At 18, Bryan Hardy stared into a hole in his abdomen.

Two infected wounds split his midsection after a ruptured appendix was misdiagnosed the week before, leaving him septic and hooked to IV antibiotics. The surgeons had saved his life, but no one could tell him how to get well. Months of recovery stretched into three years of brain fog, anxiety, bloating, and a vanished libido due to his gut's imbalance.

So, the engineering student turned himself into a men's health experiment, searching for root causes and rebuilding from the inside out.

That crisis became his calling: coaching men to trade numb autopilot for metabolically “on” lives. Next we’ll break down Bryan’s story and finish with a 4-step protocol you can start this week to fix fundamentals: gut, T, energy, and focus.

We’ve worked with over 800 startups—from first-time founders at pre-seed to fast-moving teams raising Series A and beyond—and we’d love to help you navigate whatever’s next.

Here’s how we’re willing to help you:

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Recovery didn’t end when Bryan left the ward; it started there.

Long antibiotic courses calmed the infection but left his digestion volatile, sleep fractured, and mood flat. Lectures felt distant, lifting sessions stalled, and a once-confident 18-year-old was suddenly tracking bathrooms and naps instead of reps and grades. Friends saw “you look fine,” while his body said otherwise—bloating, brain fog, and a libido that vanished as quickly as his appetite.

That split between how he looked and how he felt became the problem he refused to ignore.

An engineer by training, he treated his body like a system: isolate variables, test, log, iterate.

He rotated elimination diets, added fermented foods, experimented with fiber types, and ran basic labs that most peers ignored. Patterns emerged. Sleep quality predicted cravings; ultra-processed snacks predicted anxiety the next morning; gut flare-ups predicted social withdrawal two days later. He learned to prioritize how food was digested—chewing, meal timing, and stress state—over celebrity macros.

Most importantly, he stopped treating symptoms like enemies and started reading them as signals to adjust inputs.

As symptoms eased, messages from classmates and gym buddies piled up: “I’ve got the same fog,” “Energy crashes after lunch,” “Zero drive lately.”

Bryan started with simple swaps—protein forward meals, evening screens off, walking after dinner and watched men report clearer heads and better sleep inside a week. He formalized the work as RevitalizedMan.com, built a curriculum, and paired men with weekly accountability. Instead of chasing hacks, clients stacked fundamentals and used labs to aim fine-tuning. Wins were small but undeniable: steadier mornings, predictable digestion, confidence returning in the mirror and the bedroom.

That’s when he knew this wasn’t a phase; it was a mission.

Two traps showed up everywhere.

First, diet dogma, locking into keto, carnivore, or plant-only as an identity instead of a tool. Those can work in cycles, but stress, training load, and season change the prescription; rigidity breeds relapse. Second, dopamine drift—propping up low energy with caffeine, late-night scrolling, and constant notifications. That cocktail spikes cortisol, wrecks REM, and guarantees tomorrow’s cravings. Bryan’s counter is boring on purpose: protect the gut, lift something heavy, get sun in your eyes most mornings, and firewall attention after dark.

When the basics are non-negotiable, the “advanced” stuff finally has a chance to matter.

Give each step a week; run the loop for 90 days.

Expect calmer digestion by week two, steadier energy and clearer focus by week four, visible body-composition shifts by week six, and meaningful lab changes by week twelve.

The aim isn’t a diet; it’s a durable operating system you can live with.

Want Bryan’s Testosterone Optimization Cheat Sheet and coaching options?

Start here 👈🏻

That’s a wrap!

Talk soon,

Roman