To enhance your body’s natural testosterone production, you need to begin implementing changes in your diet and lifestyle.
There are no two ways about it.
The big picture, like Akash Sehrawat has gone over, is about making changes in how you eat, move, and sleep.
Over the course of my T-enhancement journey, I focused on 5 factors in particular (more on this below). By focusing on these factors, I increased my total testosterone level by 60% in under four months (from 564 ng/dL to 902 ng/dL). You can check out my blood work in another answer here and here’s a picture of how my body transformed:
But what this picture fails to capture is the other significant change I went through - a change in mindset.
I became more assertive and less apologetic. I went from being a victim of external circumstances to becoming the creator of my own reality.
Seriously:
My whole perspective changed.
Hormones are directly responsible for regulating our thoughts and emotions, so the fact that more testosterone in my veins made me finally go for what I want in life shouldn’t be surprising.
The following are 5 of the major factors that allowed me to achieve these results:
Factor #1 - Got lean
In my “before” picture above, I was at about 17–19% body fat.
The problem with excess body fat is that it produces an enzyme called aromatase, which converts testosterone into estrogen
. Estrogen is the female sex hormone and more of it in a man’s body makes him softer in all regards - softer body, softer emotions, and softer erections.In my “after” picture, I leaned down to sub-12% body fat. Decreasing my body fat decreased the activity of aromatase and allowed more testosterone to remain unconverted and free to exert its influence on my mind and body.
What’s your current body fat percentage?
If you’re currently above 15% body fat, your first priority should be to get below this number. Losing excess body fat will be the most significant thing you can do to naturally boost your testosterone. It certainly was for me.
Factor #2 - Topped up my vitamin D.
Men with sufficient vitamin D have significantly higher testosterone compared to men who are deficient in it
.Vitamin D deficiencies are perhaps the most common micronutrient deficiency in Western countries
- we simply don’t spend enough time outdoors anymore.Upon starting my journey towards higher T, I was not deficient in vitamin D but I didn’t have optimal levels either. My vitamin D was at 27 ng/mL. The vitamin D council recommends 50 ng/mL as the level to aim for
.I supplemented with 5000IU of vitamin D3 daily and intentionally began spending more time in the sun. At the 4-month mark, my vitamin D was well within the optimal range.
If spending more time in the sun is difficult for you, definitely consider supplementation. Not only are vitamin D supplements cheap, but they are also very effective at bringing your vitamin D, and thus testosterone, levels back up to where they should be.
Factor #3 - Went from a low-fat to a moderate-fat diet.
I used to buy in to the fallacy that low-fat was the key to losing weight and staying healthy. This was before I got educated…
Today, I know that testosterone is literally made out of dietary cholesterol
. Without dietary fat, your body lacks the very building blocks it needs to produce T.So, how much fat should you eat?
The Institute of Medicine recommends adults to get 20–35% of their daily calories from fat
. For the average guy that eats 2000 calories, this means 45–75 grams of dietary fat per day. I kept my target between 45–55 grams.The quantity of fat you eat is important but so is the quality of fat - not all fats are created equal:
- Good Fats - olive oil, eggs, butter, animal fats, nuts, avocados.
- Bad Fats - vegetable oils, soybean oil, canola oil, trans fats.
Factor #4 - Went from bicep curls to deadlifts.
Since we were kids, we’ve been flexing our biceps to show the world how strong we are. What guy doesn’t want bigger arms? The mistake, though, is when we focus too much on single joint exercises, like the bicep curl, and neglect compound exercises, like the deadlift. I’ve definitely been a culprit of this in the past.
The thing about working out and testosterone is that you’ve got to be strong - not just strong arms, but overall muscular strength. The best way to build strength is by focusing your workouts around big compound exercises like the squat, bench press, overhead press, pull-ups, deadlift, and barbell rows.
Research has found that the more muscle tissue you stimulate within a particular workout session, the greater your anabolic response will be
. So a set of deadlifts, which stimulate everything from your hamstrings, back, quads, abs, arms, traps, and even chest to some extent, will elicit a much greater anabolic response compared to a set of bicep curls, which only stimulate the tiny biceps muscle.A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research hammers the point home
:- 20 well-trained men were paired according to baseline levels of strength, and then randomly assigned to one of two experimental groups.
- The first group trained using a split-body routine, where multiple exercises were performed for a specific muscle group in each session.
- The second group trained using a whole-body routine, where one exercise was performed per muscle group in a session with all muscle groups trained in each session.
- The group on whole-body workouts showed significantly greater increases in both muscular strength and growth.
Factor #5 - Made sleep a priority.
In the culture of hustle and grind, sleep is considered a luxury more than a necessity. But if you’re serious about entering your power as a man, you have to make deep, quality sleep a priority. There is not one aspect of your physical, mental, and emotional health that’s not impacted by your sleep.
Researchers have found sleep time to be an individual predictor for both total and free testosterone levels in men
.But it’s not only sleep quantity that matters - sleep quality is equally important. The bulk of your testosterone is secreted during the deep hours of REM sleep
.The problem I personally faced was delayed onset insomnia, i.e. it was difficult for me to fall asleep and even more difficult to get up the next morning. Looking into this issue, I realized that there were a couple of factors at play:
- I was staring at my smartphone close to bedtime and the bright light from the screen was messing with my melatonin secretion - the hormone our bodies release when preparing for sleep.
- I was anxious and constantly stuck in negative thought loops.
- I was drinking caffeine way close to bedtime.
These factors were an easy fix so I:
- Switched my phone onto nightshift mode past 7 PM to reduce its blue light emissions.
- I started meditating to reduce anxiety and put me in a calm, relaxed state before bed.
- I set a caffeine curfew.
These three fixes instantly increased the quality of my sleep and I was instantly able to fall asleep faster and deeper.
To sum up, naturally “gaining” testosterone is simply a matter of implementing the lifestyle changes we all know we should be making anyway.
- Lose your gut.
- Soak some sunshine.
- Eat foods like eggs, avocados, and coconut oil.
- Lift weights and exercise.
- Get 7–9 hours of deep, high quality sleep every single night.
These 5 changes are what had the biggest impact in my own journey towards naturally boosting testosterone. I’m sure that they can help you do the same.
God speed,
Mo.
Footnotes
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