Have you been experiencing depression and extreme fatigue? Do you lack motivation to chase your goals and dreams? Are you feeling too weak or too lethargic to work out or do any physical activity at all? Has your libido taken the train to destination nowhere and did it never come back? Do you feel like something is lacking, like you’re not a man? Well my friend, you might be experiencing the effects of having low testosterone levels.
“What is testosterone exactly?”, you may ask. In short, testosterone is the elixir of masculinity. The testosterone running through a man’s veins is what makes him a man both physically and character wise. Men with high levels of testosterone running through their veins are more confident, assertive, have lower stress levels and are able to keep their emotions calm in most situations while allowing their minds to make solid, rational decisions. It is true that men who have high testosterone levels are more aggressive, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are physically more aggressive or behave like brainless brutes. The reality of high testosterone men is quite the opposite of what you may associate the stereotype with. What it means is that they are hungrier and more likely to realize their goals and dreams. To take action for what they want and not sit around whining and playing the victim like the majority of people do. They go after what they want and chase excellence. They are more aggressive to take action in order to get shit done.
Conventional wisdom has caused you to associate testosterone with drug enhanced meat heads who can’t seem to control their anger and run around like raging gorillas, trying to demolish everyone and everything in sight. This stereotype is the reason why testosterone had gotten a bad reputation over the last couple of decades. People associate testosterone with brainless brutes who cannot control their anger. Want to hear a funny fact? The stereotype is dead wrong and nothing could be further from the truth. High testosterone males act in the exact opposite way of the brainless brutes. Most of the time when you see someone who can’t control his anger or isn’t in control of his emotions, he doesn’t have high testosterone levels, but is more likely to be hormonally out of whack. This can be due to higher estrogen and cortisol levels and lower testosterone levels.
Unfortunately in today’s world, we have an epidemic of men with low testosterone. Chances are that your testosterone level is significantly lower than that of your grandfather at the age you are at now. This is due to several different factors. We are programmed to live lifestyles and have mindsets that are the opposite of how we should live like as men. Due to our busy schedules we don’t sleep enough. We don’t have the time to be physically active anymore. Even eating properly has become a problem. Not only are we lacking time to prepare and enjoy quality home cooked meals, many people don’t even know what healthy, nourishing food is. The food we eat on a daily basis is void of the essential building blocks that our bodies crave to be nourished properly and to make it function at its best.
Why you should care about maintaining healthy testosterone levels
The reason why you as a man should care about having a healthy amount of big T running through your veins, is not to become a macho man get or to get an ego boost from seeing a certain number on a sheet of paper that shows your level of manliness. It’s because your testosterone levels, combined with other factors such as your cortisol levels and estrogen levels, mirror your state of health and therefore are simply an indicator of your quality of life.
I like to call blood testosterone levels the indicator of male health. Most men unconsciously know that when they feel like absolute horse shit, something in their body is off. When they go to the doctor’s office and get their blood work done, a lot of times that ‘something is off’ can be traced down to abnormally low levels of testosterone.
Testosterone is necessary to have the drive to succeed in life. It’s necessary to feel the drive to work on and achieve your goals. It’s necessary to be hungry and to have lust for success, goals and living the life you should live as a man. High testosterone men are more likely to be dominant in all areas of their lives. Studies on successful people have shown that men with higher testosterone levels carry more muscle mass, are leaner and more athletic, earn more money and have a higher number of sexual partners compared to men with lower testosterone levels.
That last one is important as well. While the reproductive system is complex, a healthy testosterone is necessary to have a healthy libido. Testosterone is necessary to have the desire and lust to mate with the opposite sex. While erections are a complex process as well and isn’t all black and white when it comes to testosterone levels, you do need a certain amount of testosterone to have an erection. Fertility is another factor. If you don’t have healthy testosterone levels, it can have a serious impact on the quality of your little Olympic swimmers. Low testosterone levels aren’t only important for a healthy libido, but also for producing good quality sperm. Low T can lead to infertility, so if you wish to have offspring and pass on your genes to the next generation, guard your T levels well.
So why is it important and why should you care about your testosterone levels? Because if as a man you want to live your life at its highest quality, you simply need high testosterone levels. If you want to be successful, live a high quality lifestyle, be attractive and successful when it comes to the opposite sex and have an amazing sex life, you should definitely care about your testosterone levels. In other words, if you want to live life to the fullest and look back at it with pride, then optimizing your testosterone levels will be extremely important.
How Testosterone is created by the body
Most people know that testosterone is created a man’s testicles, or at least the majority of it. Whereas 95% of the testosterone produced in a man’s body is being produced in the Leydig cells of the testicles, 5% is produced in the adrenal glands.
However, the nuts aren’t the end all be all when it comes to testosterone production. It actually all starts in the brain where a small gland called the hypothalamus secretes a hormone called Gonadotropin releasing hormone or GnRH.
GnRH stimulates the pituitary gland, located at the bottom of the hypothalamus, to release two gonadotropins into the bloodstream called luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). Through the bloodstream both LH and FSH find their way all the way down to the testicles where they enter the Leydig cells.
Inside the Leydig cells the production of sperm cells takes place through a process called spermatogenesis, caused by the delivery of FSH. While FSH is responsible for producing little swimmers, LH is responsible for converting cholesterol into pregnenolone followed by a conversion into the primary sex hormone testosterone (eat your eggs!).
Your brain constantly keeps check of the amount of testosterone you have in your blood. If blood testosterone levels are running too low, the brain will release more GnRH to start the testosterone producing process. if testosterone levels are too high, it will slow down the testosterone producing process. This is called a feedback loop circuit. Basically your body regulates and twitches testosterone production when necessary to keep things balanced. However, if the body lacks certain nutrients which act as building blocks or finds itself in subtoptimal situations that are not great for testosterone production, it can’t successfully release GnRH and therefore can’t optimally create testosterone as part of a healthy feedback loop.
The optimal testosterone range
Testosterone levels are most commonly measured in nanograms per deciliter (ng/dl) in the US and in nano mol per liter (nmol/l) in European countries.
When you should believe conventional wisdom and modern day doctors, men are classified as being in the normal testosterone range when their blood test results show a number anywhere from 300ng/dl to 1000ng/dl. In reality, that is a load of bullshit. There’s a massive difference between 300 ng/dl and 1000ng/dl and a man on the low end of the spectrum will look and feel totally different than a man on the high end of the spectrum. A man with around 300ng/dl has the hormone levels of an 80 year old sedentary diabetic man, whereas the man who possesses 1000ng/dl is on the high end of the natural range and will be a vital, strong and lean athlete.
The problem with conventional wisdom is that they take an average of people of all ages and don’t account for body composition or other important factors. What the health care system classifies as ‘healthy testosterone levels’ does not translate into what you and I are after.
To have all the benefits of a high testosterone man I at least suggest that you bring your testosterone level up to 600ng/dl or more. Starting from the 600’s you will feel great, perform great, have a great libido and have a good drive. If you take things really serious and want to optimize your health, you can take it even further and bring it up to 1000ng/dl.
While a very small percentage of the general population has testosterone levels of 1000ng/dl or more, it certainly is possible for the majority of men. It simply comes down to knowing what to focus on.
I could go on about this, but to keep things short and sweet, aim to get a testosterone level of at least around 600ng/dl and you will have most things in your body functioning well. Anything higher than that is a great bonus and a confirmation that you’re on the right track.
Once the freshly produced testosterone is released into the bloodstream, two carrier proteins called sexual hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and albumin are being released by the liver and bind themselves to the freely floating testosterone in the bloodstream. SHBG and albumin trap about 98% of your testosterone, which makes it unable to effectively enter cells. This inability to enter cells makes it largely inactive, hence the distinction between active and inactive testosterone. More SHBG and albumin in the blood translates into more testosterone being bound and less free testosterone to be bio available to androgen receptors.
The testosterone molecules that are able to avoid being bound to SHBG and albumin and freely float in your bloodstream is called free testosterone. These testosterone molecules are active and can be bound to certain receptors in the body such as androgen receptors. When bound to androgen receptors, it enter your DNA and testosterone works its magic such as growing bigger muscles, growing facial hair and giving you a more masculine jawline.
Common causes of low Testosterone
There are two major causes of low testosterone: primary and secondary hypogonadism. Hypogonadism means that the testicles, which are responsible for 95% of testosterone production, are unable to produce sufficient amounts of testosterone and cause the low testosterone male to lack the typical characteristics associated with a healthy male.
Primary hypogonadism refers to there being a physical problem within the male body. In such case, the brain is sending the message to the testicles to produce testosterone, but the testicles don’t react to the signal and don’t do what they are being asked. If you’ve been struggling with the physical development of typical male characteristics, have underdeveloped sex organs, have felt like shit for the majority of your life both physically and mentally and lack any sign of libido, well then I hope you’ve already looked for medical treatment earlier on in your life. If not, I would highly advise you to do so, because naturally, there probably won’t be a lot you can do about it. Your best option will be to go on supervised hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and specifically, testosterone replacement therapy (TRT). For more information I would recommend that you find a quality health practitioner and see what the options are.
Secondary hypogonadism means that everything in your body is functioning correctly, but your lifestyle is causing you to have low testosterone. If you are suffering from low testosterone caused by secondary hypogonadism, I would strongly recommend that you do not use any testosterone medications such as testosterone gels because these all have serious side effects. Medications used to treat hormone deficiencies provide an external source of hormones. Because of this, you force your body to become lazy and the testicles stop producing testosterone altogether, since it gets what it needs from an external source. Doing this will cause you to become dependent on medications and if used out of proportion, in many cases the damage is irreversible.
If you suffer from secondary hypogonadism, I’m actually glad for you because that means that there are simple things you can do to change your current situation. Most people suffering from low T have secondary hypogonadism. The primary causes of low T in otherwise ‘healthy’ men are:
– Obesity: Excessively high body fat levels lead to higher levels of a process called aromatization. To make a long story short, aromatization is the process responsible for converting testosterone into estrogen. The higher your body fat levels, the more aromatization will take place and the more of your testosterone will be converted into estrogen. Basically, the male hormone gets converted into the female hormone.
Luckily being obese can be easily fixed. It’s all about calories in vs calories out and regulating your energy expenditure. By taking responsibility for the amount of calories you consume on a daily basis you can easily lose body fat and improve your testosterone levels and all other health markers for that fact. Obesity is one of the biggest causes not only for low T, but for a lot of common western world health disorders.
Aim to get between 8 – 14% body fat. While it’s disadvantageous to be too fat, being too lean is counterproductive as well. That’s why I like to set the lower limit at 8%. Anything below that can have negative effects as well, but since that’s unlikely to be the case for most people, I won’t go in to depth with this. Bottom line is that going below 8% will most likely have negative hormonal effects for the majority of men and will cause hormone levels to plummet to castrate levels. When bodybuilders are at their physical ‘peak’ for a show, they are actually at their weakest and feel horrible, since a 14 year old girl has higher T levels at this point than they do.
– Micronutrient deficiencies and bad nutrition: What you put in your mouth has a major effect on how you feel, how you look and on how you perform. In other words, it has a major impact on your health. Cleaning up your diet and focusing on micronutrient rich foods and the right types of macronutrients will provide your body with the necessary building blocks to create an optimal hormonal environment.
Just like a house cannot be built without the essential materials, your body cannot produce sufficient testosterone if it lacks the nutrients necessary to synthesize it. Loading up on fruits and vegetables, quality animal protein sources such as grass fed beef, wild caught fish and free range eggs, hormone friendly starchy carbohydrates such as potatoes and yams and high quality fat sources such as olive oil, grass fed butter and coconut oil is a fantastic start to raise your low testosterone levels through diet.
The house you build is only as strong as the materials you use to build it with. Same applies to your body. Feed is quality nutrients and it will be strong. Feed it processed, nutrient void crap and your body will operate suboptimal.
– Sleep deprivation: In our society we love to praise people who give up on sleep to prioritize other things as it is a sign of strength. Sadly, this is anything but true. Sleep deprivation is one of the major causes of bad health on both a physical and mental level. Aside for that, it’s also a kick in the nuts for your testosterone levels.
It’s been shown that people who sleep for 7 to 9 hours per night have almost the double amount of testosterone of people who only get 3 to 4 hours per night on a consistent basis. Even one night of not sleeping has been shown to decrease your T levels by about 10 to 15%. Now one night of bad sleep won’t completely ruin your testosterone levels, it happens to everyone so don’t freak out if you happen to sleep bad once in a while, but certainly try to get an average of about 7 to 9 hours of sleep per night.
Keeping a regular sleep schedule, keeping your room’s temperature cool and having light blocking curtains that keep your room pitch black are all valuable tips to get a solid night’s rest. The majority of your testosterone gets produced while you’re asleep, so make it a priority.
– Lack of physical activity: This is common sense, but heavily underestimated. The majority of people lack movement. By movement I don’t necessarily mean anything extreme. I’m talking about simple low impact activity such as walking.
Most people take the car or public transport to their jobs, are trapped in their cubicles all day long, take the car or public transport back home and feel too sluggish to do anything physical anymore. This cycle continues and nothing ever changes. Hormones get stimulated in a positive way by movement. Like I said, this doesn’t have to be anything extreme. Simple walking for 30-60minutes each day leads to significantly improved insulin sensitivity and lowers your chances of developing diabetes.
if you really want to give your hormones a boost and stimulate the hypothalamus to release more GnRH in order to start the testosterone synthesizing process, than I would highly recommend that you perform intense anaerobic workouts a couple of times per week. Sprinting and resistance training (both body weight training and weight training are excellent options) will do just that. Walk, lift, sprint and play are the things you should remember when thinking about exercising for higher testosterone levels.
Just as a side note: avoid long distance endurance type of training since it raises cortisol levels significantly and since cortisol is the antagonist of testosterone, it will have the opposite effect and lower your testosterone levels.
– Stress and anxiety: Both physical and emotional stress cause cortisol to skyrocket. Cortisol is the antagonist of testosterone and when cortisol goes up, testosterone goes down and vice versa.
In our modern society people are overstressed and as a result, it contributes to our hormones constantly being out of whack. To combat this problem, find a way to manage how you deal with stressful situations and try to adopt a more stoic mindset. Try to be a glass half full kind of person. When it comes to physical stress, getting enough sleep, being at a healthy body fat percentage, eating a micronutrient rich diet and including at least some low impact exercise such as walking into your lifestyle will all help to raise T levels and lower cortisol levels.
– Drug and alcohol abuse: It’s common sense that too much drugs and alcohol are notorious for your health. Why is that? Because it destroys your endocrine system. Drug addicts and alcoholics have piss poor testosterone levels as a result of their substance abuse and overall lifestyle.
Things aren’t black and white when it comes to alcohol though. Science has shown that alcohol only has a negative effect on hormone levels when one exceeds a certain threshold, which is the amount of grams of alcohol per kg of bodyweight.
So if for example you weigh 80kg, exceeding 80g of alcohol per drinking session will start having a negative effect on your hormone levels. This translates into 2 – 3 drinks per night. Obviously, alcoholics drink way more than this amount and therefore hammer their endocrine system.
If you love to drink alcoholic beverages and want to enjoy life, don’t worry. It’s totally fine to drink without destroying your hormonal health. Just drink sensibly and have about 2 to 3 drinks per night 2 to 3 times per week max. If you love drinking a glass of wine with your dinner, have one glass each night, which won’t have much of an impact, but don’t go overboard.
Another tricky thing about alcohol is beer. I won’t go too much into detail about beer in this post, but beer is made from hops, which is extremely estrogenic. This is why many men who love drinking beer sport a potbelly or as I like to call it, an estrogen belly. So if you do drink, choose quality wines and hard liquors.
– Testosterone lowering foods: Yes, we eat a lot of foods on a daily basis that actively lower our testosterone levels. Some foods such as licorice have proven to cut a man’s testosterone levels in half after eating a small serving of licorice for 4 days!
These foods are known to actively lower testosterone levels and should be avoided if you wish to maximize your health and masculinity: poly unsaturated fatty acids (vegetable oils such sunflower oil and canola oil), flax seeds, soy products, licorice, mint (which is sadly notorious for testosterone levels), nuts and seeds (contrary to popular belief) and alcohol in excess.
– Environmental chemicals: Environmental chemicals and toxins are a cause of low testosterone levels that you mostly have no control over. Most of the air we breathe, the soil we grow our crops in, the water we drink and the products we deal with on a daily basis are polluted with toxins or chemicals such as BPA’s that raise your estrogen levels, raise your cortisol levels and lower your T levels.
There’s no need to become paranoid about this, but to make the best out of this one, it’s wise to choose natural and chemical free care products. The skin is an important organ that absorbs a lot of the chemicals that it comes into contact with, so be mindful about what to put on your skin.
When it comes to other factors: drink water out of glass bottles and try to avoid the use of plastics as much as possible. When heating food, try to do it in glass containers or ceramics rather than in plastics, as they release a lot of harmful toxins, which don’t have a favorable effect on your health.
Conclusion
Testosterone is what makes a man a man. This applies to both physical traits as well as psychological characteristics. It’s the hormone responsible for doing what men do. Having high testosterone levels will allow to you live your life in an optimal state of health. As a result of being physically and mentally in peak shape it will increase your chances to succeed achieving your goals are in life.
Simply said, you will look better, feel better and perform better. You will be more driven and radiate more natural confidence. That natural confidence will translate into more risk taking such as talking to attractive women, taking business opportunities and grabbing the bull by the horns in life. That’s why high testosterone men have more success than low testosterone men, because they tend to take more calculated risks and therefore are more likely to succeed in life.
A high testosterone lifestyle requires habits that will lead to you having an amazing looking physique. A strong, lean, athletic physique that radiates masculine health. You will have strong muscles, strong bones, a lower body fat percentage, a sharper looking jawline and therefore a more masculine face. Your libido will be raging and you will have a satisfying sex life.
Your testosterone levels are the barometer of your health as a man. Therefore, care about them. Make sure that you build healthy habits such as getting enough sleep, exercising and eating properly to skyrocket your T levels. Your body will thank you and you will thank yourself because the overall quality of your life will drastically improve.