Testosterone, a hormone produced primarily
by the testicles, is often associated with the
epitome of "manhood" (although women have
testosterone, too).
Indeed, it does play a large role in male
sexuality and reproduction, impacting such
factors as sexual and reproductive function,
muscle mass, and hair growth, but also has
some less "flashy," albeit equally important,
roles like maintaining bone density, levels of
red blood cells and a sense of well-being.
Beginning around age 30, a man's
testosterone levels begin to decline, and
continue to do so as he ages.
A wide range of chemical exposures included
prescribed drugs like statins, adversely
impact testosterone production in men. At the
same time, estrogen levels typically increase
due to widespread exposures to estrogen-
mimicking compounds in food, water and
environmental pollutants.
What are Your Options for Replacement?
If you're a man who's experiencing symptoms
such as decreased sex drive, erectile
dysfunction, depressed mood, and difficulties
with concentration and memory, and you think
low testosterone may be to blame, you can
have your levels tested. Since testosterone
levels fluctuate throughout the day, you'll
probably need more than a blood test to get a
true picture of your levels.
If your levels are indeed low, there are a
number of synthetic and bioidentical
testosterone products on the market, as well
as DHEA, which is the most abundant
androgen precursor prohormone in the human
body, meaning that it is the largest raw
material your body uses to produce other vital
hormones, including testosterone in men and
estrogen in women.
I only recommend using bioidentical
hormones, and only then under the guidance of
a holistic doctor who can monitor your
hormone levels to ensure you need
supplementation.
But, before you opt for this route, there are
numerous strategies you can try to boost your
testosterone levels naturally. These are
appropriate for virtually anyone, as they carry
only beneficial "side effects."
9 Ways to Naturally Increase Testosterone Levels
1. Lose Weight
If you're overweight, shedding the
excess pounds may increase your
testosterone levels, according to
research presented at the Endocrine
Society's 2012 meeting. Overweight
men are more likely to have low
testosterone levels to begin with, so
this is an important trick to increase
your body's testosterone production
when you need it most.
If you are serious about losing weight,
you have got to strictly limit the amount
of processed sugar in your diet, as
evidence is mounting that excess
sugar, and fructose in particular, is the
primary driving factor in the obesity
epidemic. So cutting soda from your
diet is essential, as is limiting fructose
found in processed foods, fruit juice,
excessive fruit and so-called "healthy"
sweeteners like agave.
Ideally you should keep your total
fructose consumption below 25 grams
per day and this includes fruits. This is
especially true if you have insulin
resistance and are overweight, have
high blood pressure, diabetes or high
cholesterol.
In addition to eliminating or severely
limiting fructose, it will be vital to
eliminate all grains and milk (even raw)
in your diet. Milk has a sugar called
lactose, which has been shown to
increase insulin resistance so it will be
wise to avoid it if you are seeking to
lose weight.
Refined carbohydrates like breakfast
cereals, bagels, waffles, pretzels, and
most other processed foods also
quickly break down to sugar, increase
your insulin levels, and cause insulin
resistance, which is the number one
underlying factor of nearly every
chronic disease and condition known to
man, including weight gain.
As you cut these dietary troublemakers
from your meals, you need to replace
them with healthy substitutes like
vegetables and healthy fats (including
natural saturated fats!). Your body
prefers the carbohydrates in
micronutrient-dense vegetables rather
than grains and sugars because it
slows the conversion to simple sugars
like glucose, and decreases your
insulin level. When you cut grains and
sugar from your meals, you typically
will need to radically increase the
amount of vegetables you eat, as well
as make sure you are also consuming
protein and healthy fats regularly.
I've detailed a step-by-step guide to
this type of healthy eating program in
my comprehensive nutrition plan, and I
urge you to consult this guide if you are
trying to lose weight.
The foods you choose to eat will be the
driving force behind successfully
achieving your weight loss goals --
high-intensity, short-burst-type
exercises, such as my Peak Fitness
Program, two to three times per week,
combined with a comprehensive fitness
plan, is important too, and has an
additional benefit as well (see below)!
2. High-Intensity Exercise like Peak Fitness
(Especially Combined with Intermittent
Fasting)
Both intermittent fasting and short
intense exercise have been shown to
boost testosterone.
“
Short intense exercise has a proven
positive effect on increasing
testosterone levels and preventing its
decline.
”
That's unlike aerobics or prolonged
moderate exercise, which have shown
to have negative or no effect on
testosterone levels.
Intermittent fasting boosts testosterone
by increasing the expression of satiety
hormones including insulin, leptin,
adiponectin, glucagon-like peptide-1
(GLP-1), colecystokinin (CKK) and
melanocortins, all of which are known
to potentiate healthy testosterone
actions, increase libido and prevent
age-related testosterone decline.
Having a whey protein meal after
exercise can further enhance the
satiety/testosterone-boosting impact
(hunger hormones cause the opposite
effect on your testosterone and libido).
Here's a summary of what a typical
high-intensity Peak Fitness routine
might look like:
Warm up for three minutes
Exercise as hard and fast as you can
for 30 seconds. You should feel like
you couldn't possibly go on another
few seconds
Recover at a slow to moderate pace
for 90 seconds
Repeat the high intensity exercise and
recovery 7 more times
As you can see, the entire workout is
only 20 minutes. Twenty minutes! That
really is a beautiful thing. And within
those 20 minutes, 75 percent of that
time is warming up, recovering or
cooling down. You're really only
working out intensely for four minutes.
It's hard to believe if you have never
done this that you can actually get that
much benefit from four minutes of
exercise. That's all it is.
Keep in mind that you can use virtually
any type of equipment you want for this
– an elliptical machine, a treadmill,
swimming, even sprinting outdoors
(although you will need to do this very
carefully to avoid injury) -- as long as
you're pushing yourself as hard as you
can for 30 seconds. But do be sure to
stretch properly and start slowly to
avoid injury. Start with two or three
repetitions and work your way up, don't
expect to do all eight repetitions the
first time you try this, especially if you
are out of shape.
You can find more information about
this in an article previously written on
intermittent fasting.
3. Consume Plenty of Zinc
The mineral zinc is important for
testosterone production, and
supplementing your diet for as little as
six weeks has been shown to cause a
marked improvement in testosterone
among men with low levels.1 Likewise,
research has shown that restricting
dietary sources of zinc leads to a
significant decrease in testosterone,
while zinc supplementation increases
it2 -- and even protects men from
exercised-induced reductions in
testosterone levels.3
It's estimated that up to 45 percent of
adults over the age of 60 may have
lower than recommended zinc intakes;
even when dietary supplements were
added in, an estimated 20-25 percent of
older adults still had inadequate zinc
intakes, according to a National Health
and Nutrition Examination Survey. 4
Your diet is the best source of zinc;
along with protein-rich foods like meats
and fish, other good dietary sources of
zinc include raw milk, raw cheese,
beans, and yogurt or kefir made from
raw milk. It can be difficult to obtain
enough dietary zinc if you're a
vegetarian, and also for meat-eaters as
well, largely because of conventional
farming methods that rely heavily on
chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
These chemicals deplete the soil of
nutrients ... nutrients like zinc that must
be absorbed by plants in order to be
passed on to you.
In many cases, you may further deplete
the nutrients in your food by the way
you prepare it. For most food, cooking it
will drastically reduce its levels of
nutrients like zinc … particularly over-
cooking, which many people do.
If you decide to use a zinc supplement,
stick to a dosage of less than 40 mg a
day, as this is the recommended adult
upper limit. Taking too much zinc can
interfere with your body's ability to
absorb other minerals, especially
copper, and may cause nausea as a
side effect.
4. Strength Training
In addition to Peak Fitness, strength
training is also known to boost
testosterone levels, provided you are
doing so intensely enough. When
strength training to boost testosterone,
you'll want to increase the weight and
lower your number of reps, and then
focus on exercises that work a large
number of muscles, such as dead lifts
or squats.
You can "turbo-charge" your weight
training by going slower. By slowing
down your movement, you're actually
turning it into a high-intensity exercise.
Super Slow movement allows your
muscle, at the microscopic level, to
access the maximum number of cross-
bridges between the protein filaments
that produce movement in the muscle.
5. Optimize Your Vitamin D Levels
Vitamin D, a steroid hormone, is
essential for the healthy development
of the nucleus of the sperm cell, and
helps maintain semen quality and
sperm count. Vitamin D also increases
levels of testosterone, which may boost
libido. In one study, overweight men
who were given vitamin D supplements
had a significant increase in
testosterone levels after one year. 5
Vitamin D deficiency is currently at
epidemic proportions in the United
States and many other regions around
the world, largely because people do
not spend enough time in the sun to
facilitate this important process of
vitamin D production.
So the first step to ensuring you are
receiving all the benefits of vitamin D is
to find out what your levels are using a
25(OH)D test, also called 25-
hydroxyvitamin D.
A few years back, the recommended
level was between 40 to 60 nanograms
per milliliter (ng/ml), but more recently
the optimal vitamin D level has been
raised to 50-70 ng/ml.
To get your levels into the healthy
range, sun exposure is the BEST way
to optimize your vitamin D levels;
exposing a large amount of your skin
until it turns the lightest shade of pink,
as near to solar noon as possible, is
typically necessary to achieve
adequate vitamin D production. If sun
exposure is not an option, a safe
tanning bed (with electronic ballasts
rather than magnetic ballasts, to avoid
unnecessary exposure to EMF fields)
can be used.
As a last resort, a vitamin D3
supplement can be taken orally, but
research suggests the average adult
needs to take 8,000 IU's of vitamin D
per day in order to elevate their levels
above 40 ng/ml, which is the absolute
minimum for disease prevention.
6. Reduce Stress
When you're under a lot of stress, your
body releases high levels of the stress
hormone cortisol. This hormone
actually blocks the effects of
testosterone, 6 presumably because,
from a biological standpoint,
testosterone-associated behaviors
(mating, competing, aggression) may
have lowered your chances of survival
in an emergency (hence, the "fight or
flight" response is dominant, courtesy
of cortisol).
In the modern world, chronic stress,
and subsequently elevated levels of
cortisol, could mean that testosterone's
effects are blocked in the long term,
which is what you want to avoid.
My favorite overall tool to manage
stress is EFT (Emotional Freedom
Technique), which is like acupuncture
without the needles. It's a handy, free
tool for unloading emotional baggage
quickly and painlessly, and so easy that
even children can learn it. Other
common stress-reduction tools with a
high success rate include prayer,
meditation, laughter and yoga, for
example. Learning relaxation skills,
such as deep breathing and positive
visualization, which is the "language" of
the subconscious.
When you create a visual image of how
you'd like to feel, your subconscious
will understand and begin to help you
by making the needed biochemical and
neurological changes.
7. Limit or Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet
Testosterone levels decrease after you
eat sugar, which is likely because the
sugar leads to a high insulin level,
another factor leading to low
testosterone. 7
Based on USDA estimates, the average
American consumes 12 teaspoons of
sugar a day, which equates to about
TWO TONS of sugar during a lifetime.
Why we eat this much sugar is not
difficult to understand -- it tastes good,
and it gives us pleasure by triggering
an innate process in your brain via
dopamine and opioid signals.
What it is doing to us on both a physical
and emotional level is another story
entirely, and most people stand to reap
major improvements in their health by
cutting back on, or eliminating, sugar
altogether from their diets. Remember
foods that contain added sugar and
fructose, as well as grains like bread
and pasta, should all be limited.
If you're struggling with sugar addiction
and having trouble dealing with
cravings, I highly recommend trying an
energy psychology technique called
Turbo Tapping, which has helped many
"soda addicts" kick their sweet habit,
and it should work for any type of
sweet craving you may have.
8. Eat Healthy Fats
By healthy, this means not only mon-
and polyunsaturated fats, like that
found in avocadoes and nuts, but also
saturated, as these are essential for
building testosterone. Research shows
that a diet with less than 40 percent of
energy as fat (and that mainly from
animal sources, i.e. saturated) lead to a
decrease in testosterone levels. 8
My personal diet is about 60-70
percent healthy fat, and other experts
agree that the ideal diet includes
somewhere between 50-70 percent fat.
It's important to understand that your
body requires saturated fats from
animal and vegetable sources (such as
meat, dairy, certain oils, and tropical
plants like coconut) for optimal
functioning, and if you neglect this
important food group in favor of sugar,
grains and other starchy carbs, your
health and weight are almost
guaranteed to suffer. Examples of
healthy fats you can eat more of to give
your testosterone levels a boost
include:
Olives and Olive oil
Coconuts and coconut oil
Butter made from raw grass-fed
organic milk
Raw nuts, such as, almonds or pecans
Organic pastured egg yolks
Avocados
Grass-fed meats
Palm oil
Unheated organic nut oils
9. Boost Your Intake of Branch Chain Amino
Acids (BCAA) from Foods Like Whey Protein
Research suggests that BCAAs result in
higher testosterone levels, particularly
when taken along with resistance
training. 9 While BCAAs are available in
supplement form, you'll find the highest
concentrations of BCAAs like leucine in
dairy products – especially quality
cheeses and whey protein.
Even when getting leucine from your
natural food supply, it's often wasted or
used as a building block instead of an
anabolic agent. So to create the correct
anabolic environment, you need to
boost leucine consumption way beyond
mere maintenance levels.
That said, keep in mind that using
leucine as a free form amino acid can
be highly counterproductive as when
free form amino acids are artificially
administrated, they rapidly enter your
circulation while disrupting insulin
function, and impairing your body's
glycemic control. Food-based leucine
is really the ideal form that can benefit
your muscles without side effects.