The Right Dose Matters
I’ve had a personal reminder lately that the right dose matters.
And while the lesson started with peptide use, it applies just as easily to training, food, sleep, recovery, and stress management.
This past weekend I ended up experiencing a mild flare up of my most recent hip injury, no where near where it was earlier in the year but enough to catch my attention. This is also during a time where I have increased my mileage, intensity, and incorporated some hills back into my training, coupled with all the other stressors in my life the exposing of a weakness wasn't that much of a surprise. I reached out to my doctor about a temporary increase in my dose of the BPC-157 peptide I'm currently taking to help tamp things down but also swapped out a workout for a rest day, and decreased my mileage. The end result was feeling almost 100% this morning, and that reminded me how powerful the appropriate dose can be in various aspects of our lives.
The challenging part for all of this is that there is no single answer for what is the appropriate dose at any given time, there are lots of variables to consider:
Stress - too much can lead to burnout or illness, while too little decreases performance
Calories - too many leads to weight gain, but too few leads to injuries and illness
Sleep - too little leads to illness and performance issues, and too much, well for most too much probably doesn't exist 🤣
Exercise - too much leads to injuries, and too little doesn't create a strong enough stimulus to obtain results.
Medications including peptides - while consulting with your doctor, monitoring the impact of the medication versus any side effects should drive the discussion around the proper dose. For example, many of the common GLP side effects come from too high of a dose.
I could go on with loads of other examples, but you get the idea - choosing the appropriate dose isn't just a long term decision but a daily one to match the current demands and expectations. Blindly copying yesterdays (or last weeks, months, etc.) plan each day is a guaranteed recipe for a best frustration, or at worst an injury or illness. Now of course, we don't always have full control of these choices each day, but there are always ways to make modifications to balance out.
A few good questions to get in the habit of asking yourself:
Am I doing too little, or am I doing too much?
Have I asked anyone else for feedback?
Is this approach helping, or just making me feel like I’m trying hard?
Can I recover from what I’m asking my body to do?
Is this sustainable?
In my case, there were aspects that I increased and also some that I decreased, all in the pursuit of an performance as part of a larger plan. It is important to remember that in many cases, more is not always better and having advisors in your life can provide invaluable feedback.
What area of your health might improve if you focused on the right dose instead of just more?
