How To Increase Testosterone

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         Having good testosterone levels is critical for building and maintaining lean muscle mass so i did a bit of research on how to increase testosterone and put it all together. Here are my top 17 ways on how to increase testosterone.


1. Lose Only One Pound a Week.
What you DON'T want to do is starve yourself while exercising like a madman. One of the many reasons this stops working in your 30s, when your natural testosterone levels start dropping, is pretty simple: Cutting your calorie intake by more than 15 percent makes your brain think you're starving, so it shuts down testosterone production to wait out the famine. "There's no need to reproduce if you're starving," explains Thomas Incledon of Human Performance Specialists in Plantation, Florida. Ironically, this dive in circulating testosterone stops you from burning body fat efficiently, so you're actually thwarting your hard efforts to melt that tire off your gut.

2. Skip the Atkins Fad
Research suggests that eating a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet can cramp your testosterone levels. High amounts of dietary protein in your blood can eventually lower the amount of testosterone produced in your testes.
Your protein intake for bodybuilding should be about 40% percent of your daily calories. So, if you're the average 170-pound man who eats 2,900 calories a day, you should eat about 400 grams of protein daily, which is about the amount in four chicken breasts and two 6-ounce cans of tuna.

3. Eat Meat.
Although science doesn't know why, evidence suggests that eating meat boosts testosterone levels. In one study, two groups of men pumped iron for 12 weeks; one group ate a vegetarian diet and the other a meat diet. Strength improved by the same amount in both groups, but only the meat eating group enjoyed marked fat loss and muscle gain. So when eating meat eating meat to bulk up, avoid fatty red meat, pork and lamb which are loaded with saturated fat and instead choose fish, poultry or lean cuts of beef.

4. Eat Nuts.
Studies found that men who ate diets rich in monounsaturated fat - the kind found in peanuts - had the highest levels of testosterone. It's not really understood why this happens but some scientists believe that the monounsaturated fats have a direct effect on the testes. Nuts, olive oil, canola oil and peanut butter are all good sources.

5. Don't Go Longer Than 3 Hours Between Meals.
 Try to eat about 5 or 6 medium size meals a day rather than 3 large ones. Your body needs a ready supply of calories to make testosterone, so regularly skipping meals or going for long stretches without eating can cause your levels of the hormone to plummet.

6. Make Sure Fat Is Part Of Your Diet.
If you want to raise your testosterone score, eat a diet that includes about 20-30 percent fat, and not much less. Your body needs dietary fat to produce testosterone, so eating like a vegetarian aerobics instructor will cause your testosterone levels to sink drastically. This is bad, unless you actually are a vegetarian aerobics instructor.

7. Avoid Soy.
While soy is a powerhouse in the fields of heart health and cancer fighting, boosting anabolic hormone levels isn't its forte. In fact, results of a recent report suggest that isoflavones found in soy, such as genistein may be indiscriminately targeting valuable testosterone while doing the work of eliminating bad estrogen.

A Japanese study found that men who ate the greatest amount of soy products not only had the lowest levels of oestrogen, they also had the lowest levels of testosterone. It seems that too much genistein and other soy flavones reduces testosterone production by the testes and increases its destruction by the liver. This is not to say you should avoid soy products, which have a number of healthy benefits. Just don't overdo it on edamame and avoid high-dose supplementation of isoflavones.

8. Avoid Alchohol.
To maintain a healthy testosterone count -- and titanium erections -- cut yourself off after three drinks. "Binge drinking will kill your testosterone levels," warns Incledon. Alcohol affects the endocrine system, causing your testes to stop producing the male hormone. That's one reason drinking often causes you to go limp at the moment of truth.

Hops (Humulus lupulus) the bitter herb used to flavour beer contains chemicals that are similar to oestrogen.

9. Avoid Caffeine.
Research has shown that excessive consumption of caffeine causes a significant loss of several vitamins and minerals, including vitamins B and C, calcium, iron, and zinc.

Scientists say that when used in moderation (about 250 mg a day), consumption of caffeine poses no harm. Therefore, drinking a couple of cups of coffee or a few cans of cola a day poses no harm, as long as they're not ingested too close to bedtime and do not mask chronic sleepiness caused by too little sleep or poor sleep.

10. Smoking Lowers Testosterone
Actually most studies indicate that smoking temporarily raises testosterone levels, but the long term effect is negative. The Australian physician Dr. M.H. Briggs, says that cigarette smoking produces carbon monoxide in the blood, which in turn inhibits production of the male sex hormone, testosterone. Briggs, writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, cites a comparative study of smokers and non-smokers matched for height, weight, marital status, etc., which showed that the testosterone levels for non-smoking men averaged a healthy 747 nanograms per decilitre of blood, as opposed to 515 ng/dl for men who averaged a pack and a half or more a day. When the smokers abstained for only seven days, their testosterone count increased an average of 165 ng/dl, almost up to the level of non-smokers. Additional studies show that cigarettes in combination with alcohol lead to an even lower testosterone level. Smoking can also hasten the deterioration of Leydig cells, and cause testosterone levels to drastically decline even faster. The cadmium in smoke interferes with zinc metabolism and can accumulate in the testicles. Without enough zinc, testosterone levels are low.
Marijuana also decreases testosterone and libido

11. Don’t Have Morning Sex
This might be a difficult one for some people but German scientists found that simply having an erection causes your circulating testosterone to rise significantly.
The only study I could find about ejaculation and testosterone levels involve 10 males. Testosterone levels were still ok at 50 minutes but had dropped significantly after 80 minutes & 140 minutes. Unfortunately this study was on monkeys, but it fits the PE rule of no ejaculating 3-5 hours either side of a workout.

12. Stick With Tough Exercises
To beef up your testosterone levels, the bulk of your workout should involve "compound" weight-lifting exercises that train several large muscle groups, and not just one or two smaller muscles. For example, studies have shown that doing squats, bench presses or back rows increases testosterone more than doing biceps curls or triceps pushdowns, even though the effort may seem the same.

13. Squeeze Out Five Repetitions per Set.
Throwing around 5-pound dumbbells won't help you affect a rise in testosterone. Start off by using a heavy weight that you can lift only five times. That weight is about 85 percent of your one-repetition maximum. A Finnish study found that this workload produced the greatest boosts in testosterone.

14. Do at least Three Sets of Each Weight-Lifting Movement
Researchers at Penn State determined that this fosters greater increases in testosterone than just one or two sets. Rest a full minute between sets, so you can regain enough strength to continue lifting at least 70 percent of your one-rep maximum during the second and third sets.

15. Rest Harder Than You Work Out
If you overtrain -- meaning you don't allow your body to recuperate adequately between training sessions -- your circulating testosterone levels can plunge by as much as 40 percent, according to a study at the University of North Carolina. The symptoms of overtraining are hard to miss: irritability, insomnia & muscle shrinkage. To avoid overtraining, make sure you sleep a full eight hours at night, and never stress the same muscles with weight-lifting movements two days in a row.

16. Go To Sleep.
Sleeping less than seven to eight hours a night can screw up your circadian rhythm. That's why it's no wonder your testosterone levels are higher in the morning after a good night's sleep. So if your work or social schedule keeps you stooped in perpetual jet lag, don't be surprised if you stop craving sex.

Another study suggests that male patients who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea produce lower levels of testosterone, resulting in decreased libido and sexual activity. Researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology found that nearly half of the subjects who suffered from severe sleep apnea also secreted abnormally low levels of testosterone throughout the night. Previous research had failed to establish a scientific link between decreased libido in men and OSA, because the studies only measured testosterone levels upon awakening.

17. Supplements
There were only 2 I’ve found so far that did something positive:
Tribulus terrestris is a natural herb, which has been used for centuries in Europe as a treatment for impotence and as a stimulant to help enhance sexual drive and performance. This potent herb has been studied and observed to enhance LH (luteinizing hormone) production and boost testosterone levels and its effects have been coveted by Bulgarian athletes for decades.

Zinc - Another mineral essential to sexual function is zinc. The zinc content of the prostate gland and sperm is higher than in any other body tissues. A deficiency of zinc is associated with numerous sexual problems, including sperm abnormalities and prostate disease. Zinc is necessary for the production of testosterone, and also helps to maintain vaginal lubrication. Stress, caffeine, smoking, and alcohol consumption increase the need for zinc. Zinc-rich foods include nuts, eggs, beef, legumes, chicken, whole grains, and seafood -- especially oysters! This may explain the legendary effectiveness of oysters as an aphrodisiac.


            Hope you found my top 17 ways on how to increase testosterone a good read!

                                                                          Jake from Denver