Natural Tips To Increase Testosterone To Get Leaner and Stronger

By Charles Poliquin

Tuesday, March 05, 2013 5:58 AM

The hormone testosterone is associated with body fat and muscle mass in men: Low testosterone means you’ll have more body fat, less muscle, and put yourself at risk of disease. It is also an important hormone for women, however, the key is to keep everything in balance for both sexes.

To do this, you have to make sure you aren’t lacking key nutrients, or engaging in habits that compromise your testosterone levels such as being sleep deprived, drinking alcohol, or exposing yourself to hormone disruptors like BPA and phthalates. This tip will cover the basics for increasing testosterone (T) for optimal body composition and health.

First, you must solve the following nutrient deficiencies: Vitamin D, magnesium, and zinc. Vitamin D is all the rage in the medical world for preventing disease and improving health, and rightly so. Low vitamin D puts you at risk of having more body fat, less strength, more risk of bone fracture, and a host of other problems including low T. It appears that vitamin D inhibits aromatization in which T is turned into estrogen. Take vitamin D daily to raise your levels above 50 ng/ml to prevent low T—one study had men take 3,332 IUs for a year and found blood levels and T were significantly improved at the end of the trial.


Magnesium is another extremely common deficiency that is linked to low T due to this mineral’s role in enhancing vitamin D activity, improving sleep, and aiding insulin health. Taking 500 mg of magnesium a day is a no-brainer for health and body composition, especially if you are working out since magnesium must be present to enable forceful muscle contractions.



Zinc deficiency predicts low testosterone in men, by avoiding aromatization of T to estrogen. Zinc is involved in hormone conversion and it’s a potent antioxidant, protecting the organs for optimal function. Solve low zinc by doing a zinc taste test, or better yet, get a red blood cell zinc test the next time you get a physical because the regular serum blood readings don’t reflect trace mineral levels in the body. If you have low zinc take a high quality zinc supplement that is not cut with calcium because this will impair absorption.



After solving nutrient deficiencies, you need to focus on decreasing stress because it will lead to high levels of cortisol, testosterone’s primary nemesis. Assuming you have a basic handle on stress in your life, make sure you aren’t sleep deprived (this is repeatedly linked to low T, high cortisol, and poor insulin health), and focus on clearing cortisol after intense exercise. Vitamin C will do this and if you take regularly, it has been shown to raise T. Try 2 to 10 grams after your workout.

[Nutri-Calm is an amazing combination providing generous levels of Vitamin C and B-Complex vitamins with added chamomile, and helps us settle when life becomes too much of a challenge. Designed for the nervous system during times of pressure, and for physically stressful conditions that can deplete the body of B-vitamins.]
Your final tool to improve T levels is a high-protein, “clean” diet with regularly spaced meals. Anytime your blood sugar is elevated, T will be temporarily reduced, which means that if you experience repeated elevations in blood sugar throughout the day, your T levels will become depressed. For example, one study found that men who had normal insulin health had a 25 percent decrease in T after ingesting a drink containing sugar. T remained low for 2 hours, and nearly 80 percent of the men had their T drop to levels that would be considered clinical testosterone deficiency.

Obviously you MUST manage blood sugar and the best way to do that is by eliminating all carbs other than vegetables and fruit and eating high-protein, healthy fat diet. The other benefit of this that you need fat from both saturated and unsaturated sources to provide the building blocks for T in the body.

Lastly, eat regularly spaced meals every 2 to 3 hours to support T. Avoid missing meals or long periods of fasting because emerging evidence suggests this will compromise T: A new study on male rats showed that 12 weeks of intermittent fasting with calorie restriction led to a significant reduction in T and luteinizing hormone (involved in T production) compared to rats that were allowed to eat at will.

Take away the understanding that supporting T is not hard, but simple errors have a devastating effect. Focus on the key nutrient deficiencies, a clean diet, sleep, avoiding endocrine disruptors, and blood sugar regulation and you will experience rapid progress in terms of health and body composition.

Reference
Kumar, S., Kaur, G. Intermittent Fasting Dietary Restriction Regimen Negative Influences Reproduction in Young Rats: A Study of Hypothalamo-Hypophysial-Gonadal Axis. PLOS One. 2013. 8(1), e52416.

Caronia, L., Dwyer, A., et al. Abrupt Decrease in Serum Testosterone After an Oral Glucose Load in Men. Clinical Endocrinology. July 2012. Published Ahead of Print.

Maggio, M., Ceda, G., Lauretani, F., Cattabiani, C., Avantaggiato, E., Morganti, S., et al. Magnesium and Anabolic Hormones in Older Men. International Journal of Andrology. 15 June 2011. Published Ahead of Print.

Prasad, A., Mantzoros, C., et al. Zinc Status and Serum Testosterone Levels of Healthy Adults. Nutrition. 1996. 12(5), 344-348.

Menéndez, E., Valdés, S., Botas, P., Delgado, E., Abello, N. Glucose Tolerance and Plasma Testosterone Concentrations in Men. Endocrinology and Nutrition. 2011. 58(1), 3-8.

Lee, D, Tajar, A., et al. Association of Hypogonadism with Vitamin D Status: The European Male Ageing Study. European Journal of Endocrinology. January 2012. 166, 75-85.

Fat Loss Supplement Guide

by John Berardi, Ph.D.

Choosing nutritional supplements can be tough. There’s so much information available, and much of it is published by people who are biased in one direction or another. That’s why we have 3 PhDs on staff — to make sense of the mountains of supplement information available, legitimate or otherwise.

We translate high quality research into simple recommendations our clients can use to lose body fat. So when it comes to supplements, we’ve reduced years of research into 4 simple supplement recommendations that you can use right away.
The following 4 supplements are the ones we recommend specifically to our fat loss clients.
These products can reliably help in a fat loss program, while still being safe to use regularly.

1. Fish Oil

You may have heard a lot about Omega-3’s. And fish oil is the key source. There’s a ton of very positive research on fish oil supplementation, it’s been shown to be great for fat loss, and it’s your fish oil.

Choose the right product

Not all omega 3-rich foods are created equal. So, even though flax seeds and flax seed oils are high in omega 3 fats, you can’t substitute these foods in place of fish oils. Further, not all fish oils are the same.
For example, liver oils (like cod liver oil) aren’t the kind you should be using. No, to get the benefits we discuss above, you’ll want to choose omega 3 rich fish oils from the brands recommended below.

Choose the right dose

Our clients start out by using 1 gram of fish oil per percent body fat they have. So, if they’re 10% body fat, they use 10 grams of fish oil. If they’re 20% body fat, they use 20 grams of fish oil.
And so on, up to a maximum dose of 30 grams per day. We follow this protocol for 14 days.
Then, we cut the dose in half. So, if a client starts out taking 10 grams for 2 weeks, they cut the dose down to 5 grams after that. If they start out taking 20 grams for 2 weeks, they cut the dose down to 10 grams after that. This latter dose (1/2 gram per percent body fat) can be followed indefinitely.

2. Multivitamins

As you’ve probably heard, the modern diet often leads to small deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals. These deficiencies can slow your metabolism and impair your ability to burn fat – among other things. And a good multivitamin can help fix that. Here are a few tips for choosing a good one for you.

Choose the right product

Like with most supplements on the market, choosing a multi-vitamin can be confusing. So many companies, so many products; it can be overwhelming. So, to keep it simple, here’s our advice.

Choose the right dose

It’s important not to overdose on vitamins as some of them (particularly the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K) can build up to toxic levels. That’s why you should stick with the recommendations on the label of the brand you choose.

3. Protein Powder

Protein powder’s not entirely necessary if you get enough protein from the foods you eat, like lean meats, chicken and fish. But since most people are crunched for time, they find themselves eating too little protein. That’s why adding some quick high-quality protein can be really, really helpful. So here are some tips for getting the most out of your protein supplementation.

Choose the right product

Protein powder has come a long way since the early days of chalky whey protein. Nowadays, protein powders are extracted from all types of food sources – dairy, eggs, soy, and a host of plant sources like hemp, pea kernels, certain seeds and more. Plus, many of these options actually taste good. So, whether you’re lactose intolerant, allergic to milk, or choose to follow a plant-based diet, you can pick the right product for your unique needs. The key, however, is to choose simple products, without too many additional ingredients.

Choose the right dose

As mentioned above, protein powders aren’t necessary as we can meet our daily protein powders from whole food sources. However, for those of us crunched for time, protein supplements cam come in handy.

The key is to not replace too much of those whole food sources with powders. That’s why we ask our clients to limit their protein powder to a maximum of 4 scoops (about 80 grams) per day.

4. Greens

If you get enough veggies, a greens supplement might not be entirely necessary. But most people simply don’t eat enough vegetables, and are missing out on the micronutrients they contain — many of which help you lose fat either directly or indirectly. And a greens supplement can come in handy here.

Choose the right product

Greens has been shown (in a handful of studies) to increase the antioxidant status of the body, improve pH, lower stress hormones, and more. We’ll, be honest. When we see that a product has been tested repeatedly in a research environment, we get excited. So we’re definitely excited about greens+ and its potential impact on fat loss as well as overall healthy.
So there you have it, our 4 supplements for long-term, sustainable fat loss. A lot of thought and lot of research have gone into these recommendations. These supplements are what I use personally. And they’re also what I have our clients use. Nothing more.So if you have a question about a supplement that we didn’t talk about in this guide, just know that we’ve been doing this a long time and have seen it all. If it’s not one of those 4 — fish oil, multivitamin, protein powder, greens supplement — then I don’t use it regularly, and neither do our clients. And we produce more dramatic fat loss stories than probably anyone else, anywhere else.

Source: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Supplements-For-Men.pdf

Muscle Isn’t Everything: Other Protein Benefits

I lifted the below from an article by John Berardi, PhD CSCS, on how much protein you should eat at every meal....

"Beyond this very narrow view of protein intake (muscle protein synthesis vs. breakdown), there’s a much more important question at stake: why else do we eat protein?

You see, there are other benefits to eating protein beyond muscle building. There’s satiety, the thermogenic effects, the impact on the immune system, and more (see below). Plus, there are probably a few benefits science can’t measure yet. I say the last part because there’s so much experiential evidence suggesting that when you’re training hard and you up your protein intake, you do better. So maybe we just haven’t looked in the right places to notice the real benefits.

Other Protein Benefits

We shouldn’t look at the world through a straw (i.e. see one protein study on one isolated topic and make broad generalizations). So, to help us remember that, let’s review a list of benefits we get from eating extra protein.

Increased thermic effect of feeding – While all macronutrients require metabolic processing for digestion, absorption, and storage or oxidation, the thermic effect of protein is roughly double that of carbohydrates and fat. Therefore, eating protein is actually thermogenic and can lead to a higher metabolic rate. This means greater fat loss when dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding/muscle building.

Increased glucagon – Protein consumption increases plasma concentrations of the hormone glucagon. Glucagon is responsible for antagonizing the effects of insulin in adipose tissue, leading to greater fat mobilization. In addition, glucagon also decreases the amounts and activities of the enzymes responsible for making and storing fat in adipose and liver cells. Again, this leads to greater fat loss during dieting and less fat gain during overfeeding.

Metabolic pathway adjustment –When a higher protein (20-50% of intake) is followed, a host of metabolic adjustments occur. These include: a down-regulation of glycolysis, a reduction in fatty acid synthesis enzymes, and an increase in gluconeogenesis - a carbohydrate “draining” effect where carbons necessary for ridding the body of amino nitrogen is drawn from glucose.

Increased IGF-1 – Protein and amino-acid supplementation has been shown to increase the IGF-1 response to both exercise and feeding. Since IGF-1 is an anabolic hormone that’s related to muscle growth, another advantage associated with consuming more protein is more muscle growth when overfeeding and/or muscle sparing when dieting.

Reduction in cardiovascular risk – Several studies have shown that increasing the percentage of protein in the diet (from 11% to 23%) while decreasing the percentage of carbohydrate (from 63% to 48%) lowers LDL cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations with concomitant increases in HDL cholesterol concentrations.

Improved weight loss profile – Research by Layman and colleagues has demonstrated that reducing the carbohydrate ratio from 3.5 – 1 to 1.4 – 1 increases body fat loss, spares muscle mass, reduces triglyceride concentrations, improves satiety, and improves blood glucose management

Increased protein turnover — All tissues of the body, including muscle, go through a regular program of turnover. Since the balance between protein breakdown and protein synthesis governs muscle protein turnover, you need to increase your protein turnover rates in order to best improve your muscle quality. A high protein diet does just this. By increasing both protein synthesis and protein breakdown, a high protein diet helps you get rid of the old muscle more quickly and build up new, more functional muscle to take its place.

Increased nitrogen status — A positive nitrogen status means that more protein is entering the body than is leaving the body. High protein diets cause a strong positive protein status and when this increased protein availability is coupled with an exercise program that increases the body’s anabolic efficiency, the growth process may be accelerated.

Increased provision of auxiliary nutrients — Although the benefits mentioned above have related specifically to protein and amino acids, it’s important to recognize that we don’t just eat protein and amino acids — we eat food. Therefore, high protein diets often provide auxiliary nutrients that could enhance performance and/or muscle growth. These nutrients include creatine, branched chain amino acids, conjugated linoleic acids, and/or additional nutrients that are important but remain to be discovered. And don’t forget the vitamins and minerals we get from protein rich foods.

(And lest anyone think I’m a shill for the protein powder industry, this last point clearly illustrates the need to get most of your protein from food, rather than supplements.)

Looking over this list of benefits, it’s hard to ignore the fact that we don’t just eat protein for its muscle synthetic effect. We eat protein for a bunch of other reasons too. Since a higher protein diet can lead to a better health profile, an increased metabolism, improved body composition, and an improved training response, why would anyone ever try to limit their protein intake to the bare minimum?

Take-home Message

It seems to me that whether someone’s on a hypoenergetic diet (low calorie) or a hyperenergetic diet (high calorie), the one macronutrient they would want to be sure to “overeat” (relatively speaking) would be protein.

But that’s not what people do, is it?

Instead, they look for the bare minimum of protein (whether it’s 20-30g/meal or 0.8g/kg/day), and then overeat carbohydrates and fats instead. That could prove to be a performance – and body composition – mistake.

So here’s my recommendation for men and women interested in losing fat, gaining lean muscle, and improving their health and performance:

Women – Eat 1 palm-sized portion of lean, complete protein (about 20-30g) with each meal, every few hours. If you eat less frequently, eat a bit more protein with each meal. If you eat more frequently, eat a bit less protein with each meal.

Men – Eat 2 palm-sized portions of lean, complete protein (about 40-60g) with each meal, every few hours. If you eat less frequently, eat a bit more protein with each meal. If you eat more frequently, eat a bit less protein with each meal.

This pattern of intake will make sure you’re getting enough protein to reap all the benefits that this amazing macronutrient has to offer.

Dr. John Berardi is the co-founder of Precision Nutrition and the co-creator of the Precision Nutrition Certification program."

Post-Workout Nutrition: Don’t Let Your Hard Work Go to Waste

By Charles Poliquin

Don’t let your hard work in the gym go to waste! Get the optimal dose of protein and amino acids to gain muscle and strength. A new review in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism provides tips for sustaining muscle protein synthesis for optimal strength and size gains. Included are strategies for older trainees to get the best protein synthesis results post-workout.

Did you know that you can increase muscle protein synthesis by three to five times if you get extra protein after resistance training? It’s true. By taking a protein that is high in amino acids you can enhance muscle protein synthesis by as much as 150 percent, and because resistance exercise stimulates the body to build muscle for up to 48 hours, you can enhance that process by getting extra amino acids.

For example, one study showed that when training to failure, taking 15 grams of whey protein post-workout equally enhanced protein synthesis with both a light load of 30 percent of the 1RM and a heavy load of 90 percent of the 1RM. Taking protein to provide extra amino acids was more important than load in this case!

Another essential tip for speeding recovery and muscle building is to take protein before bedtime because the extra pool of amino acids will dramatically stimulate overnight protein synthesis, which would normally not occur to any significant degree. In fact, not providing the muscles with extra fuel in the evening will produce a catabolic environment by morning. This new finding showed that taking 40 grams of protein at 11:30 pm before subjects went to bed increased protein synthesis by 25 percent and it was sustained all night!
Most important for maximal protein synthesis is to provide a large dose of the amino acid leucine in conjunction with the other essential amino acids. This is especially true for older individuals, who must take leucine in order to simulate a protein synthesis pathway called mTOR. With a post-workout whey shake that had 41 percent leucine, men over aged 50 were able to stimulate protein synthesis equally as 20-year-olds, whereas with only 26 percent leucine there was no increase in protein synthesis over baseline in the elderly.

Older trainees also need more total protein –studies show for young trainees 20 grams of whey may sufficient to maximally stimulate muscle building and a larger dose won’t have an effect. But in older trainees, at least 40 grams will provide a boost to protein synthesis and researchers suggest an even larger dose may be optimal.

Two additional strategies you may not be aware of are to take fish oil and that carbs are not needed for maximal muscle building. Studies show that taking at least 4 grams a day of omega-3 fish oil will increase protein synthesis in all ages . Researchers aren’t sure why fish oil does this, but it may be that it makes muscle cells more sensitive to insulin and amino acids.

In addition, recent evidence shows that as long as you get enough high-quality protein, muscle protein synthesis is maximized to an equal degree as if the protein was taken with 50 grams of carbs post-workout. For best results, take your protein with fish oil to support insulin sensitivity of your cells and skip the carbs unless you have done a sufficient volume to require glycogen resynthesis.

Reference
Churchward, T., Burd, N., et al. Nutritional Regulation of Muscle Protein Synthesis with Resistance Exercise: Strategies to Enhance Anabolism. Nutrition and Metabolism. 2012. Published Ahead of Print.