🧭 I'm starting from scratch

4 mechanistic pathways · 38 options

If you're new here, start on this page and not on a peptide. Nearly every disappointing result in the research space traces back to something on this list being missing — you cannot out-signal a magnesium deficiency, and a GH secretagogue does very little for someone sleeping five hours. The honest ranking: sleep, protein, training and sunlight beat everything below. What's here is the supplement layer that supports them, roughly in order of how likely it is to matter for a given person.

Nothing here is ranked by evidence tier. A lot of what works in this space has never had the trial run, and sorting by trial count would bury exactly the compounds you came looking for. The tier is a label. The mechanism is the map.

The pathways

The short list — highest probability of mattering

7 options

These are the ones where deficiency is common, the consequences are real, and correction reliably changes something. If you only take four things, take these.

Micronutrient insurance

12 options

A multivitamin is not a health intervention — it is a hedge against the gaps in an imperfect diet. The evidence for multivitamins improving outcomes in well-fed people is weak; the evidence that specific deficiencies cause real problems is overwhelming. Those are compatible positions.

Ready-made stacks by goal

12 options

Bundles trade precision for simplicity. They are a reasonable starting point when you don't yet know what you respond to, and something to grow out of once you do.

Test before you guess

7 options

The single highest-return move in this entire Vault is a blood panel. Half the things people take speculatively are correcting a deficiency they don't have, and a third of what would actually help them is invisible without a test.

Test before you choose a pathway

Every route below can be argued for on mechanism. Only bloodwork tells you which one is actually your problem — and picking the wrong pathway is the most common reason someone concludes "none of this works". Across all 4 pathways, these are the 15 markers worth having in front of you first.

The next step

You have the pathways. Here is the stack.

The Foundations Blueprint names the one compound I would start with in each of these 4 pathways, what it was chosen over, and why — plus 20 options to swap in or stack on top, every one of them priced and linked.

Free, no email. The week-by-week schedule is the part that lives in the Academy.

Open The Foundations Blueprint →

The protocols behind these

Dosing, stacking and cycle timing live inside the Academy, alongside the full interactive Vault and the Bloodwork Protocols.

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← Open I'm starting from scratch in the interactive Vault · All 21 goals

Frequently asked questions

How many ways are there to approach i'm starting from scratch?

This goal is broken into 4 distinct mechanistic pathways — The short list — highest probability of mattering; Micronutrient insurance; Ready-made stacks by goal; Test before you guess — across 38 compounds and supplements. Each pathway is a different argument about how the body gets there, so the useful question is which one matches where you are actually stuck.

Which pathway should I start with for i'm starting from scratch?

The one that matches your actual limitation, which bloodwork usually settles faster than guessing. An appetite drug does nothing for someone who already undereats, and a thyroid intervention does nothing if your thyroid is fine. Each pathway page lists the markers that tell you whether it is your problem.

Are the 4 i'm starting from scratch pathways ranked best to worst?

No. The 4 pathways are listed in mechanistic order, not by strength of evidence, and neither are the 38 options inside them. A lot of what works in this space has never had the trial run, and sorting by trial count would bury exactly the compounds you came looking for.

Educational and research reference only — not medical advice, and not a recommendation for human use. Mechanistic predictions are exactly that: what the biology suggests should happen, which is not the same as what has been shown to happen.