[[Biology; Health]]⁹

Ray Peat

In a bit of a league of his own, from a scientific era when things were much simpler. His work at its best has a lovely, holistic perspective on biology. In theory, an emphasis on the cell as a microcosm of the organism. In practice, optimizing the metbolism through nutrition, hormones, and so on. Now in some ways the bioenergetic perspective seems myopic (deficiencies in understanding neuroscience, for instance, past the macro scale, without other sources of info, are apparent) while in other ways it's just outside the box.
He's subject to controversy on many fronts, namely due to his opposition to any and all polyunsaturated fats including omega-3, his opposition to serotonin, and his praise of sugar - and if you're up-to-date on the current (2021) health fads, sugar (or even carbs as a whole) is surfacing as the new bogeyman, fish oil is raking in the dough as a billions-dollar industry, and serotonin is the putative "happy hormone". At large, he goes deep against the grain of the authoritarian medical agenda, which is a given for anybody who takes a critical lens.
For practical purposes, nutrition is quite simple; it's just a matter of confidence in your subjective experience and your sources. It's a very slow field in terms of macro-perspectives, due to the vice-like grip that the many tentacles of the powers that be hold on it; it isn't really a field that requires 'progress' per se, but simply clarification of how, in the body, things are and always have been (accounting for what are, usually minute, individual differences.) Should the truths therein be made plain, decades - coming on a century - of propagandization by the pharmecutical industry would come to public knowledge; the entire house of cards falling down, one imaginary basis after another upon which poisons are sold as medicine, a process that's killed more people than all wars combined. For instance: consider cholesterol, the precursor for all steroid hormones and crucially protective in its own right, whose demonization not only makes people unwell generally, but allows for the sale of one of the most profitable pharmeceuticals to have hit the scene: the statin drug, an entirely useless drug which has a distressingly large proportion of American adults taking them, who are hopefully going onto joining the ranks of the yearly 2 million adverse effects (there are more meds for each of them) or the 100,000 deaths. Released in 1997, Lipitor has generated something like $131 billion for Pfizer. Not a bad gig! And this example is, of course, only the beginning in learning how it all went wrong. So I suggest you examine the bases of your beliefs. I digress.
Ray Peat has written numerous articles, a newsletter, a few books, has been in a ton of interviews/podcasts, making a physical appearance in only 2 of which, and then there are a few adjacent sites including:
raypeatforum.com
A look at the front page makes it clear that it's not exactly only about 'nutrition' as of lately. Peat has stated that in reality, nutrition isn't exactly the pièce de résistance on, in the broad sense, optimizing yourself physically, but "just one of the things you have to deal with", and given what's stated above, it's perfectly clear that nutrition is a major attack surface, so a great deal of emphasis is warranted, but the corollary is many other things being brought into discussion! I especially recommend posts by the late user Travis.
dannyroddy.com and the Generative Energy Podcast
men-elite.com
haidut.me

I actually go into specific recommendations in Nutrition←, but maybe needless to say, his articles have been pretty influential for my and many other people's thinking on nutrition. The proverb is that there is no "Ray Peat Diet", but that being said, the chart below would make for an interesting starting point (zoom in on the top right), and his site and many emails have probably everything you need to get the ball rolling.

Nutrition

Sarcoconfiguration

Why work out?

Sure, there's an element of vanity, but being physically in shape and building muscle increases your lifespan and improves your baseline metabolism and level of androgens/dopamine, improving your capability to achieve any goal including the pursuit of nibbana. It also anchors you to physical reality to prevent you from being a disembodied/cephalic ego, which also excuses any eccentric social behavior. In other words, the more aesthetic your body is, the more your Will is allowed to manifest without hesitation, because it proves that you as a person are genuine/committed/Real but also supernormal, as a kind of compensation. Paradoxically however, the path to achieve physical perfection is a self-centered one, and it can prevent you from connecting with others in refusing to do anti-metabolic things or in maintaining the fortitude that's necessary, which will mentally separate you further.
This video explains the problem that you may face.

Programming