed for reduction. So a lot of guys need to regulate stress better. They need to sleep better. They need to give their body real nutrition and cut out the bullshit. that is stressing them out, like smoking, like, you know, alcohol, etc. And it's like, if we cut this stuff out, we lay the foundations for your body to self-regulate, which I mean, your body has innate wisdom that is just unbelievable. We give the body the opportunity to fix itself, then all of a sudden, it's going to pursue habits and decisions and behaviors that are consistent And it becomes like a positive feedback loop. Now you have high testosterone and now guess what? You gain more muscle and burn more fat simultaneously with a little bit of exercise. Now you're more mentally clear and sharp. It's like you can completely flip the switch. Like I've helped guys in their 50s triple their T and their bioavailability. And it's because their bodies are no longer under the perception of so much stress. We build that resilience. We we add exercise, fasting, heating, cold exposure, all these hormetic stressors that are objectively healthy. We titrate them in according to the recovery scores, their HIV, et cetera. So, you know, a nervous system can truly adapt. And it's insane. It's like, OK, we do this. Let's do that first. And then let's see if you're still a candidate for testosterone. 100%. And odds are, if you still need it, it's going to be like a marginal amount.

Steven Villagomez: And the other thing, just to back to your point, and I think people will like this, is all of those things that you just talked about, that's what exercise physiologists, boom, do. That is what we're capable of doing, is not just looking at the laps. just to all those things. We see elevated SHBG. We know exactly what to do. We're a doctor. You know, you're fine, right? Yeah. All of those things need to be implemented. And you're absolutely right on so many levels. of look at what lifestyle could do to that one value.

Andrés Preschel: And odds are, it's that's so far abstruse of other values. If you focus on testosterone, you're going to end up supporting all kinds of biomarkers, biometrics. You know what I mean? You regulate stress better in this stressful world and downstream of that decision. commitment, so much is going to improve. The body is so good at self-regulating when you give it the opportunity. And it doesn't take a lot. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: That's the thing. Everybody has this misconception that you have to do a million things. No, you just have to do a few things really, really well. Why? Consistently. Yeah, a few things out of the diet. exercising, getting in, I think the biggest thing, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on this one, because I still think it's the most important, and it's the toughest nut to crack. You could do everything right. You could, you could eat perfectly, you could exercise, you take every supplement, you take everything.

Andrés Preschel: If you don't sleep, I was about to say that's the first thing I start with with all my clients. Sleep, sleep, recovery, nervous system regulation, and the sleep issue can be as simple as changing your breathing. It can be as simple as getting some mouth tape, as simple as getting a blindfold or what is it called? A sleep mask, right? It can be really simple things. Getting an air purifier to just breathe better. Yes, absolutely. Sleep is the number one. That's the highest. That's the furthest upstream of all these other habits. Eating becomes more intuitive and you're not eating impulsively. You can truly eat what your body needs. You're better regulating blood glucose. You have higher insensitivity. You have now more energy to exercise. And now you have the nutrition and the recovery right because of the sleep. And now when you exercise with more energy, you derive more benefit from that. And now you cover all those things. Your mind's going to be in a better place. Now that you're more clear, more sharp, you're more aware, you reinvest in all those areas.

Steven Villagomez: It's so, it's, you know, the other thing with people, I like, this is the analogy I give people too. So like sleep, sleep, sleep. I'm like, when does the body repair itself?

Andrés Preschel: Sleep. Have you ever tried it? Recover, regenerate, refresh. I mean, everything. It's like the neurotransmitters, the hormones. Freezing. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: You can repair the freeway during rush hour. Yeah. You could try, but it's going to take forever. Yeah. So I'm so glad that we were so aligned on the importance of sleep and you see how in everybody to the audio.

Andrés Preschel: The most important thing that I do. The trust and the sleep, that's like, if you got those two things right, everything else is easy.

Steven Villagomez: And look at how we went from what I, again, this is a really fun show to be on. We went on a tangent from black box warning testosterone to be like sleep. Joe, please.

Andrés Preschel: We only have like two more minutes. Yeah. But I've got some rapid fire questions. Go. Why should we trust Mahan RFK? I know this is a loaded question, but like because he has his best.

Steven Villagomez: He has our best interest.

Andrés Preschel: He might make mistakes, but he genuinely has our best interests. You know what? I'm fine with person making one or two mistakes when they do 98 things right. Yeah. Right. And he's not the health expert, but he's collecting health experts that think similarly. Yes. I think that's fair to say. He wants to. Apparatize the same values that you, you know. Yeah.

Steven Villagomez: You want to get rid of high fructose corn syrup from baby syrup. What the hell was it doing in the first place? Right. Exactly. Little things like that. So I, he has, he has the American population. He's there, he's there wanting, he wants to help us. And I firmly believe that.

Andrés Preschel: What should people do to help fulfill this mission, this Maha movement and knowing the physiology and being more, uh, you know, uh, um, you know, uh, not just self-aware, but having that agency, what do people need to do to, what's the first step people need to take?

Steven Villagomez: I'm just going to say it, Andres, they need to start listening to people like us that want and truly help them. We're out there. There are people like us that, I mean, just think about what we were talking about. We don't feel like this has even worked. We go above and beyond just to help people. And there's people like us out there that actually care. And we, they need to be, there needs, there needs to be a way for them to be able to find more people that truly help, that want to help them. And that is, that is something I'm trying to do. I don't, I, that's a, that's an answer I wish I could further, I could further, but I, I don't have that. I don't have the perfect answer for that.

Andrés Preschel: Think about it. We'll get you back on the show and we'll ask you the same question.

Steven Villagomez: I'd love to do that.

Andrés Preschel: Cool. Two more questions for you. How'd you get so fucking jacked?

Steven Villagomez: I take care of myself. Sleep, sleep. You said you go to sleep at 1.30, wake up at 4.30. Well, that's only because I'm here in Miami working. Proper nutrition, peptides, the right hormones, and you really sleep and proper nutrition. I mean, really eating the right way, fasting the right way, right supplementation, and Here it is, because I put my health at a top priority.

Andrés Preschel: And it helps you reinvest in your work. I mean, it helps you connect people in a deeper way. You're more mentally clear, you're more energized, and that carries into and bleeds into the, you know, how you show up for them.

Steven Villagomez: Absolutely. I mean, this morning with the gentleman from Deep Social, we went and trained at the gym. And we were there, it was a slow start, but man, when we got to it, we were there like we were on a mission. So it was really, when you do all of these things, working out and having the physique like we do have, it becomes really easy.

Andrés Preschel: Yeah. And then last question for you here, man. I'm so like, I feel terrible having to cut this short because we're in a bit of a rush, but we'll do more. Absolutely. If you could put a word, message or phrase on a billboard somewhere in the world, what would it say and where would you put it?

Steven Villagomez: Oh, man, it's going to be… Besides Maha. And you know what? Message over money.

Andrés Preschel: There we go.

Steven Villagomez: Message over money. And Next time, we should dive into that. Let's do it. Thank you so much. What an honor, man. What an honor and pleasure. That was fun. That was great. Yeah. The tangents we went on. Yeah. Yeah. We got to do that again. We will do it again. Thank you guys for tuning in. Yeah. Thank you guys.