[Transcript] – 32 Natural Ways To Increase Testosterone (Plus Testosterone Cream Vs. Injections) – Fully Updated Re-Release

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Transcripts

https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/testosterone2

[00:00:00] About this Solosode

[00:02:03] Research Encountered Since I Last Spoke on This Topic

[00:06:49] Podcast Sponsors

[00:09:22] Start of Talk

[00:11:43] Workout Strategies to Optimize Testosterone

[00:21:36] Notoriously Missing Nutrients That Drastically Affect Testosterone Levels

[00:30:21] Podcast Sponsors

[00:33:17] cont. Notoriously Missing Nutrients That Drastically Affect Testosterone Levels

[00:34:05] Herbal Add-Ons

[00:40:38] Biohacking Testosterone: Tools and Tricks That Actually Work

[00:50:51] Mistakes You're Probably Making That Impact Testosterone and Fertility

[00:58:24] Best Ways to Track and Test Male Hormones

[01:00:47] Closing the Talk

[01:01:10] End of Podcast

Ben:  Hey, it's Ben. And today is a special solosode about testosterone with yours truly. Now, this podcast is based on a talk that I gave in Las Vegas at a forum. And my entire presentation at this, this American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine Conference was to speak to a bunch of physicians in the audience about tools and technologies for naturally increasing fertility, increasing longevity, balancing hormones, restoring testosterone, restoring libido. I addressed strategies that can be useful for both men and women to restore hormone balance. But, I get into everything from workout strategies to optimized testosterone to kind of low hanging fruit in terms of notoriously missing nutrients that drastically affect testosterone levels, different herbs that can or cannot be handy. You'd be surprised at which ones have been proven to work, which ones haven't. And also, the different ways to biohack testosterone, all these different tools and technologies out there that are creeping up.

I mean, even right now, I'm recording this podcast where I have on the floor of my office. I just had my pants stripped off. I'm totally not joking. This was literally 10 minutes ago and I was using this thing called “the rocket,” which is supposedly a home version of that Gainswave device. So, I'm messing around with that, not because I have erectile dysfunction, but because I to kind of toy around with all these different technologies and do a bit of immersive journalism, trying not to vibrate my dick off and then come back to you and let want to what works and what doesn't. And this podcast is certainly going to give you a lot of that.

Now, I want to and I'm actually going to lay down an introduction for you here, even before I tell you some of the sponsors of today's show and give you some cool discount codes because I always get really great insider discounts from the folks who support this show. So, I have some good ones for you. But, even before then, I want to get into something important that I think you should know that has happened since I gave this talk.

Now, of course, testosterone optimization and going above and beyond the lab values that are often borderline hypogonadal that we often accept as standard for total and free testosterone in men. Many folks will use this idea of not testosterone replacement but testosterone optimization, almost using microdoses of testosterone to keep your levels optimized as you age, is almost kind of a better living through science strategy. Obviously, banned in World Anti-Doping Association and sanction sports and something that you need to be careful with if you are a competing athlete.

Well, after talking with so many men and so many docs and endocrinologists on this show, I personally decided a few months ago that I wanted to experiment with this idea of microdosing via transdermal delivery mechanisms testosterone. So, I have actually begun to use in the morning and in the evening a small amount of testosterone cream. Why testosterone cream versus injections or pellets or anything else like that? Well, the idea of doing a small dose of testosterone in the morning and in the evening very naturally simulates the diurnal variation in testosterone that's going to occur on a daily basis. Your body is not used to a huge signal from your brain which is what an injection would be getting sent for this massive release of testosterone, let's say, once a week. And then, you kind of get the jitteriness, that, sometimes, anger, irritability, etc., this unnatural surge in testosterone. And then, that all bleeds off. And then, a week later, you would inject a large bolus again.

The idea behind a testosterone cream which, by the way, is different than a gel, compounded testosterone cream, overseen by good anti-aging or hormonal doc, not only do you get far or better penetration and absorption compared to a gel but you need a much lower amounts to be applied, typically, to the scrotum to be able to achieve optimal testosterone levels. And so, this idea of a morning and evening small amount of cream is something that I began to do.

And the guy who I'm working with on hormone replacement right now and who my wife works with as well, my wife is now using progesterone, is Dr. Craig Koniver at Koniver Wellness down in Charleston, South Carolina. He has been on this show before.

Now, I realized lots of people are thinking, “Ah, Ben, you've stooped to a new level. You're now using exogenous hormones, etc., etc.” But, the fact is I'm kind of hanging up the racing hat in terms of toeing the line on a lot of these WADA sanction and USADA sanction events. It's something that I've kind of been interested in. I know that men in their late 30's, and I just turned 38, begin to see a lot of value from this type of hormone replacement. I don't think I've started any earlier than late 30s, unless there's a pretty significant issue going on, like some type of extreme pituitary issue going on in a man's brain. But, ultimately, I'm trying out, and I got to tell you, I feel fantastic. No surprises there. And I consider this to be better living through science. I consider it to be an anti-aging strategy that is admittedly not as natural as, say, getting out in the sunlight or grounding or earthing or eating enough fatty acids or some of the other things I talked about in this episode to naturally increase testosterone. But, I think that if you've got that foundation all in place – good sleep, low stress, good relationships, nutrient-dense diet, etc., etc., then, I think that trying out something like this, especially, if you're an aging male is something that is worth, at least, looking into, or, getting some urine tests or salivary tests overseen by a physician to determine if you might be a good candidate for something like a cream.

So, there you have it. I'll keep you, guys, posted on how things progress. But, ultimately, I feel amazing – again, no surprises – doing the morning and evening small dose of a testosterone cream. And I think I'm going to continue to do it, just like my morning cup of coffee.

So, there you have it. And if you, guys, have questions, if you want to access the shownotes for everything that's discussed today, it's all going to be over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/testosterone2. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com/testosterone2.

Okay. So, there are also, of course, some goodies and cool events going on that I want to tell you about.

So, first of all, this podcast is occurring about the time that my “Boundless” book is nearly set to launch. You can head over to boundlessbook.com. I actually have a huge section on testosterone optimization in that book as well, even more interesting things that go above and beyond what we get into in this podcast; especially, in the anti-aging and longevity chapter. So, you can get in all the goodness there at boundlessbook.com. And if you want to come to my book launch party, which is actually the time this podcast comes out this week in New York City. But then, at January 29th, January 30th, and January 31st, in LA, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com/calendar and you can RSVP for the parties. We have some special VIP before and after events. Cool people, amazing food. I'll be giving keynotes. So, that'll all be over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/calendar to get in on the Boundless book launch events. And you can pre-order the book at boundlessbook.com.

And then, finally, before we jump in, I'm going to give all you, guys, a huge discount on the delicious, chocolatey, coconut goodness that is the Kion Clean Energy Bar. Full of cocoa butter and sea salt, the equivalent of half a cups worth of bone broth in terms of grass-fed gelatin that we've worked into the bar, a coconut flakes, so, you get some medium-chain fatty acids, cacao nibs, not only tastes amazing but they're rich in potassium and magnesium and antioxidants. This thing tastes addictively good. Just melt in your mouth. Chocolatey, coconuty, salty goodness. And I designed it to be not low-carb, not a ketogenic bar, but enough carbs for liver and muscle glycogen restoration, along with a hefty dose of protein, a lot of really energy stabilizing fatty acids. It goes perfectly with a cup of Kion Coffee if I do say so myself. And you can get these bars at a 10% discount if you go to getkion.com, getK-I-O-N.com. And the discount code that you can use is BGF10.

So, let's jump in, shall we? And again, all the shownotes are going to be at BenGreenfieldFitness.com/testosterone2.

Health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and much more. My name is Ben Greenfield. Welcome to the show.

Let's see. Well, welcome to the penis talk. I don't have my kettlebell today, so I had to wear pants. Normally, that's how I roll. There's just kettlebell. Hopefully, everybody's having a good morning, you guys learning some things. I think, this is the first conference I've been to where I've never seen this many Jacks doctors on steroids. It's crazy. Lots of buffed MDs walking around. But, it's really cool, the expo. It looks like it has some really great stuff.

So, I want to start with how I kind of got into all this in the first place, because I'm not a playboy running around the world, trying to figure out how to make my dick bigger. But, what happened was Men's Health magazine approached me towards the end of 2017, actually, and they wanted me to go on this three-month foray to kind of take a deep dive into everything that a guy could do to enhance his sexual performance. And my background is in exercise, physiology, and biomechanics with some studies in human nutrition and pharmacology. And so, I kind of understand, to a certain extent, not as much as the doctors in this room, some of the biochemistry of this. And so, I found it fascinating. So, I went out and did everything. They had me do freaking tantric sex and reduced ejaculations and stem cells multiple times and PRP. They had me do gas station dick pills. I mean, you name it. Everything. I got this penis pump. It's like the Cadillac of penis pumps. I've got my ball sucked into it which, maybe, if I have time, I can tell you more about that. But, I just did everything and kind of researched along the way, like what works and what doesn't when it comes to enhancing male testosterone, libido, sexual performance.

Actually, I didn't get on the cover of the magazine fittingly enough for magazine about how to make a small dick bigger. They put Mark Wahlberg on the cover. So, that's hopefully one of the only pop culture references I'll make all day because I actually don't know that much about Mark Wahlberg. But, I hear he's a great guy. I'm sure his dick is just fine.

Okay. So, what we're going to go over today, and I know we don't have tons of time, I'm going to hit a lot of stuff and, hopefully, leave some time for questions afterwards. If I don't get to all the questions, I'll give you guys a URL at the end of the slides. I'll probably up my booth later on after. I'll boogie out there. If you guys have more questions, we can chat around a cup of coffee out there. We'll go over strategies, actually, specifically work out strategies and exercise strategies because that's big for optimizing testosterone. Nutrients, basic nutrients, honestly, what I would do if I was going to create a testosterone support formula, some of the things I would put in it. I don't have any formula for that type of thing, but I want to cover some of the stuff I've studied on that. Herbal add-ons, biohacks. A lot of people who aren't sitting in, everything from red light to acoustic sound waves, all these things and whether or not they actually work. Mistakes that impact sexual health. And then, some of the ways that I like to test and track this stuff. So, we'll just boogie straight into this. Workout strategies to optimize testosterone, which actually do not include making love to a vibrating foam roller in your living room. But, that is what I do each morning.

Actually, I want to start with the low-hanging fruit, this whole exercise lifestyle piece because, sometimes, I think, we forget about the low-hanging fruit. It's like plant medicine right now everybody's interested in their MDMA and going in their 38 Ayahuasca Retreat and microdosing with psilocybin. I mean, I'm of the opinion that a more stoic fruit would be a little bit more advisable starting off. I think, everybody who wants to go off and do a deep plant medicine journey should go fasting and go isolate themselves, camping in the wilderness for three or four days. And I bet they would probably discover themselves in a very similar way that they would have if they'd have gone out and done plant medicine. I think, everyone should start with that. In the same way, I think before you go running around, injecting stem cells into your dick or doing all these expensive procedures, we should just look at some of the basic things, some of the low-hanging fruit.

So, we'll cover a few of them here. The first is some very interesting studies on sprint length and testosterone and this idea that brief sprint spurts can actually upregulate androgen receptors and also upregulate testosterone, both acutely and chronically. To a limited extent, growth hormone as well. Does anybody know the length of time necessary for a boost in testosterone for a repeated series of sprints? How long you would need to sprint on a bicycle or a rowing machine or anything else? I mean, I was an ExPhys major and we would do these ungodly hard 30-second, they call them, Wingate protocols for power analysis on the bike. And those are 30 seconds. Does anybody know how long for these studies on enhancing testosterone?

Participant:       [00:14:37] _______ minute?

Ben:      Lower.

Participant:       Six seconds.

Ben:      Yes, who said six seconds? Boom. Somebody's been on PubMed. Okay, yeah, six seconds. That's all it takes. So, six seconds. And, usually, the work to rest ratio, I mean, if you're consulting with a patient or you yourself are doing a protocol like this, it's just a brief series. Four to six-second sprints, usually, a 1:5 to 1:10 work to rest ratio. Very long recovery periods. Very short sprints. That's one exercise tactic for testosterone. It's just basic very short sprints. Basically, the idea is you're using just the creatine phosphate system. Once you dip into the glycolytic energy system, you don't see that same hormonal response. So, very brief sprint efforts if you're designing a workout protocol.

The next is to lift heavy stuff and we also know that this upregulates androgen receptors. As far as how to actually do this, one of my favorite methods, and there's actually some really interesting studies that look at longevity, at sprint performance, at overall functionality and fighting off frailty with the use of a hex bar. I think that just about everybody should own a hex bar, especially, as they age. It's a perfect way to lift heavy stuff. I always have one loaded up next to the room that's next door to my office. Also, kettlebell is fantastic for that. But, hex bars, kettlebells, I mean, we know that there are certain things that are correlated with longevity that, also, are kind of correlated with fertility.

For example, grip strength. Grip strength is one fantastic parameter to track for longevity. We know grip strength dynamometer is a great way to track anti-aging. We know walking speed is another parameter. The ability to be able to sit down and stand up. Actually, I literally sit down and stand up every day 30 times. And I have a lot of my clients do this. You just sit down both legs in front of you, stand up. And there's actually a really interesting study that looked at markers for aging and mortality and the ability to just be able to sit down and stand up. It was a big one. But, lifting heavy stuff. Full-body exercises: deadlifts, squats, anything along those lines works.

Long rest periods. I alluded to this before, but this is specifically related to weight training. If you are prescribing exercise program to a guy who wants to increase either testosterone or libido, this idea of concurrent strength endurance training, CrossFit, Spartan training, most of that flies in the face of building testosterone. Instead, long rest periods. At least 120-second-long rest periods after a weightlifting set appears to be the sweet spot, that or more, for enhancing testosterone. That does not mean that, and this is my pet peeve, if I'm at the gym, people, guys slump over, sitting on the bench, playing Candy Crush, reading a magazine, starring slack-jawed at ESPN, waiting for their next set. I'm a huge fan of either doing supersets, back-to-back sets where you have bench press and while you're recovering from the bench press you have them doing squats; or, doing functional movements, like cat-cow exercises and opposite arm leg extension and yoga moves or dynamic stretching, things in between each of the sets that fill in those rest periods. So, you're still getting a lot of density in the training routine. But, long rest periods also appear to be very effective.

I've got six different ones I'm going to give you. This has worked out. Actually, that was a couple of years ago. Nick Delgado, I think he's here. We actually had the Venetian working out before one of the UFC fights and he was taking me through this forced rep workout. This is another strategy that they've done some really good studies on for, again, increasing receptor density and increasing testosterone, increasing growth hormone. The idea with this is that you go through a weightlifting set, but towards the end, towards the last two to four reps, you actually have a partner who is assisting you through the movement to enable you to be able to do a forced rep through partial range of motion with the weight that's heavier than you'd normally be able to handle because you're already fatigued.

So, if you don't have the ability to work with a partner, there's also this newer idea of what's called variable resistance training. I had a podcast recently with this guy who designed something called an X3 Bar. It's an elastic band system. And I use elastic bands for this a lot when I travel. I'll do an elastic band set to failure and then to move through partial range of motion with the band. Same thing, same concept. Forced reps is what they're called. There's another type of training protocol, it's very similar, by Dr. Doug McGuff, called “Body by Science.” I'll tell you about that in a second. But, basically, this idea of doing an entire set and then moving through partial range of motion at the end of the set, that's another strategy that appears to have a really good hormonal response.

The next is using your legs. That's actually on a Vasper machine. Anybody ever used one of these Vasper machines? Very cool. You're grounding, earthing. You have a blood flow restriction on all four limbs. And then, along with that blood flow restriction is ice or cold. So, you're essentially trapping a lot of lactic acid in the tissue. And when you do that, very similar to what's called Kaatsu training, you see an increased growth hormone response afterwards. So, very cool machine but, of course, it uses the legs. Any type of weight training movement, any type of leg day is incredibly beneficial for testosterone. I mean, you see a lot of guys, especially, who lift weights get jacked. But then, they kind of have toothpick leg syndrome going on. And as a result, they're not actually hitting the areas that have the most androgen receptor density. So, squats, deadlifts, again, doing things like working with the hex bar, doing things like using a kettlebell for the hamstrings and the glutes, anything that incorporates lower body, specifically, lower body strength training, not lower body chronic cardio, is very effective for this.

And then, the last one would be, speaking of the devil, avoiding chronic cardio. I mean, I competed in Ironman for about 10 years and that was the lowest that my testosterone ever was. As a matter of fact, I saw a steep rise in my own blood testosterone values after I quit racing Ironman. I mean, I was doing everything to try and stave off a lot of the loss of libido and function, like the holes in the bike saddle and I was trying to eat as many fats as possible. But, I still saw a pretty steep decline in testosterone from chronic cardio. The theory is that, number one, when you're constantly running from a lion and the body wants to kind of downregulate fertility because we don't want to bring children into the world in a time of stress, when we're riding a bike down the highway for four hours a day. But then, the other reason is that the body will actually cause catabolism of your muscle as a way to be able to maintain a lower weight once you start doing all this chronic cardio. So, you see a loss of muscle that goes hand-in-hand with a decrease in hormones as well.

So, avoiding chronic cardio, that's another big one. If you start to work these strategies into a strength training program or into an exercise program for your clients or for your patients, this is exactly what it should look, very brief short sprints with long rest periods, very brief high-intensity heavy weight lifting sessions with long rest periods, using the legs a lot, having a partner in doing forced reps or using machines that allow you to do forced reps. All of these works very, very well for increasing testosterone. Those are some of the exercise strategies.

Okay. So, if I were going to design, like I mentioned, a supplement to enhance testosterone levels, I would hit a lot of the basic stuff that I think is underemphasized, because we like to talk about a lot of the sexy Chinese herbs, right? Eurycoma and Tongkat Ali and Horny Goat Weed and Tribulus. And a lot of these things work more to enhance libido and blood flow to a greater extent to then say testosterone or other hormones. But, there are things that we know actually fill in the basics.

Magnesium is one. With both magnesium and then, also, zinc that I'll mention, most of the studies that show magnesium or zinc to increase hormone status, or specifically in men to increase testosterone, show that it works in heavily exercising athletes or very active individuals who are sweating a lot. There's not a lot of evidence that magnesium and zinc supplementation will assist with testosterone levels in the absence of physical activity and heavy amounts of sweating. But, nowadays, when a lot of people are doing sauna, a lot of people are exercising, a lot of people are sweating, in many cases, these are two, magnesium and zinc, notoriously missing minerals that can assist quite a bit with the natural testosterone response.

Another one is vitamin D. Vitamin D, I think, sometimes it's a horse that gets kicked to death. I think, there's a lot of people who are risking arterial calcification or some amount of potential for vitamin D toxicity by taking 10,000 units a day. But, in smaller amounts, vitamin D has actually been shown to upregulate androgen receptors and to cause a favorable hormone response. It's also a pretty potent sports performance-enhancing aid. I think, the problem is that, in many cases, and it's always my pet peeve when I look at a multivitamin on the label and I see, it's vitamin D3 in the absence of some of the cofactors necessary for its absorption or necessary to reduce some of that risk of calcification.

Does anybody know what a couple of those factors would be? If you read “The Magnesium Miracle” or Kate Bleue's book on vitamin D? What it'd be?

Participant:       Vitamin K2.

Ben:      Yeah, vitamin K2. And what's the other one? They always want it with vitamin D. Magnesium. So, vitamin K2 and magnesium should always accompany vitamin D supplementation. And if you're trying to create a stack for enhancing testosterone that has magnesium in it and vitamin D in it, I would also consider including vitamin K, a 2,000 or 3,000 international units of vitamin D3 and 100 to maximum of 200 micrograms or something of vitamin K2. It's a really, really good blend.

Okay. Zinc, I talked about–actually, I caught some flak for talking about this the last time I was on the Joe Rogan episode. I walked with my black ant extract which is actually one thing that I use that I find is excellent precepts, excellent for libido. And zinc, like magnesium, is something that in athletes and heavily sweating individuals has been studied for increasing testosterone.

There's another one very, very similar to black ants. I recently discovered some really good research on this one. We know that shellfish are pretty high in zinc, but clams. There are some supplements now, whether they're taking powdered marine clams and offering that as a really potent zinc supplement.

Now, of course, the problem with this is zinc toxicity. The fact that zinc can throw off some of the zinc-copper ratios in the body. So, you do need to be careful again, especially people who aren't very active. But, if a man is taking into account some of the exercise recommendations that I just gave, then, I think that magnesium, along with zinc, especially if they are sweating, those are smart supplementation strategies. So, I like multivitamins that have zinc in them. I black ant extract and get it in powdered form or a tinctured form. I like clams. These are all examples, clams or clam extract, of things that can help to boost testosterone. So, again, we're just going after the basics here.

DHEA, that's a tricky one. It's banned by USAD. It's banned by WADA. It's banned by most international sports sanctioning bodies, which is tricky in the realm of Spartan racing. I race professionally right now on obstacle course racing. And one of the top para-athlete just got kicked out and banned from the sport because he was going to Walgreens and he was buying what he said or what he thought was a DHA. But, he was instead getting DHEA. It's a very simple over-the-counter supplement you can get at Walgreens, CVS, etc. So, you need to be careful with athletes finding out that DHEA improves sports performance or increases hormonal status. It does, this little dose of 25 to 50 milligrams per day. But, you do need to be very careful. I find that this is another one that's sneaking into a lot of supplements, including cognitive enhancers, nootropics, etc. And if you're working with athletes, you want to make sure you're aware that even though this is effective for testosterone, someone need to be careful with.

Creatine. Creatine is one of the most studied safe supplements known to man for staving off sarcopenia. It's a known nootropic. The dosage is about five milligrams per day for a basic creatine monohydrate. There is no loading that's required. That's all a myth from the bodybuilding industry. There's no fancy mixes that are required for creatine. Myself, most of the people I work with, we all take five grams of creatine a day. What's the most creatine kind of like vitamin C orally that you could absorb at any one times? Anybody know? It's one and a half, two milligrams. The problem is a lot of these supplements, they're giving four or five-milligram creatine monohydrate portions. So, I recommend using a powdered form or using a smaller dose, like one and a half to two milligrams. And you take two to three doses of that during the day.

Creatine is also very well absorbed in a warm solution, in a warm medium. So, if you want to maximize creatine absorption, because it is very potent as a neurogenic aid and for testosterone, you would take one and a half to two milligrams, powdered in a little bit of warm water, in a tea or in your morning coffee. And take your creatine that way. So, you just want to make sure you're using creatine the right way and not overdoing it. As a matter of fact, I used to be a bodybuilder. And bodybuilding is one of the most horrible things you can do for your testosterone, for growth hormone, anything. I was a sex symbol but all I could do was just lay around on the couch in between weight training sessions, like a giant slab of meat. I had no libido. I had very low testosterone. I couldn't get it up. But, all I was pretty much doing was creatine and a high protein diet. Now, I don't necessarily endorse that route nor do I endorse maintaining less than 3% body fat. But, I do get a question, speaking just to dive down this rabbit hole a little bit, about macronutrient ratios. I addressed some of the basics: zinc, magnesium, creatine, vitamin D, some of those others. But, another basic variable that's often missed is your basic macronutrient ratios for the ideal diet. There is no such thing as the perfect diet, but in most situations for most of the guys, especially who I'm working with, A, sweet spot for protein. And we cycle a little bit on active days. We go less on more active days. We go more because I like the idea of protein cycling and mTOR cycling and feast-famine cycles. But, it's about 0.5 to 0.8 grams of protein per pound of body weight. Those are the protein ratios. Closer to 0.55 is better, 0.55 to 0.8 grams per pound of protein. There's no evidence that you get increased nitrogen utilization once you go past 0.8 grams per pound. The next variable that I shoot for is about 30% to 40% of the diet being comprised of fats which, as you know, are excellent as hormone precursor. In many cases, people who have a PPAR gene issue or familial hypercholesterolemia or gall bladder issues or APOE 34 or 44, I'm not recommending saturated fats and lots of butters in coconut oil. I'm more recommending monounsaturated polyunsaturated Mediterranean-style fats. But, ultimately, with the protein being 0.55 to 0.8, the fats are 30% to 40%. And then, everything else is filled in with the carbs.

And it has been shown that a very low carbohydrate diet. I followed a ketogenic diet, very low carbohydrate diet, both with high physical activity and low physical activity for long periods of time. I've been experimenting with that diet since 2012. And the number one thing that it seems to really hit on, in addition to thyroid, is testosterone. And so, in mostly active males that I'm working with, the way that we tackle this is they do carbohydrate refeeds nightly. Typically, they're doing 75 up to 200 grams of carbohydrates at the very end of the day. And then, they're slipping back into, primarily, moderate to high fat, moderate protein intake the rest of the day with intermittent fasting cycles on each day. And that creates a really beautiful scenario to keep glycogen levels restored, to maintain hormonal status, but to not have wide fluctuations and glycemic variability during the day.

So, that's kind of the macronutrient piece and how I piece it together for a lot of the folks that I work with.

Hey, I want to interrupt today's show to tell you about a relatively new sponsor who makes really cool things out of bee products. So, this company, they have bee pollen that you can sprinkle. I've been doing this in the morning on smoothies. It's got protein and B vitamins and minerals and free-formed amino acids. And it's kind of this low carb superfood you can sprinkle on top of smoothies in the morning or mix with just about anything. I'll put it in a homemade trail mix too with some macadamia nuts, a little bit of dark chocolate. It's amazing. They're bee pollen. Same company also does a nootropic that's got the royal jelly, ginkgo biloba, and bacopa in it, for memory and cognitive performance. And it's just this little vial that you can crush whenever you need a little boost of energy from the bees. And then, another product they have is their propolis. You spray a little bit of this propolis in your mouth. I travel everywhere with propolis spray and oil of oregano now. And that's my best way when I'm on trains, when I'm in airports, when I'm getting exposed to a lot of airborne pollutants, to support my immune system. And so, they make this bee propolis throat spray. Bee propolis just has this amazing germ-fighting property to it.

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This podcast is also brought to you by Four Sigmatic. I'm in the midst of a ton of travel right now, back and forth between New York and LA and Boulder for this “Boundless” book launch and I often don't have time to grind coffee and to make a formal cup of coffee in my hotel room. But, neither do I want to damage the environment with all those little, they call them K packs, that they've got in the hotel room and I don't want that moldy coffee from the coffee shop down the street. So, I travel with these Four Sigmatic mushroom packets. It's just basically a coffee powder that they blend with lion's mane and chaga. So, you get the cognitive pick me up from the lion's mane, you get the immune-supporting function from the chaga, which is, again, great when you travel. And then, they throw a little bit of rhodiola in there, which is kind of a stabilizing adaptogen for the endocrine system. So, I do about two packets of this and I just use a little hot water generator in the coffee maker in the hotel room. But, I don't use the actual coffee in the hotel room. I just pull the hot coffee over this stuff. It works amazingly. And you can also just stop off at, whatever, Starbucks, in the airport and order a hot water and then you dump this stuff in there. And it's really good. It's called Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee mix. Four Sigmatic is going to give you a 15% discount on this stuff if you go to F-O-U-RSigmatic.com/BenGreenfield. That's FourSigmatic.com/BenGreenfield. And use code, BENGREENFIELD, to get a 50% discount. Enjoy.

And then, the last basic one. I didn't talk about this, but boron. It's also very interesting. About 10 milligrams of boron per day. And raisins are good source. Nuts are a good source. You get some from fish and you get some from dairy products, you get some from wheat products. You can also supplement, of course, with boron. But, that's another one that has a really good research behind it in terms of it literally working on hormones, not necessarily libido or sexual performance but, specifically, hormones.

So, now we've got a really nice little stack that you can put together. It surprises me how few testosterone supplements there are out there, I mean, here's low-hanging fruit for those of you who are business-minded, that just include these basic variables: Vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, boron, creatine. These things would be the base of a really good testosterone supplement formula, in my opinion.

So then, we can get into some of the slightly more fringe add-ons. Maca is one. Maca has got this wonderful nutty taste. The red form of maca has been well studied for its effect on prostate cancer. It can upregulate receptor density. It impacts testosterone. It can impact libido. And so, maca, I almost would add that to the list of basic nutrients. But, it is a little bit more fringe, a little bit less research behind it than some of these others. But, that's one that I really like, is maca root. Specifically, for people who have been on antidepressants, like SSRI's, there's some really interesting data on maca root helping with those people, if they have hormonal imbalances, who use antidepressants. So, maca would be for somebody who's on pharmaceutical for antidepressants, it seems to kind of stave off some of the impact on hormones.

Another one is cacao or cocoa. And a lot of people are familiar with the idea of flavonols and nitric oxide. And I'm a huge fan of daily dark chocolate. Hooray. Or, cacao or flavonol supplementation. Especially, for any guys who want to have sexual performance. This is not going to enhance testosterone much at all, but it will increase nitric oxide. I'm on this new kick where I'm drinking cacao tea every morning. I'll give you guys a recipe. Do you want my recipe for cacao tea? It's amazing. It's almost a replacement for coffee, which I can't say that too loud because I own a coffee company and I can't let it out that I'm drinking cacao every morning instead of coffee. But, I'm drinking cacao a lot now. I get these bags from Amazon. It's called MiCacao. Super-dense. It's cacao nibs. There's cacao, I think it's the leaf in there. And then, a cacao powder. But, it's called MiCacao, M-ICacao. And what I do is I take a couple of tablespoons of that. I use a little NutriBullet. And then, you get ghee. Coconut oil would work as well. But, some kind of a fatty medium. A little bit of salt, because everybody knows the key to a good hot chocolate, and my 10-year-old son taught me this, is salt. You got to put salt in hot chocolate. So, you got ghee, you have your cacao, you have your salt. I do a little bit of butterscotch stevia in there. And then, typically, I'll top that off with a little bit of tea. I like to use a chaga tea right now. I'm putting a couple packets of the Four Sigmatic chaga tea in there. I blend that up for a minute. If you want to have Christmas in a cup every single day that's amazing for your nitric oxide levels, that blend is just thick and you can almost eat it with a spoon. I'm addicted, obviously. So, cacao.

Eurycoma. That's another one. It goes by LongJack , Tongkat-ali. This seems to not only increase fertility but it's one of those ones that has a really good impact, kind of like fenugreek does on libido, creating that positive cycle. And a lot of us realize this. Once our libido goes up and we start to have more sex, it creates this positive feedback loop where you get increased testosterone from having more sex. You have increased blood flow. You're using your genitals like a muscle. And so, it creates this nice positive feedback loop.

And this is one that's got some really good studies on it for libido, not so much blood flow but simply increasing actual sexual arousal. Fenugreek acts very, very similarly. I love this. It's just a basic Ayurvedic herb. I mean, cumin, fennel, coriander, fenugreek – all these are bitters or digestives so they can kind of enhance the first phase insulin response if you use them prior to a meal. But, fenugreek, in particular, is also fantastic for libido and has some really good studies behind it for that. You can literally take a lot of these things, like the coriander, fennel, fenugreek. Keep it in a black pepper grinder on your countertop, which is what I do. And you can just sprinkle a lot of these herbs or grind a lot of these herbs on your food, on your meals, during the day. So, that's another one that I really like. Actually, here's something funny about fenugreek. It has this kind of maple; it's got a licorice maple flavor. But, it actually, and don't ask me how I know this, but it actually, guys, makes your semen tastes like maple syrup. It does. I'm not kidding. For those of you who are not Canadian and you want to surprise your partner one of these days, have a bunch of fenugreek because it actually does give you slightly sweet semen. It's very interesting. So, there's another benefit for it.

Pycnogenol pine bark. That acts on very similarly to cacao, in terms of its flavonol effect for nitric oxide. It's another one that's got some good studies behind it. Very simple to get in supplement form. And, again, hopefully, this get your wheels turning, those of you who are entrepreneurial business mind, when you hear about things that you can use to create some kind of a libido or testosterone enhancing supplement. But, this is another one that's got some really good data behind it.

And when you look at a lot of these things, I'm going to talk about other therapies like red light therapy and acoustic sound wave therapy, a lot of these things–and many physicians are doing this now. I recently interviewed one guy, Judd Brandeis, on my show. And he's a Gainswave practitioner in the San Francisco, San Jose, kind of Bay Area. And he has a supplement and kind of a protocol that he prescribes to his patients after they've been through that therapy or a P-shot or PRP to increase blood flow. And it really works nicely hand-in-hand. A lot of these things that are flavonols or nitric oxide precursors. Though, these can be kind of adjuncts to some of the more biohacking types of things that you might have in your practice.

And then, Tribulus. Tribulus significantly enhances sexual drives. Actually, it's known as “the goathead weed,” which is kind of cool because it actually looks a little bit like a goat head. Actually, I raised Nigerian Dwarf goats and it's funny. They actually have kind of that look. And Tribulus is known as something that can increase your actual libido, very similar to something like fenugreek, for example. So, with a lot of these fringe supplements that seem to work that are either working to increase blood flow or they're working to enhance libido, and these are some of the ones that have actually been studied that have been shown to work.

Okay. Let me go ahead and throw off my testosterone-estrogen ratios real quick. That's actually how I lounge around at home, by the way. I like to read “Grey's Anatomy” on my giant sheepskin rug, on my bed. I like to eat a giant greasy turkey leg and then go take a bath and red wine while getting fanned with giant leaves and fed grapes. That's how I live my life.

Now, we're going to get into some of the things that you can use as biohacking strategies to increase testosterone. This is a really interesting one. Electrical muscle stimulation. No, not in the balls, but, specifically, in the areas where there's high androgen receptor density which specifically would be, as you know now, from the exercise talk, legs. Electrical muscle stimulation. High-intensity electro-muscle stimulation, particularly on the legs, has some good data behind it, mostly in rodent models because they didn't do a lot of heavy shock therapy in humans. But, I actually do protocols now. There's a lot of devices out there, like the Compex and the Marc Pro. There's one that I like, though. It's called a Neu.fit. It's a DC current that allows you to literally get the muscle to produce a multi-hundred-pound contraction without producing skin burns. And, especially, in someone who's immobilized, who has joint pain, or who wants to be able to get this effect, I mean, it's the source I ever get. I only do this twice a month. I do a workout with this Neu.fit. I attach all the electrodes to my legs and go through a series of squats and lunges. But, electrical muscle stimulation for androgen receptor upregulation has some really good data behind it.

So, that's one that I like, is EMFs. That's something you could add to your practice as an offering or something that you can recommend to clients or patients.

This is one that has gotten a lot of press recently as well, this idea that somewhat the range of 600 to 700 nanometers of light shone specifically on the testicle seems to impact Leydig cells in the testes. And, specifically, in the very same way, you may see like a Vielight out there can do the same thing for neural tissue, increase the oxidase activity in neural tissue. You can do the same thing in the testicles by using red light therapy at a specific wavelength. You don't want to exceed about 820 nanometers or so, because, then, you get kind of this heating effect that can damage sperm that can lower testosterone production. But, brief forays red light therapy about 10 to 20 minutes appear to be very effective. And here's something interesting. I don't realize this. You're no doubt familiar with this idea that we want to limit blue light and artificial light exposure, not just to our eyes but also to our skin because we have opsins and specific protein photoreceptors in our skin that respond to light. There's those fascinating studies where they shine the light in areas of high blood flow, like the back of the knee or the inside of the wrist. And when it's blue light, it's actually been found that that disrupts sleep cycles, even if the eyes are closed. So, this is why when I go into my hotel room and the Venetian, when I check-in, before I go to bed, I turn off all the lights. And then, I just go unplug or cover anything up with black electrical tape that's producing light because you sleep a lot better.

Well, guess what else has photoreceptors that seem to interact favorably with red light? Your balls. Your balls are actually an eye, guys. And you have your pops and you have photoreceptors. So, you not only have the interaction with the mitochondria but you have the interaction with these photoreceptors. And that's why there seems to be such a positive effect of red-light therapy on testosterone. So, that's an interesting one. That's another one that I do just about every day. A lot of different ways to do it. You can use your imagination.

So, the next one is called thermogenesis. And it's kind of funny. There's this company now. They sent this to my house. It's called a Primal Jetpack and it's literally an ice pack for your balls. It's almost a little bit gimmicky because it's just like an ice pack and it says put it on your balls. And it's great marketing. But, when you look at a lot of these old Russian and Finnish powerlifters, there's this strategy of increasing growth hormone, increasing testosterone, by icing or keeping the testicles cold. And we know the whole idea about the hot tub and getting in the hot water, decreasing sperm count. But, it turns out that frequent forays in cryotherapy, or called thermogenesis, can not only cause an increase in growth hormone or an increase in testosterone. But, it can also result in increased vascularization to the crotch. So, this idea of using cold therapy and also avoiding tight-fitting garments, sleeping in a cold room, sleeping combat style using, I use this thing called, a chiliPAD which circulates water at about 55 degrees underneath my body while I'm asleep, which is great for entering your deep sleep cycles where a lot of repair and recovery occurs. But, it's also wonderful for testosterone. So, paying attention to temperature is also important. And this idea of ice therapy or icing the balls is also really good, especially with somebody who sits a lot, somebody who spends a lot of time in an airplane, somebody who has to wear pants and underwear. I'm very glad I don't have a job where I have to wear pants and underwear a lot of the time and I can keep my balls cold. But, this idea of using this as a therapy seems to have some efficacy behind it.

Then, there's PEMF, pulsed electromagnetic fields. Now, the most interesting data on pulse electromagnetic fields, we know a lot of people, I'm just checking to make sure he wasn't there so I don't look a hypocrite. I just have this producing a bunch of dirty electricity in my back pocket, my microphone pack. I don't know what that will do. But, cell phones have certainly been shown to reduce sperm count and sperm quality as has microwave radiation. But, by exposing the body to low intensity, basically, a low-frequency long-wavelength pulsed electromagnetic field or PEMF, it can actually reverse a lot of that damage. So, this is something that you can use as a way to undo a lot of the damage that a lot of guys are doing nowadays by walking around with their cell phone in their pocket or by getting exposed to microwave radiation, or by working at their desk, by having the Wi-Fi router right underneath the desk. It turns out that PEMF is a good strategy to reverse a lot of this.

So, this is another kind of biohack. PEMF matts. I have a PEMF matt at home. This one right there is called the Pulse Center. It even has a square pad on it. Very high frequency. And I can sit. Here, I'm reading. But, you can sit on that stool and literally just kind of suspend yourself over it and just blast yourself with PEMF for 10 or 20 minutes. And you also get a little bit of I've found a sexual performance-enhancing effect. And that was as powerful as what you get with this stuff.

The acoustic sound wave. Has anybody ever done the acoustic sound wave therapy, like the Gainswave? This was actually part of what Men's Health magazine had me do. They had me go check out what happens when you do the 20 minutes of blasting your dick with acoustic sound waves. This is all based on, originally, the concept of breaking of kidney stones using acoustic sound waves. It turns out that you can actually improve vascularization. You can break up all blood vessels; build new blood vessels with about a 20-minute treatment. And a lot of people are doing this on a monthly basis. And it's a proven treatment for erectile dysfunction. But, also, appears to have a sexual performance-enhancing effect. But, my wife and I have done this protocol and then combined it with a lot of the flavonols and the blood flow precursors that I was talking about earlier. Very cool one-two combo.

The other thing that I combine this with was a penis pump. A good Gainswave practitioner will recommend to you that you use a penis pump about 30 days after this. And when I went in there and did my protocol, they gave me the Cadillac of penis pumps. It's like this digital penis pump. And I was super excited about having my own digital penis pump because I never had a penis pump before. But, I'm also very productive guy. I didn't want to just sit there holding my penis pump and having it do its thing while I'm just watching TV or whatever. I wanted to work and I'm an author. So, I wanted to type and reply to emails, working at my desk. And I put my penis pump on. I figured out if I kind of angled it just so on my desk, I could work hands-free. And I remember I was doing–this sounds like 10 days in and I heard this sucking sound and my left ball got sucked into the penis pump. And I looked down and it's turning purple and I kind of thought that I had just castrated myself. And I managed, ripped the rubber gasket out and pull it out of there.

The idea is that the penis pump actually works. Just don't go hands-free with your pump. But, that one-two-three combo of the Gainswave, plus any type of nitric oxide precursor, plus some kind of a pump, works really, really well. And I've done that treatment, I think, eight times now. Very effective. And that's another one that I really like. They have a booth here, too. They're out there somewhere.

Platelet-rich plasma injections. They'll do this. A lot of times, we do acoustic sound wave therapy. You can get this as a standalone treatment. I've done it. I've done both of this and stem cells. I have to say I've probably noticed a little bit more from the stem cell injection versus the P-shot. But, obviously, for a lot of people, P-shots are more affordable. In your practice, if you're not yet doing stem cells, a lot of people are not doing stem cells, but they are doing PRP. I noticed good results with the PRP. And, again, this is something that can be combined with acoustic sound wave. It's also been something that has been studied and, particularly, in cases of erectile dysfunction or Peyronie's, it's been shown to have a little bit of an effect in reversing that. So, I think it's a good treatment to offer.

The stem cell piece, which I've also done. I did this at a couple of different clinics, there's a new clinic in Spokane. I had the US Stem Cell clinic shipped my fat-derived stem cells up to there and we did a treatment there, just a basic nerve block and an injection. And then, when I was under sedation at Dr. Harry Adelson‘s clinic in Salt Lake City, we also did a protocol there with bone marrow aspirate and exosomes and PRP. Probably, in terms of inducing erection after erection, literally, I was a 14 or 15-year-old boy for many, many days after the protocol with what, I think, I'm not using a tape measure as I know this will increase in size, nothing seems to actually compare to the stem-cell procedures. I know they're more expensive and a little more fringe. My dick for about three days look like you've been run over by semi-truck. It was all black and blue and my wife was really nervous.

But, ultimately, the stem cell thing, I think, it really works. And I've done a lot of stem cells now and it moves the dial, for sure.

Now, then, there are habits. Common mistakes that people make that affect testosterone and fertility. So, the first one, in case you hadn't guessed already, is underestimating the nasties of plastics. Anybody read the book “Esterogeneration” about [00:51:10] ______ and parabens and PCB's and how readily these wind up in the urine of males? They just use something this in their shampoo or their conditioner. It gets absorbed very rapidly and very unfavorably. It affects testosterone to estrogen ratio. So, this is one I feel like I'm [00:51:25] ______ a little bit. Everybody's nodding. You, guys, know this one. Make sure that if somebody's taken expensive Tribulus Terrestris or anything else, they're not washing their supplements down with water from a plastic bottle. So, that's one.

Another one is chronic cardio. One very interesting study. This was done on an obese man over 10 weeks. What they found was that by simply increasing level of physical activity without introducing any special gym routine or exercise routine, but by instead simply getting rid of a sedentary lifestyle, there is a direct increase in testosterone. So, this idea of hacking your environment, standing workstations, standing up, moving, Pomodoro breaks, figuring out ways to inject low-level physical activity into the day constantly is a very, very effective method; especially, if you're working with people who have eight to 10-hour work days who are sitting a lot. This is another one that has an impact on testosterone levels. Part of it also has to do with the fact that when you're sitting a lot and you're inactive, what do you get? More heat in the crotch, right? So, by moving, you're actually getting a little bit of airflow as well. I think that that actually has an impact as well.

Eating too often. This concept of intermittent fasting, you actually do see especially with longer fast, you see a decrease in growth hormone and a decrease in testosterone. But, what a lot of people don't realize, if you look at a lot of these studies in greater detail, after the refeed, you can literally see hundreds of percentage points rises in a lot of these anabolic hormones. It's just as we know, the body responds very well to press pulsed cycles, right? You exercise and you recover. You eat protein, you don't eat protein. You feast, you fast. And this idea of intermittent fasting or alternate-day fasting, or fasting-mimicking diets, or water fasts, accompanied by a return to a refeed appears to give you almost this stair-step periodized effect on growth hormone testosterone. So, if you have a patient or a client who's complaining that they're concerned they're going to lose libido or the hormones are going to drop because they're fasting too much and they're not eating as many ribeye steaks as their carnivore diet neighbor, the idea is that you actually can get a really good effect with fasting, especially, in a post-workout scenario.

I discussed this when I interviewed Mark Sisson on my podcast waiting for one to two hours after a workout to eat also has a favorable impact on growth hormone and testosterone levels. So, rather than finishing up the workout and dropping everything to go suck down your maltodextrin and fructose and whey protein, you actually wait for an hour or two post-workout, and that actually has an effect on hormones as well.

EMF. I already talked about dirty electricity and electrical pollution a little bit and the use of PEMF to avoid that. But, just making sure that guys, that patients, are aware that the phone in the back pocket is a bad idea. Yeah, there's cases. The DefenderShield case is the one that I use that blocks EMF to a certain extent. But, you need to be pretty careful with exposure to dirty electricity. The way my office is set up is everything is shielded with CAT6, metal shielded ethernet cable. There is no Wi-Fi. There is no Bluetooth. There's very little dirty electricity. And for people who really want to take things to the next level, you can even hire a building biologist to go around your house with a meter to actually measure and see what levels of EMF could be being produced that could potentially be harmful. There's also a little device you can get on Amazon called an Acoustimeter. And this is what I have. So, any new-fangled device or sleeping scenario, anywhere else I'm at, I can test with the Acoustimeter and actually see the amount of EMF that that's producing. And it's very, very interesting.

I remember one test I did, I tested my body and the EMF was almost like nothing. Then, I tested my phone and the EMF was way above six, off the scales in the Acoustimeter. And then, I held my phone in one hand way over here and had my son test my hand over here. And all of a sudden, my body was serving as an antenna and my own EMF levels were jacked up. So, it's pretty crazy how much you actually get exposed to, simply by holding your phone or having it in touch with your body.

Okay, this one. I'm sorry, guys, but ejaculating too much. This is one of more of those ancient wisdom type of things that doesn't have a lot of studies behind it and decide that you give away your gene, you give away your life force too much. And you might wind up with a decrease in testosterone and when you look at a lot of these Ayurvedic charts. And I'll link to some of them, if you want to look at them even more in the resources webpage that I will give you at the end of this talk. I actually have a few of them pulled up here. So, for example, in your 30s, it's three to four times a week; 40s, two to three times a week; in your 50s, one to two times a week; in your 60s, once a week, depending on your health. But, this idea of reduced ejaculation frequency, a lot of guys swear by this for increasing testosterone. When I wrote that article for Men's Health magazine, I did it. I noticed a big increase in libido upon using reduced ejaculation frequency. It's very simple. You can read a book like “The Multi-Orgasmic Man,” which I think every guy should read if you want to have great sex, especially tantric sex. And you can actually do a power breath where you're kind of squeezing the muscles, almost like a keto contraction and then drawing the breath back up the spine. And then, the other thing that you can do until you've taught yourself how to do this properly is you simply put a lot of pressure onto the perineum, that soft spot between the anus and the genitals. And you can actually hold back some of the ejaculate that way as well.

But, this context of reduced ejaculation frequencies and their tactic that a lot of guys are swearing by. Unfortunately, this is how I felt every single time that I did it. When you're lying in bed at night, because I'm a married man, a lot of times the time you find to have sex is at night, after the day is over. I would just lay there feeling I needed to go to the gym and bench-press. So, I understand that it can produce a little pent-up aggressiveness, too. This is how my wife and I have breakfast. I stand boxes, my pink underwear. She eats a banana and stares lovingly into my eyes. I think, I just come down from reading “Grey's Anatomy” on my bed on my sheepskin rug in this photo.

But, anyways, I actually already alluded to this. So, I'll kick the horse to death. Ignoring the power of sex, right? We schedule sex. We calendar sex. And sex creates a positive feedback loop where more sex increases libido and increases testosterone. And you can have sex frequently without necessarily, as I just alluded to, ejaculating. You can still orgasm. You can still have a good time. And you can still create this positive feedback loop. But, this is another one, simply ensuring that your patients and your clients are scheduling and making time for sex in the same way that they'd schedule or make time for workouts. It seems like it'd take a lot of the romanticism out of sex, but I'm talking about scheduling a big hot date nights or periods of time where they actually isolate partners so that they're together and you simply make it happen. I think that's important and often under-emphasized.

And then, as we learn from “South Park,” gluten. Any of you saw the “South Park” episode know that gluten makes your dick fly off and fly around the room and explode? So, just be careful. No, I'm just kidding. I don't know of any data behind gluten. But, that is a really funny cartoon, if you've never watched that one.

Okay. I want to finish with a few quick ways to test, ways to track and test. So, blood is okay. I mean, most of you are smart enough to know. I know many of you are practitioners. All you're going to need is a snapshot of testosterone and DHEA, your estrogen, when you do a blood test. I mean, you can do a simple blood test but I really don't like it because it's a single one-time snapshot. I mean, for example, I know my cortisol is natural in the morning. I know it's even higher after I've had a cup of coffee. I want to see my rhythm throughout the day. And this is where something like a salivary panel can come in.

I like a salivary panel because you're getting multiple readings throughout the day of actual bioavailable free hormones. But, what it doesn't show you–What does a salivary panel not show you? It will show you free. It'll show you bound and unbound. But, what will it not show you? Downstream metabolites, right? What's it getting broken down into? How fast is cortisol getting broken down? How fast is testosterone getting broken down?

The urine panel, which is four to five urine collections for hormones. And I think DUTCH, actually, has a table out there if you want to go dig deeper into what they're doing. It gives you the downstream metabolites.

So, I'll give you an example. I had really rampantly high cortisol for a very long time, especially when I was racing and I was an endurance athlete. And it baffled a lot of practitioners to expect me to have chronic fatigue or adrenal fatigue or low cortisol. I was doing stress. I was doing meditation practice. I didn't feel like I was hardwired. I didn't feel like I had high cortisol. But, every single time my tests that had very high cortisol, well, it turns out that upon finally doing a Dutch test, my cortisol metabolites were very high. It wasn't that I had adrenal glands that were producing just crap tons of cortisol. It was that cortisol was not getting broken down at a very rapid pace at all. In my case, the reason for that was because I was following a ketogenic diet, participating in endurance sports, and I had thyroid downregulation. Well, one of the ways that you break down cortisol metabolites is by having adequate thyroid activity. So, for me, it turned out, well, I learned from a urinary panel that what I should go after is not the adrenal glands and excess cortisol. What I should, instead, tackle is the hypothyroid piece that's keeping the cortisol metabolites from getting broken down. So, I like a lot of the deeper insights that you can get when you're doing something like a urine panel. So, that's my favorite way to test for a lot of this stuff.

Hey. Thank you, guys. That's my giant penis talk. If you want a good cup of organic coffee, I'll be out at my Kion coffee booth out there for about the next half hour, or so. And then, I'll be at the Gainswave booth, I think, around 3:00. I'll be out there for a while. So, if you got some more questions, I'd love to chat about this stuff. So, come chat. Thanks for coming.

Well, thanks for listening to today's show. You can grab all the shownotes, the resources, pretty much everything that I mentioned, over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com, along with plenty of other goodies from me, including the highly helpful “Ben Recommends” page, which is a list of pretty much everything that I've ever recommended for hormone, sleep, digestion, fat loss, performance, and plenty more. Please, also know that all the links, all the promo codes that I mentioned during this and every episode, helped to make this podcast happen and to generate income that enables me to keep bringing you this content every single week. So, when you listen in, be sure to use the links in the shownotes, use the promo codes that they generate because that helps to float this thing and keep it coming to you each and every week.

 

 

Last year I spoke at an event called “A4M” in Las Vegas.

My entire presentation was focused on 32 different ways to increase testosterone naturally, with no injections or hormone replacement protocols required. I'm not against bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT), but I do think one should explore as many natural alternatives as possible first. Or, for even more bang for the buck, pair BHRT with the tactics you'll discover in this episode.

A4M, which stands for “The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine” is dedicated to the advancement of tools, technology, and transformations in healthcare that can detect, treat, and prevent diseases associated with aging. They promote the research of practices and protocols that have the potential to optimize the human aging process. The organization is also dedicated to educating healthcare professionals and practitioners, scientists, and members of the public on biomedical sciences, breakthrough technologies, and medical protocols through our advanced education entity: Metabolic Medical Institute (MMI). Their event in Vegas each year is, in my opinion, well worth checking out.

Recently, in two separate papers, testosterone therapy has gotten a bad rap (Testosterone and the Cardiovascular System: A Comprehensive Review of the Clinical Literature and Age-Related Low Testosterone), and been blamed as a culprit for coronary artery disease and stroke risk, but as I discuss in my podcast with Jay Campbell, this is simply not true. As a matter of fact, in Jay's Testosterone Optimization Bible, he clearly lays out the research behind optimized testosterone levels improving heart health, optimizing cognitive function, combating Alzheimer's disease, staving off bone loss, and much much more. My friend Carl Lanore also recently addressed some of this unfair testosterone vilification in Superhuman Radio episode #2451. Furthermore, as I explain in the introduction to this podcast, I recently began to use microdoses of testosterone cream (compounded by Dr. Craig Koniver) in the morning and evening to simulate the natural diurnal release of testosterone, and have noted a profound impact in my own energy levels and recovery (although this is not a strategy I endorse as a “band-aid” but instead the icing-on-the-cake for males in their late 30's and beyond once all other foundational practices I outline in this podcast are established). Incidentally, my wife is now using progesterone from Dr. Koniver for similar purposes.

In this episode, I will review the key biomarkers for achieving peak male health, along with the most potent and effective practices for optimizing biological variables for men's fertility and longevity. I will also unveil a host of little-known biohacks proven to enhance or restore peak testosterone and drive, along with how to practically implement a blend of ancestral wisdom and modern science to amplify sexual performance.

You'll discover a multimodal approach to optimizing male sexual performance, learn how to identify key biomarkers to assess male health and get the best ancient practices and modern scientific strategies that enhance or restore men's fertility and longevity.

Oh, and by the way, women need testosterone too, and all these tactics will work for the ladies as well. 

In this episode, you'll learn…

-Research I've encountered since I last spoke on this topic on the podcast…2:00

-Workout Strategies to Optimize Testosterone…12:43

Sprint

Lift heavy stuff

Use long rest periods

Do forced reps

Use your legs

Avoid chronic cardio

-Notoriously Missing Nutrients That Drastically Affect Testosterone Levels…21:46

Magnesium

Vitamin D

Zinc

DHEA

Creatine

Boron

-Herbal Add-Ons…32:39

-Biohacking Testosterone: Tools and Tricks That Actually Work…40:51

Electrical Muscle Stimulation

Red Light or Low-Lever Laser Therapy

Cold Thermogenesis

Pulsed Electromagnetic Fields

Gainswave

Platelet Rich Plasma Injections (PRP)

Stem Cells

-Mistakes You're Probably Making That Impact Testosterone and Fertility…51:03

Underestimating the nasties of plastic

Thinking “Avoid Chronic Cardio” Means “Don’t Move Too Much”

Eating too often

Thinking You’re Immune To EMF

Ejaculating Too Much

Ignoring The Power Of Sex

Eating Gluten

-Best Ways to Track and Test Male Hormones…1:00:01

-And much more!

If you'd like this comprehensive list of resources from my talk at A4M in PDF format, click here

Resources mentioned in this episode:

The Rocket

– BGF podcasts:

– Book:  The Magnesium Miracle by Dr. Carolyn Dean

– Book: Body by Science by Dr. Doug McGuff

– Book: Estrogeneration by Anthony Gay

– Book: The Multi-Orgasmic Man by Mantak Chia

– Book:  The Non-Tinfoil Guide to EMFs: How to Fix Our Stupid Use of Technology by Nicolas Pineault

– Airdyne bike

– Gainswave

– Primal Cold Jetpack

– Pulse Center PEMF

– Acoustimeter

– My podcast with building biologist Brian Hoyer

– Koniver Wellness

Episode sponsors:

BoundlessThe launch is upon us. Visit boundlessbook.com for info about the launch parties in NYC and Los Angeles, and pre-order your copy today!

Kion Clean Energy Bars: Satisfying, nutrient-dense, real-food energy bars with a delicious chocolate coconut flavor! Ben Greenfield Fitness listeners, receive a 10% discount off your entire Kion order when you use discount code: BGF10.

Beekeeper's NaturalsA wellness company specializing in innovative nutraceuticals made from healing hive compounds and plant-based ingredients. Get 15% off your order when you use discount code: BEN

Four Sigmatic: I’ve been using Four Sigmatic products for awhile now and I’m impressed by the efficacies of their mushroom products. I use them. I like them. I support the mission! Receive 15% off your Four Sigmatic purchase when you use discount code: BENGREENFIELD

 

 

Ask Ben a Podcast Question

One thought on “[Transcript] – 32 Natural Ways To Increase Testosterone (Plus Testosterone Cream Vs. Injections) – Fully Updated Re-Release

  1. Abdul says:

    Hi Ben,

    What’s your dose on trans scrotal cream? The reason I ask is that from what I understand there’s no such thing as micro dosing T since you start shut down once the body sees exogenous T and it would be a very difficult balance to maintain healthy levels between exogenous and endogenous T. Some refer to very low doses as castration dose as sometimes it’s enough to shut down your own production but not enough to replace what you lost naturally. Can you please give me your take on this ?

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