30 Days to a Better Man Day 4: Increase Your Testosterone
http://artofmanliness.com/2009/06/03/30-days-to-a-better-man-day-4-...
Today's task is to do three things from this list to increase your manly testosterone:
1. Get at least 8 hours of sleep tonight.
2. Do not smoke at all today. (If you don’t smoke right now, you can’t count this one as one of your 3)
3. Do no eat anything with soy in it. You’re going to have to read labels. It will blow your mind how many things contain soy these days.
4. Meditate for at least 10 minutes. This will help you de-stress.
5. Do resistance training. Lift some weights and do compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, dips, rows, and pull-ups. They’ll boost your T more than bicep curls. You also need to use heavy weights and short sets. If you’re looking to maximize your T, I highly recommend the Strong Lifts 5X5 program.
6. Eat a serving of good fat. As you fat intake goes up, so do your T levels. Aim to get at least 30% of your calories from fat today and spread your consumption of it throughout the day. Monosaturated fats-the kind found in nuts, fish, olives, olive oil, seeds, and avocados-are particularly beneficial to your testosterone level (and your health).10 Also, don’t be afraid of saturated fat; that whole business about it raising your cholesterol and causing heart disease is a bunch of rubbish.11
7. Eat a serving of animal protein. Vegetarian diets have been proven to lower your T levels.12 So go ahead and have that steak. (This might be the easiest day of the challenge yet!) There’s no need to overdo it though; a diet with a carb to protein ratio of 2:1 is ideal for testosterone production.
8. Eat a serving of cruciferous vegetables. Veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, turnips, cabbage and brussel sprouts contain Diindolylmethane which helps balance your estrogen and testosterone levels and increases the amount of free circulating T in your body.
9. Have morning sex (if you partner is willing, of course). Just having an erection increases your testosterone. And you already get a surge of T when you wake up, so this will bump it up even further.
Today's task is to do three things from this list to increase your manly testosterone:
1. Get at least 8 hours of sleep tonight.
2. Do not smoke at all today. (If you don’t smoke right now, you can’t count this one as one of your 3)
3. Do no eat anything with soy in it. You’re going to have to read labels. It will blow your mind how many things contain soy these days.
4. Meditate for at least 10 minutes. This will help you de-stress.
5. Do resistance training. Lift some weights and do compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, dips, rows, and pull-ups. They’ll boost your T more than bicep curls. You also need to use heavy weights and short sets. If you’re looking to maximize your T, I highly recommend the Strong Lifts 5X5 program.
6. Eat a serving of good fat. As you fat intake goes up, so do your T levels. Aim to get at least 30% of your calories from fat today and spread your consumption of it throughout the day. Monosaturated fats-the kind found in nuts, fish, olives, olive oil, seeds, and avocados-are particularly beneficial to your testosterone level (and your health).10 Also, don’t be afraid of saturated fat; that whole business about it raising your cholesterol and causing heart disease is a bunch of rubbish.11
7. Eat a serving of animal protein. Vegetarian diets have been proven to lower your T levels.12 So go ahead and have that steak. (This might be the easiest day of the challenge yet!) There’s no need to overdo it though; a diet with a carb to protein ratio of 2:1 is ideal for testosterone production.
8. Eat a serving of cruciferous vegetables. Veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, turnips, cabbage and brussel sprouts contain Diindolylmethane which helps balance your estrogen and testosterone levels and increases the amount of free circulating T in your body.
9. Have morning sex (if you partner is willing, of course). Just having an erection increases your testosterone. And you already get a surge of T when you wake up, so this will bump it up even further.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by oracle989 on -
I managed to get 7 and 8 in today, maybe 6. I'll try to hit the gym tomorrow and get 5 done. 4 I can do, too. For 3, I just looked at it and facepalmed. One item I consumed today: soy sauce.
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Permalink Reply by Will on -
I'm not sure of the science of some of this. In particular, the thing about low-fat diets not being great was for a low-fat high-carb diet; the problem with that could be the high-carb (since that's certainly fattening, whatever the fat content!).
Also, I have a priority of getting my heart in shape now.
So what I'll do for this is:
3. No soy. We don't eat much that's processed, so that should be easy. BTW, if you have a baby, the American Pediatric Association recommends you only do soy formula if you can't breast-feed and baby is allergic to milk. They say a day's soy formula is like feeding the baby 50 birth control pills' worth of progesterone per day. We don't know what the effect of that is, but I'd rather not find out.
8. Cruciferous vegetables.
...and make plans to put a chinning bar in the basement.
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Permalink Reply by Brett McKay on -
I guess I would say that when you take out the fat, it has to be made up somewhere, normally in carbs. I guess one could try for a low fat, low carb, low protein diet though. But I think the science is supported by other things it seems that cultures that get a higher portion of their daily calories from fat have been shown to be quite healthy-like people of the Mediterranean and France.
Check out the Iron Gym pull-up bar. I love mine.
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Permalink Reply by Douglas Breault on -
Hmm being a vegetarian for many reasons, including keeping with one of my core values of compassion and frugality, I'll have to pass on 7. I had 9 today but won't tomorrow.... err. I guess I'll go with 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for good measure. I swim and/or cycle most days, as both of these are resistance based I hope they qualify and hopefully it's not just weights.
As for fats, I am completely with you on that one. A number of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals are fat soluble only and NOT water soluble. You deprive your body of good stuff when you don't consume fats. The healthiest diet in the world is the Mediterranean diet and is high in fish and vegetable (olive) fats.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Villalobos Jr on -
I'm aiming for 1, 3, 4, and 9. I'm also going to try and 5 it
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Permalink Reply by Chris Partida on -
This is one of my favorite yet! I can't wait to try to get as many of those done not only tomorrow, but for the remainder of the 30 days.
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Permalink Reply by Zacc Breheny on -
1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8 probably 6 aswell.
ooh yea, Beard here I come!
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Permalink Reply by Dad of Divas on
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Posted and blogged - http://dadofdivas.blogspot.com/
For me, I will plan on focusing on the following:
1) Eat a serving of cruciferous vegetables - For those of you who do not know my typical lunch, this will not be a problem, as J-Mom always states that for lunch I eat rabbit food.
2) Do resistance training - This has been on my list for a while and I simply tend to put it off, so I guess the mantra is do not put off today what you have been in the past.
3) Meditate for at least 10 minutes - I am not always good at this, but will work on doing it today, as it is good to be able to clean the soul per se.
There are a few on the list that were no brainers for me, but also ones that I was surprised at such as:
Do not smoke at all today. I don't have to worry about this for I have never and will never touch smoking. I have seen too many people, friends and family effected by this adversely to even think about touching this.
Do no eat anything with soy in it. This one surprised me as I eat soy daily due to a food allergy - so I guess I am out of the running on this one.
Have morning sex (if you partner is willing, of course). This one is a fun one and one I would not have completely thought of as well.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Luevane on -
Here we go...
1. I don't know what 8 hours of sleep looks like, wouldn't know what to do with it if I saw it. I'd like to find out, though... I'm lucky to get 6 hours of sleep. I get to bed around 10 and I'm up at 3:45 to be at work by 5:30
2. That's one. I do not now, nor have I ever, lit up.
3. Easy. We eat mostly fresh and hardly any processed foods.
4. I'm going to give meditation a shot when I get home.
5. I'll see what I can do about this. And I'll check out the Strong Lifts 5x5 program
6. Another easy one.
7. *caveman UGH* Easy.
8. Not sure what's on the menu for tonight...
9. See #1 and tell me if YOU think I'd be able to manage this one. Additionally, the family bed puts a damper on any amorous activity.
I'll report back and let you all know how it went.
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Permalink Reply by WE Dodge on -
. Get at least 8 hours of sleep - Not today...
2. Do not smoke at all today. YES- DONE
3. Do no eat anything with soy in it. DONE - NO SOY TODAY. Hint - Rice Krispies has no soy...
4. Meditate for at least 10 minutes. (Does meditating on #9 count?) DONE
5. Do resistance training. - I don't understand this one...
6. Eat a serving of good fat. OK - I CAN DO THIS...
7. Eat a serving of animal protein. I THINK I CAN DO THIS TOO
8. Eat a serving of cruciferous vegetables. Brocolli yesterday - let me see whats for lunch... will try.
9. Have morning sex (if you partner is willing, of course). hmmm - I think... tomorrow?
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