NATURAL AND EASY WAYS TO BOOST TESTOSTERONE IN MEN

It’s natural to start losing testosterone as you get older; it’s one of nature’s little jokes. Not so funny though when you lose your edge, feel depressed and irritable, and notice the beer belly developing rapidly. Not in the least funny when your sex life goes off the boil because you don’t measure up any more, but you can’t be bothered anyway.

Here are some natural and easy ways to boost testosterone – in no particular order, as they say. Try as many of them as you can, if not all. They won’t do you any harm at all and you should start to see the results of increased testosterone fairly quickly, if you keep at it.

Here’s 8 Natural and Easy Ways to Boost Testosterone in Men:

1. START WORKING OUT

This may take some effort if you haven’t done it in a while and you’ll need to build up slowly. Find a gym where you’ll get some good advice and help, and go at least five times a week or the benefit might be a longer time coming. If you have any medical conditions, check with your doctor first.

• But don’t go mad

Limit your workout to 45 minutes a session. This way you avoid the development of cortisols, which will attack your testosterone level. Make the most of your sessions by working the larger muscle groups through lifts. Try bench and shoulder presses, squats and deadlifts. Don’t over train or your testosterone levels will actually drop.

2. HAVE MORE SEX

Go on, make the effort. Really. It’s not only a great stress booster but the advice ‘use it or lose it’ can be reversed to an extent. This is one area where you CAN go mad. In the best possible way, of course. If you have a regular partner, surprise them with some unaccustomed romantic gestures and make the most of what happens next.

3. GET STRESS UNDER CONTROL

See above for the best solution since the dawn of time. There are other ways, so look around until you find something that appeals to you. Don’t scorn ‘girlie’ things like meditation and massages either – a full body massage can make you feel like you can take on the world, if it’s done properly.

4. SLEEP FOR AT LEAST SEVEN HOURS A NIGHT

This doesn’t so much boost your testosterone, but prevents a good part of it from vanishing overnight. A study at the University of Chicago in 2011 showed that men who had less than five hours of sleep a night over a period of a week, had ‘significantly lower’ levels of testosterone than when they had a full night’s sleep.

¹Leproult R, Van Cauter E. Effect of 1 Week of Sleep Restriction on Testosterone Levels in Young Healthy Men. JAMA. 2011;305(21):2173-2174. doi:10.1001/jama.2011.710.

5. LIMIT YOUR ALCOHOL

This is a no-brainer, especially when it comes to beer. It doesn’t mean giving up, just keep the amount down and don’t drink every day, or even every weekend. The term beer belly came from somewhere so it’s counter productive to your aim to lose belly fat. Think of the calories, too.

6. LOSE THAT EXCESS WEIGHT

There’s a downward spiral going on here. The more fat you accumulate, the more your testosterone falls, due to an enzyme in the fat that turns testosterone into oestrogen – the female hormone. It works both ways since falling testosterone also leads to an increase in body fat. It’s a lose-lose situation.

• Again, don’t go mad

If you cut down your calories drastically, you are at risk of your testosterone levels dropping which is the opposite of what you want. Apart from that, you’ll hate feeling hungry all the time and you’ll almost certainly cheat. Aim for about 20% below what you should be taking in, as a maximum reduction.

7. CHANGE YOUR DIET

As well as cutting calories to drop the weight, you need to make a few changes to your diet which will help the problem go away a lot quicker and support natural testosterone boosting.

• Make friends with broccoli

You’d be surprised what broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and their relatives can do. You don’t need to become a vegetarian overnight, or eat a ton of it, but they contain substances that convert to indoles when you eat them. Indoles are great for balancing oestrogen metabolism which will fight those man-boobs and beer belly.

• Eat the ‘good’ fats instead of the bad

Yes, there are some ‘good’ fats (that includes oils) and you need to make sure you’re taking them. Choose from fish oils, avocados, nuts, coconut oil, olive oil. This will boost cholesterol which sounds wrong, but it’s fine. It will help to boost your testosterone as well so don’t forget this one.

• Throw out the breakfast cereal

Eating cereal or toast for breakfast? That will zap your normally-high morning testosterone levels for a while, due to the high level of carbs. Try eggs with avocado and some kind of green veg. It might look weird on the plate, but this mix of high protein, some good fat and low carbs will give you a far more energetic start to the day.