What Goes Down in Bence’s Bi-Weekly Health Call
Every two weeks, Bence Vamos runs a bi-weekly Zoom call for members of the School of Unplugging who want to get serious about their fitness, hormones, and blood work. No fluff, no surface-level advice - just real men sharing their labs, asking real questions, and getting real answers from someone who actually knows what he’s looking at.
This is the kind of conversation you are not having with your family doctor. It is also the kind of conversation most men have no access to unless they either pay a specialist privately or they know someone who can cut through the noise. Inside the School of Unplugging, it happens every two weeks, live.
The TRT Protocol Most Clinics Won’t Give You
One of the members on the call asked about testosterone injection frequency - specifically whether switching to daily pins was worth the extra effort, and whether it helped with common TRT side effects like acne.
Bence walked the group through it in detail. Most guys who go on TRT get a cookie-cutter protocol: one or two shots a week. That creates a big spike within about thirty-six hours of the injection, and then levels slowly drop. Your body is riding a hormonal roller coaster the entire week rather than maintaining consistent blood levels.
The more advanced approach is dividing the weekly dose into seven daily pins, with a slight dose increase of about fifteen percent. Injecting into belly fat rather than muscle means less of the testosterone aromatizes into estrogen, and your body utilizes more of what you pin. The result is more consistent blood levels, higher overall testosterone, and less conversion to estrogen - which means many men on this protocol can avoid using an aromatase inhibitor altogether.
For the practical side: draw with a 23-gauge needle into a larger syringe, then backfill a 30-gauge insulin syringe. The insulin needle is almost painless. If you are doing daily pins with a thick gauge needle, you will quit within a week. Make the protocol as frictionless as possible so you can stay consistent.
Blood Labs - What You Are Not Measuring Is Hurting You
Bence ran a live blood lab review on the call, walking a member through a full panel marker by marker. This is the part that most men never get - not because the information is unavailable, but because they have never had someone explain what the numbers actually mean.
A few things worth noting for every man who is tracking his health seriously.
Testosterone and SHBG together tell the real story. A total testosterone reading in isolation does not tell you much. Sylvester’s total testosterone came in at 735 nanograms per deciliter - solid - with an SHBG of 30. That combination is good because lower SHBG means more of the testosterone is free and bioavailable rather than bound and inactive.
Prolactin matters more than most men realize. The member’s prolactin was on the higher end, which Bence flagged immediately. High prolactin suppresses sex drive and is the hormone responsible for the refractory period after sex. Two supplements that address it: P5P, which is the bioavailable form of vitamin B6, and L-tyrosine, an amino acid that is a precursor to dopamine. Higher dopamine levels drive prolactin down. One practical note - if you are getting bloodwork done, do not have sex the morning before. It will artificially spike your prolactin and skew the reading.
IGF-1 controls more than you think. Low IGF-1 showed up on Sylvester’s panel, and Bence flagged it as affecting recovery, muscle gain, fat loss, and sleep quality. The lever for improving it is growth hormone releasing peptides - CJC 1295 with DAC is a longer-acting option requiring only two or three injections per week, while tesamorelin is daily but highly effective. One important flag here: peptides are not a beginner move. Dosing, reconstituting, and sourcing them correctly is genuinely complicated, and the sourcing side specifically is full of landmines. There is a right way and a lot of wrong ways to approach it.
Ferritin too high means blood donation. Dr. Anthony Jay’s benchmark - acceptable ferritin around 100 to 150 nanograms per milliliter - has come up repeatedly in our calls. If it is climbing above that, high iron becomes toxic to the body over the long term. The solution is straightforward: give blood. The free route is a blood donation, which removes roughly 580 milliliters at a time. The more controlled approach is a clinic where you can take out a smaller amount - 250 to 300 milliliters - and manage the depletion more gradually. For men on TRT whose issue is elevated hemoglobin and hematocrit rather than iron specifically, the smaller controlled removal is the better option.
Getting blood work as a Canadian. One of the members asked about this directly. The honest answer is that your family doctor will look at you sideways if you hand them a full optimization panel list. The approach that works is going in with symptoms - low energy, poor sleep, low libido, weight gain - and asking for a comprehensive review because you are genuinely concerned. Frame it around your symptoms, not the panel. Dynacare is a private provider that some of our members have used in Canada without needing a doctor’s referral, though the specifics vary by location. In the US, Ultalabs is the provider Bence recommends - typically in the $500 to $700 range for a full panel, which is reasonable for what you are getting.
Nutrition - The Basics That Are Not Actually Basic
Several men on the call were struggling with the same things: not gaining the weight they wanted, not sure how much protein they were actually eating, not tracking anything consistently.
A few points Bence made that are worth repeating.
One gram of protein per pound of body weight is the floor. Not the ceiling. And when you track protein, only count animal sources. Plant proteins do not have the full amino acid profile. If your app is counting rice and bean protein toward your daily total, you are getting a flattering number that does not reflect what your body is actually working with.
You cannot manage what you are not measuring. If you are trying to change your body composition and you are not tracking body weight, body fat percentage, and protein intake, you are flying blind. A basic body composition scale runs about $28 on Amazon. Same conditions every morning - after your first bathroom trip, nothing on, before eating anything significant. The number on any given day is noise. The trend over two weeks is signal.
Carb timing matters when you are cutting. When calories are tight, when and what carbohydrates you eat becomes more important. Eating carbs about forty minutes before training gives your muscles the glycogen they need to perform without spending the whole day in an energy crash. A small sweet potato before the gym is a different tool than a bowl of rice at dinner. Use them differently.
Sardines. I know. But if you are a man who is struggling to hit protein targets while on the move, a can of sardines delivers a dense protein hit with healthy EPAs and almost no calories relative to the protein content. Keep a few in your bag. Alternate with sriracha tuna if sardines are a stretch. Not exciting advice. Works anyway.
Legs - The Most Undertrained Muscle Group in the Room
One recurring theme on the call was men who struggle to put size on their legs. Bence made an observation that is obvious once you see it, but most men never notice it.
Most guys training a five-day split are hitting their upper body muscles twice a week without realizing it. Chest day trains chest and triceps. Back day trains back and biceps. Then there is a dedicated arm day. The biceps and triceps are getting hit twice, sometimes three times per week. Legs get one day and men wonder why the upper body grows faster.
The fix is simple: split legs into two sessions per week. One day focused on quads. One day focused on hamstrings and glutes. You are not hitting the same muscles twice - you are giving your legs the same frequency your arms have been getting for years.
For men with herniated discs or lower back issues: barbell back squats carry genuine risk as the loads increase. Bence’s recommendation was hex bar squats or any squat variation where the back is properly supported. The goal is building muscle in your legs, and you can fully achieve that without a movement that puts your spine at compressive risk under heavy load. Plenty of elite bodybuilders have moved away from barbell squats entirely for exactly this reason.
In Conclusion
This is one call. Bence runs these every two weeks for members of the School of Unplugging - live, Q&A driven, grounded in actual bloodwork and actual results rather than theory. No cookie-cutter protocols. No pharmaceutical sales pitches. Just real men working through real problems with someone who knows what he’s looking at.
If you want access to calls like this - where you can bring your labs, ask your questions, and get answers from someone who works with men on this every day - this is what the School of Unplugging is for. It is one of many things you get when you join.
The Cold, Hard Truth
Never forget:
Daily testosterone injections into belly fat produces more consistent levels, less aromatization to estrogen, and better overall utilization than twice-weekly muscle injections. A fifteen percent dose increase accounts for the protocol change. Backfill a 30-gauge insulin syringe to make daily pins sustainable.
Prolactin is the overlooked hormone. High prolactin kills sex drive and recovery. P5P and L-tyrosine are two accessible supplements that address it naturally. Do not have sex the morning of bloodwork.
IGF-1 controls recovery, sleep, muscle gain, and fat loss. If it is low on your panel, growth hormone releasing peptides are worth investigating - but do not approach them without proper guidance on sourcing, reconstituting, and dosing.
Only count animal proteins toward your daily target. One gram per pound of body weight from animal sources. Whatever the plants add on top is a bonus.
If you are not tracking it, you are not managing it. A $28 body composition scale and a consistent morning routine is the minimum viable setup for anyone serious about changing their body composition.
Train your legs twice a week. Split quad focus and hamstring-glute focus across two sessions. Your arms have been getting that frequency for years. Your legs deserve the same.
Peace.
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