Skribans Strength, Performance and Nutrition

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Skribans Strength, Performance and Nutrition

Bringing out the mixture of obsessive fitness lifestyle paired with scientific background in order f

Education: Currently studying MSc in Sport and Exercise Nutrition, Leeds Beckett University starting September 2016 – 2017. Ba(Hons) (Top-Up) Sports Science, Derby University 2015 – 2016. FdSc Sport and Exercise Science, Derby University 2013 – 2015. Certifications: KBT Strength and Conditioning Qualifications (Powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting and Kettlebell training);
Level 3 Diploma in Sports Massage Therapy;
Milos Sarcev's Hyperaemia training principles;
Level 1 ISAK Technician (anthropometric measurements);
Level 3 Personal Trainer, Group Class Training Certificate;
First Aid Certificate. Focus: Performance Nutrition, Lifestyle Assessments, Bodyweight Management, Body Transformations, Strength & Conditioning for Sports Events, Powerlifting, Bodybuilding/fitness/bikini contest prep. Personal Bio: An aspiring fitness addict that is currently working on his SENr (Sports and Exercise Nutrition register) accreditation in order to be internationally recognised performance nutritionist. Over last 10 years I have worked with every level, shape and size athletes - starting from someone who works daily by the desk and up to Olympic athletes. A highly experienced and self-motivated personal trainer with the ability to critique his own knowledge in order to provide the most current and relevant training methods to his clients. Possessing a hard work ethics and passion to fitness related lifestyle, actively involving in different sports related activities and continuous self-development through theory learning and practical applications. Years of work as a personal trainer and continuous sports related studies have helped me to establish high understanding of physical and psychological issues that are holding fitness enthusiasts from achieving their desired goals, and apply personal knowledge to overcome these barriers in order to achieve the optimal physical and psychological potential of my clients. I might be demanding when it comes to training, but that is what we are here for - to push you over and beyond your own limits. Feel free to approach me for any fitness and health related advice even if we do not work directly together, I will never refuse an advice.

05/02/2026

Energy is not about eating more food or taking another supplement.

Energy is an emotional state.
And it can change instantly.

The mother who lifted a car off her child did not do it because of a pre-workout.
She did it because emotion forced the body to redirect every available resource into pure output. No hesitation. No debate.

Now look at the opposite.

That guy sitting in the corner with his hood up is not low energy because he skipped breakfast.
He is drained because his attention lives in helplessness.
His nervous system is trained to conserve, not act.

Food matters. Supplements have their place.
But none of them can outperform the signal coming from your emotional state.

Your body follows commands.
Emotion is the command.

When you allow yourself to step into your actual potential, when you stop shrinking so others feel comfortable, energy appears.
Focus sharpens.
Posture changes.
Output increases.

Low energy is not a nutrition problem.
It is an identity problem.

High energy people are not lucky.
They are aligned.

So ask yourself honestly:

Are you operating from power or avoidance?
Expansion or protection?

Flip that switch and watch how fast your results change.

05/02/2026

We use “Bluetooth” every day and assume it is low risk.
It is wireless.
It is everywhere.
It feels harmless.

That assumption is exactly what this 2024 study examined.

Researchers published in Scientific Reports analyzed Bluetooth headset use and thyroid nodules using real-world data. Not opinions. Not theories. Measured patterns.

They collected 600 adult questionnaires and used statistical matching to compare similar people. Then they applied a machine-learning model to see which factors actually mattered.

Two signals stood out clearly.

Age and daily Bluetooth headset usage time.

Not the brand.
Not occasional calls.
Not a rare use.

How many minutes per day. Repeated, every day.

The model showed that the longer someone used a Bluetooth headset each day, the stronger the association with thyroid nodules. This pattern was consistent and strong enough to rank daily headset time as one of the top risk-linked variables in the entire analysis.

This matters because most modern exposure is not extreme.
It is routine.

Back-to-back meetings.
One earbud in all day.
Calls, podcasts, voice notes, work chats.
“Always on” without thinking about it.

The thyroid gland sits just below the ear and along the neck. Biology responds to distance, duration, and repetition, not convenience or trends.

Important clarity:
This study does not prove Bluetooth causes nodules.
It shows an association, not causation.

But association is often the first place risk shows up before mechanisms are fully mapped.

The practical takeaway is simple and calm:
• Reduce total daily headset time
• Take breaks between long calls
• Switch ears
• Use speaker mode when possible

No panic.
Just smarter habits.

Your body does not track trends.
It tracks exposure.

Save this.
Share it with someone who spends their day on calls.

Source:
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-63653-0

04/02/2026

Majoring in minors. That is the disease preventing you from achieving real results.

In business:
Instead of becoming valuable, you hunt the “high-paying job.”
Then you act surprised when you are miserable, disposable, and living month to month.
A salary is not a future. Skills are.

In relationships:
Instead of learning yourself - your needs, your boundaries, your vision - you bounce from situationship to situationship to avoid feeling lonely.
That is not love. That is emotional noise.

In health:
Instead of fixing the habits that are wrecking you, you try to mask the damage with peptides, supplements, and drugs.
You are not upgrading your body. You are bribing it to stay quiet.

Success is not a one-time perfection.
It is small, boring actions executed over a long time.
The fundamentals, repeated until they become you.

Keep majoring in minors and you will stay the same.
Or you will keep chasing the next best thing, never knowing if you are improving or getting worse.

Real “transformation” takes decades. But you have to start somewhere and commit to one boring habit at a time.

What will it be for you? Which one thing is that you know can transform your life for good that you are not doing because it is “boring” and doesn’t guarantee immediate results?

Do that!

When you are ready to take your life to next level - reach out. Let’s get to work.

longtermthinking

04/02/2026

Fasting spikes growth hormone.
That part is true.

The mistake is what people assume comes next.

“Growth hormone goes up, so muscle must grow.”
That sounds logical.
It is also wrong.

A controlled human study (PMID: 11147801) looked at what growth hormone actually does during prolonged fasting. Not opinions. Not theory. Real measurements.

Yes, growth hormone increased after about 40 hours without food.
But muscle growth did not follow.

Why? Because anabolic means building new tissue. Especially muscle.
And building requires raw material.

During fasting, insulin drops.
IGF-1 drops even harder.
In this study, total IGF-1 fell about 35%.
Free IGF-1, the form that actually acts in the body, fell about 70%.

IGF-1 is the hormone that directly supports muscle growth.

So fasting creates a strange combo:
Higher growth hormone.
Much lower muscle-building signal.

What does growth hormone do instead?

It shifts fuel use.
Less glucose.
Less amino acids.
More fat.

That matters because amino acids come from protein, including muscle.
Growth hormone helps slow muscle breakdown so the body can survive not eating.

The study showed this clearly.
When growth hormone was blocked during fasting, muscle protein breakdown increased.
When growth hormone was present, breakdown was lower.

But muscle protein synthesis did not increase.

Less loss is not the same as growth.

Without protein intake, there is no positive protein balance.
No positive balance means no muscle gain.
Hormones cannot override that rule.

So the growth hormone rise during fasting is not anabolic.
It is anti-starvation.

It helps you lose muscle more slowly.
It does not build new muscle.

Save and share this as a reminder.
Not eating is not a growth phase.

04/02/2026

People obsess over fat loss.
They chase steps. Calories. Cardio. Heart rate zones.

Meanwhile the strongest predictor of living longer quietly sits in the corner…
Strength.

Grip strength alone predicts all-cause mortality better than blood pressure in some research. Not aesthetics. Not VO₂max. Not your step count.

Strength.

Because strength is not just muscle.
It is nervous system health.
It is bone density.
It is mitochondrial capacity.
It is insulin sensitivity.
It is resilience.

A weak body breaks faster.
Falls hurt more.
Recovery slows.
Illness hits harder.
Aging accelerates.

A strong body has margin.

This is why lifting weights is not a hobby.
It is biological insurance.

You are not training for the beach.
You are training for your 70s.

Lift heavy. Move often. Stay capable.

Future you is watching.

Being weak is a choice, not the inevitable outcome - reach out and let’s get you stronger than you ever imagined possible.

Save this and go train like your lifespan depends on it. Because it does.

03/02/2026

People lie all the time.

I had a classmate who told insane stories - Batmobile in the garage, millions, you name it. Funny at first. Then it got old.

Because sooner or later you ask:
“Okay. Prove it.”

And they cannot.

That is when you realise the truth: it was never about fun. It was about feeling important.

Same pattern with health, money, relationships.

People ask you for advice. You give them time, attention, certainty.
They do nothing.
No action. No change. Just more questions.

They are not building a better life.
They are using your answers to feel better about not trying.

That drains you.

Your peer group is a forecast.
My dad used to say: “Show me your friends, and I will show you your future.”

If your circle only talks, complains, and stays the same, it is time to move on.

Is it time for you to upgrade your peer group?
Or maybe ditch one you have now to have some time for yourself and grow into someone who attracts more powerful peers?

Have a serious conversation with yourself about it…

03/02/2026

Walking can literally change your brain.

Not in a motivational-poster way.
In a measured-on-MRI way.

In a randomized trial with older adults, a simple walking routine led to a ~2% increase in the hippocampus - the part of the brain responsible for memory and learning. This is the same region that normally shrinks by about 1–2% per year with age.

Let that sink in.

Walking did not just slow the decline.
It pushed the brain in the opposite direction.

The protocol was almost boring in its simplicity:
• Walk
• 40 minutes
• 3 times per week
• Moderate pace
• Stick with it for a year

No supplements. No biohacks. No intensity theatre.

The comparison group did stretching and toning. Their hippocampus continued to shrink.

Even more interesting: the growth happened mainly in the anterior hippocampus - the area most involved in learning and spatial memory, and the area most vulnerable to aging. Other brain regions did not show the same change.

And this was not just a scan result.
People whose hippocampus grew more also performed better on memory tests.

The brain changes were also linked to BDNF, a protein involved in brain plasticity and neuron health. That signal appeared in the walking group, not the control group.

The takeaway is simple but uncomfortable for modern culture:
The aging brain is not fixed.
Consistency beats complexity.
Movement is information.

If someone tells you “my memory is getting worse; that’s just aging,” this is the evidence that says otherwise.

Source:
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1015950108

02/02/2026

Most people work out their body.
Very few work ON their body.

They train hard.
They sweat.
They repeat the same routines year after year.

Yet nothing really changes.

Working on your body means stepping back and building systems.
Habits you can sustain.
Nutrition you actually understand, not just track.
Training with intent, not random effort.
Psychology, stress, sleep, recovery - the invisible drivers of progress.

Without that, you are just busy.
Busy burning energy.
Busy staying in the same place.

Now zoom out.

This is exactly what happens in business.

Most people start a business to gain freedom…
Then spend all their time working in it.
More hours. More effort. More chaos.

Only a few work on it.
They build systems.
They innovate.
They market.
They create leverage and raving fans.

Those people do not grind harder.
They think better.

The body and business follow the same rule:
If you only show up and do the work, you stay trapped.
If you step back and build systems, you gain freedom.

Training harder will not save a broken structure.
Neither will working longer hours.

Build the system.
Or stay busy forever.

If this hit uncomfortably close, save it.
Then ask yourself where you are still confusing effort with progress.

02/02/2026

Vitamin D deficiency instantly “kills” dopamine!?
That idea sounds dramatic, but it misunderstands how the brain actually works.

Dopamine issues are rarely about a sudden drop. They are about how the system was built, maintained, and protected over time.

Vitamin D acts more like instructions than a stimulant. It binds to receptors in the brain and helps regulate genes involved in neuron growth, survival, and function. This is not a theory. Vitamin D receptors were found to appear very early in brain development, right when dopamine neurons are being formed (PMID: 9757035).

Later in life, those same vitamin D receptors and the enzyme that activates vitamin D are found in dopamine-rich regions of the human brain, especially the substantia nigra, the area heavily affected in Parkinson’s disease (PMID: 15589699).

Vitamin D also increases tyrosine hydroxylase, the rate-limiting enzyme for dopamine synthesis. In simple terms, this enzyme sets the ceiling for how much dopamine your body can make. Active vitamin D was shown to increase tyrosine hydroxylase gene expression two to three times, raising dopamine-producing capacity (PMID: 9011759).

When vitamin D signaling is active, dopamine neurons mature more fully, dopamine production and turnover improve, and markers of immature neurons decrease. When vitamin D is low during development, fewer dopamine neurons fully mature and dopamine metabolism is altered later in life (PMID: 27450565).

This is why vitamin D deficiency keeps appearing in Parkinson’s disease research. Lower vitamin D levels are common in patients and are linked to worse disease severity and progression, not motivation or mood (PMID: 35334877).

Vitamin D is not a dopamine booster.
It is a dopamine system stabilizer.

The damage is slow. Structural. Quiet.
And that is exactly why people underestimate it.

💾 Save this.
📲 Send it to someone who still thinks vitamin D is just about bones.
Learn the difference between signals and structure.

01/02/2026

Same person. Two photos. Two realities.

Left: extreme bodybuilding phase.
That is not “45 minutes a day.” That is a lifestyle built around training, food, recovery, sleep, and months of boring consistency.

Right: a Master’s degree in Sports Nutrition.
Also not “45 minutes a day.” That is years of studying, writing, learning the hard way, and being accountable to standards.

Here is the delusion most people live in:
They think they can build an outstanding body or an expert brain by “just showing up” for 45 minutes a day because they never read autobiographies of the greats.

Then they act surprised when nothing changes.

Forty-five minutes is the workout.
It is not the process.

The process is what you do the other 23 hours and 15 minutes:
• How you eat when you are tired.
• How you sleep when you are busy.
• How you train when motivation is gone.
• How you recover when your ego wants more.
• How you learn when it stops being exciting.

Results do not come from the session.
They come from the system.

If you want an extreme physique, treat it like a full-time project.
If you want real expertise, treat it like a multi-year mission.

Stop romanticizing shortcuts and seek “motivation” just to show up in life.

Pick your target. Build the structure. Then earn it!

Your move: Write one habit you will lock in for the next 30 days (sleep, steps, protein, prep, training plan). Commit to it. Then do it.

Or forever remain the same and blame others being ahead of you on “genetics”, “luck”, or any other excuse you have to avoid one thing that is essential for success - following through with promises you once made to yourself.

01/02/2026

Most people argue that meat and cancer are a moral debate.
Good food. Bad food. Heroes. Villains.

But your body does not run on opinions.
It runs on biology.

So here is what long-term human data actually found.

NHANES III tracked what people ate and then followed who died over decades. Not a short trial. Not a theory. Real outcomes.

In one NHANES III analysis (PMID: 40418846), nearly 16,000 U.S. adults were followed for up to 26 years. When researchers compared animal and plant protein intake:
• Animal protein was not linked to higher overall death risk.
• Animal protein was not linked to higher heart-disease death risk.
• Cancer death risk was slightly lower as animal protein intake increased.

The hazard ratio was about 0.95 - that is roughly a 5% lower cancer mortality risk in that model.

This does not mean meat prevents cancer.
It does not mean eat unlimited steak.
It means animal protein was not the villain in this dataset.

They also tested the common scare mechanism: IGF-1.
IGF-1 is a hormone involved in growth and repair, often blamed for linking protein to cancer.

If animal protein was driving cancer through IGF-1, it should have shown up.
It did not.

IGF-1 was not linked to death risk from any cause, heart disease, or cancer.

A second NHANES III analysis (PMID: 40699992) looked at protein as a percentage of total calories. Risk signals appeared when protein exceeded ~14.8% of calories, especially when that higher share came mainly from animal protein. The same paper’s animal experiment supported harm under very high animal-protein conditions.

So the real takeaway is not “meat vs plants.”
It is normal vs extreme.

Normal to moderate animal protein intake did not show a higher mortality risk.
Making protein dominate your calorie intake is where risk signals showed up.

Biology works in ranges.
Headlines do not.

Save & Share this as a reminder:
If someone is still living off old headlines, they are not debating science. They are repeating a story.

31/01/2026

“You should compete. You would do great.”

I hear this more often than you think.

And I always pause. Not because I am flattered.
But because I know what that sentence really means.

Competing is not the same as being capable.

I have already built the discipline.
I have already built the physique.
I already understand nutrition, recovery, psychology, and long-term trade-offs better than most people who step on stage.

A bodybuilding show is not a test of strength.
Not a test of health.
Not even a test of mastery.

It is a very narrow, short-term optimisation problem:
Get extremely lean.
Look good under lights.
Survive the stress long enough to be judged for a few minutes.

That does not make it meaningless.
But it does make it specific.

I am not against competing.
I am against doing things without a reason.

If it serves a bigger goal - business, message, experiment - then it becomes a strategic decision, not an emotional one.

What I care about more is this:
Being hard to break at 50
over being impressive at 5 pm on one Saturday.

Most people see muscle and assume the next step is a stage.
They do not see the cost to sleep, digestion, hormones, and recovery bandwidth.
They do not see that some lessons do not need a trophy to be learned.

I could compete.
I just do not need to prove that to myself.

Never mind that I have won more powerlifting and bodybuilding shows that I could ever count…

And if I ever step on stage, it will be because it serves something bigger than my ego.

Your move.

Send this to the friend who keeps telling you “you should compete” but cannot explain what you gain from it.

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