Podcast Transcription: How Can I Increase My Testosterone Levels Naturally? - Ask Ted

Ted Ryce: Today we're going to answer the question: how can you raise your testosterone naturally?  

What's up, my friend? Welcome back to another episode of Ask Ted on the Legendary Life podcast. I'm your host, Ted Ryce, coach to entrepreneurs, founders, and other high performing professionals. And we produce this show for two reasons.         

Number one, so much information, misinformation out there today with health and fitness, it's impossible to know who to believe. And although that might sound a bit self-serving, I've been in this industry 24 years. And if you listen to this show, you'll hear a lot of repeat ideas.  

That's because I want to get you clear on what works, the Pareto principle of what works to improve your life and to increase your lifespan and health span so that you can avoid the minor details.         

The second reason is I have a coaching program, and if you're an entrepreneur, founder, or other high performing professional, a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor, and you know the value of coaching, and you want to create as much success with your health as you have with your business or professional life, you'll know who to hire.  

So, in this episode of Ask Ted, I was asked this question on Twitter, and I thought it would be a great topic for an Ask Ted episode on the show. So how can you increase your testosterone naturally?  

And I'm going to answer it like this. Number one, if you're a woman and you're tuning in, this isn't the one for you, except you might want to share this episode with your significant other, with your boyfriend or husband.         

Now, the other thing I want to tell you is I'm going to get right into how to raise it naturally, the approach that I would take, and I'll give some explanation for each recommendation I give, but I want to talk a little bit about testosterone afterwards.  

So you want to listen to all my recommendations, which I'm going to go through fairly quickly because there's not that many things to do. But then I want you to listen to some thoughts that I have about this whole topic of raising testosterone. All right?  

So the first thing that you want to do if you're going to focus on raising your testosterone naturally is, number one, get blood work to establish a baseline.         

What you don't want to do is just do a bunch of things or take a bunch of supplements and hope that it works.  

If you really want to raise your testosterone naturally and you want to focus on this, get blood work to establish a baseline. So, get your total testosterone, but also your free testosterone, and then maybe just an entire male hormonal panel makes sense to get. And you can get that from your doctor. You can also order it from independently.         

You can go to a LabCorp is one place that I've done blood testing in the United States, and you just get it done.  

The second thing that you want to do to make sure that you're clear on the problem here is you want to lower your body fat levels below 20%. If you're a man.  

And I want to be clear about this, and I'll get into this a bit later, but you hear a lot of talk on social media. ”Oh, the feminization of men. There's all these hormones in the environment, the xenoestrogens, the soy, the this, the that. It's all sapping testosterone levels. And in fact, testosterone levels are declining generation after generation.” 

Now, the decline is true based on the best available evidence, but, you know, it also if you graph the decline of testosterone in the US by the way, and you also graph the increase in body fat over the years, it kind of measures up.  

So, I want to tell you, if you're a man and you're looking for ways to boost your testosterone, and you're looking at different supplements and you're reading articles online and listening to podcasts, but you have a belly, you are wasting your time. There is no supplement that's going to make up for the excess body fat on your body. And here's why. Well, number one, this is already clinically established.         

This is the number one reason why men's testosterone levels are declining. The reason why body fat lowers testosterone is because there is something in body fat called aromatase. Aromatase is an enzyme that takes testosterone and transforms it into estrogen. And that process is called aromatization. Again, nothing I'm telling you here is controversial or even disputed.         

It's just well, that's how it works.  

And so, the more body fat you have, you're taking your testosterone and you're converting it into estrogen. And there's also some belief in the experts who study this stuff that insulin resistance and the inflammation it causes also messes with men's testosterone levels. So if you look at the statistics in the United States, because in the US. That's where we do all the majority of the studies, 70% of people in the US.         

Are overweight or obese, and also around 70% of people have either prediabetes or full out diabetes. Type two diabetes, not the one that you're born with. That's an autoimmune issue. I believe it's an autoimmune issue. Type one diabetes you're born with, you literally don't make insulin.         

Type two is what happens when you get too much body fat. You become insulin resistant, and then your pancreas is making enough insulin, but it's just you have resistance to that insulin.  

Lowering your body fat is the key number one thing that you should focus on if you want to raise your testosterone levels naturally. Everything that I'm going to say after this is secondary. Lower your body fat levels.         

If you don't do this, nothing else that I say is going to work.  

So tip number three is to lift weights two to four times a week. We know that lifting weights boosts your testosterone levels and it helps you lower your body fat at the same time.  

Sleep seven and a half or I'm sorry, seven to nine hours per night. So, we know that if you are not getting enough sleep, if you're getting, let's say, under 6 hours of sleep per night, that's going to lower your testosterone levels.  Not by a huge amount, but enough.  

Number five is manage your stress weekly. What do you do every week to manage your stress? If you're not proactively managing your stress, then you may have problems with your testosterone. Again, it's not as important as the lower body fat levels that we've talked about, but it is important.         

Now, there's also some other things that you can take. You can take 15 milligrams of zinc and 400 milligrams of magnesium and six milligrams of Boron. And I would take those all before bed. In fact, I do take all of those things and I take them before bed. And I want to mention one more thing.         

I shouldn't say we, but in the fitness industry, the talk about raising testosterone, it's all on this stuff, the physiological issues, the body fat, the lifting weights, the habits, the supplements. What I also want to tell you is that our testosterone is affected by how often we win in life. For example, there was a study done that showed after a football game, it was either football or soccer. I think it was football, American football. Sorry for my European listeners, right?         

European football versus American football, but I believe it was in football. But it was the the people who were rooting for the team that won, their testosterone levels spiked up and the team that lost, actually their cortisol levels in other words, that's our major stress hormone went up and their testosterone went down.  

And they did another study, or scientists have also done another study, not the same scientists, but this was another study that was done where if you vote for the candidate, the political candidate, who wins, I mean, you saw how much craziness, the craziness with the politics in the US. One reason why people I believe, are so committed to having their guy win, or woman as the case may be, is because if their chosen representative loses, they suffer a hit as well. So, we feel bad or we get a boost.         

So, winning gives you a boost. And what I would say there is, don't win by placing your, by giving away your power and hoping that other people win for you. Find a way to win more in life. And I don't mean beat other people in life. I mean win more in life.  How can you step up and win more in life?  

So those are the ways I would focus on. Can you take Shilajit or what are the other ones? Bulbine Natalensis, there's so many other testosterone boosters. Now we're going to get into a conversation about this.        Okay?  

But I just want to give you the baseline. Baseline. I want to give you the basics, and then we can talk a bit more about this.  

So number one is get blood work to establish your baseline of testosterone.         

You're free in total. Number two, lower body fat levels below 20%. And really you want to be closer to 15, but at least under 20. Number three is lift weights two to four times a week. Number four is sleep seven plus hours per night.         

Number five is manage your stress weekly. Number six is take 15 milligrams of zinc per day. Number seven is 400. Take 400 milligrams of magnesium per day. Could be three to 400.         

Number eight is take six milligrams of boron per day.And number nine is win more in life.  

So now let's talk about testosterone. Let me give you some thoughts about this. Number one is that if you go to a doctor and you say, I want my T levels tested, I think I have low testosterone, they're going to ask you, well, what are your symptoms?         

Do you have a loss of can you get an erection? Are you interested in sex? Is your libido low? They're going to ask you about the symptoms, because I've had endocrinologists on the show, dr. Dr. Karl Nadolsky.     

And he was talking about, like, you don't necessarily worry about your numbers. You worry about, okay, what is showing up for me here? And Karl, if you saw him, he is ripped, and you would say, jacked, he's got a lot of muscle mass and he's quite lean, and he has quite average testosterone levels. Me, I've tested my testosterone levels. They're not low, but they're not fantastic either.         

But I don't have any of the symptoms of low testosterone. So, ask yourself, why are you so obsessed with testosterone? Is it just curiosity? And you want to see how you feel? Or what happens if you raise it a little bit, which we'll talk about in a second, or are you experiencing some symptoms?         

And if you are experiencing some symptoms and you go to a doctor, they can't really help you that much. You've got to do the work. You got to get rid of the excess body fat and get your lifestyle together. Or they can give you hormone replacement therapy. And if you get on hormone replacement therapy, testosterone replacement therapy, it's a lifelong commitment because you start taking it and what happens is your testicles shrink.               

Why do they shrink? Because they stop producing testosterone. Because you're injecting it into your body naturally. Not naturally. You're injecting it into your body and the type of testosterone they use is not testosterone. Chemists have created t testosterone enanthate or testosterone supinate and all these other I mean, there's just so many chemicals. It's not really my wheelhouse, but I know this much to share with you.  

They merge testosterone in another chemical. It's called an ester.   And the reason they do that is because testosterone has a very short life in your body. So, if they inject you with testosterone, it gets metabolized really quickly. You don't enjoy any of the benefits. But a testosterone enanthate, testosterone supinate that's going to stay in your body for a long time. And there are consequences to that.         

So eventually, if you take it for long enough, your natural production just doesn't come back.  

So, if you're someone in your 30s or 40s or even 50s or even 60s now in your 70s or eighty s, I don't know. I am not there. Do what you want, right? I shouldn't say do what you want, but I can't offer any advice about that because at a certain level, what makes sense, what makes sense to do there?         

But if you're younger, you've got to ask yourself, are you trying to find a solution for your crappy lifestyle where you have too much body fat because you're overeating, you're not sleeping enough, you're inconsistent with your workouts, and you're not going to take a few supplements. And if you end up meaning if you do take a few supplements let me finish my thought there. If you do take a few supplements, it's not going to make a big dent because of these other underlying issues. So, the issue is your lifestyle. That's what creates body fat.         

You eat more calories than you burn. And so, by taking testosterone and a lot of guys get into this conversation with me on Twitter about it. You can tell it's an emotionally charged subject. Some guys do it. And I've had one guy say, well, I couldn't get lean until I started taking testosterone.         

It's like, yeah, because you were overeating. You were eating way more calories than you thought, so you weren't as lean even with all the exercise, because exercise is a terrible way to burn body fat, even lifting weights, terrible way to burn body fat. You must address the amount of calories you're eating. And most of us, we eat emotionally or we stress eat. And so instead of handling your stress, instead of changing your lifestyle in the way that it needs to change, you just start taking an injection.         

And there are many, many doctors who will be happy to do that for you. I also want to say this.  

The question was, why were you so interested in raising your testosterone? Is it because you're actually having symptoms or because you're curious about what it might feel like if you raised it naturally? So let's talk about this too.    

There was another study done showing that, interestingly enough, because the majority of men, at least the stereotype of men that I think about, who are really focused on testosterone, not that there's anything wrong with this, but are probably against the big pharma type of the big pharma against the big pharma, which there are a ton of issues with pharmaceutical companies. That is true. But the reason that so many people are interested, so many men are interested in testosterone. There were studies done showing that all the big pharma advertising has gotten men more interested in this subject. So, if you're falling into this, you've seen is it low T on the commercial, on TV, and now that's gotten in your head.         

Where all the rest of the commercials? You're saying, oh, that's garbage. People just need to clean up their lifestyle. Why take that diabetes medication? Why take the Ozempic? Why take that cholesterol medication? Just get it together. Just do the work to clean up your lifestyle. But are you suffering from low T? Yes, that's what I need.  I have low T. Let me get some injections.  

Don't be a hypocrite, is what I'm trying to say there. Develop some awareness if you happen to be falling into that. And look, I'm curious and concerned about my testosterone levels too. Which brings me to my third point, is how much if you're not suffering from symptoms, then what is it going to do for you? Do you wake up full of energy? Are you getting what you need to done?         

And again, even if you're not, you should be looking at your lifestyle first. It's not like, hey, I'm not focused enough. Let me have another cup of coffee. And it's like, yeah, you're not focused because you slept 5 hours last night. Of course, you're not going to be good at focusing.         

And the same thing's true with testosterone. Because when I feel, or at least what I assume when I see men talk about this, is that, okay, my libido isn't as high, my sexual desire or my ability to perform isn't as good. I don't build muscle as easily, and I've got too much body fat, so it must be low T, when in reality it's like, no, you have too much body fat because you eat too many calories. You don't have enough muscle because one, you could be lifting weights in a way that doesn't really work that well. You could also be inconsistent with your workouts that would also lead to this not great results with muscle mass.         

You don't just naturally have muscle mass. Muscle mass is very expensive to keep on your body. You have to work out. You can't go two weeks without a workout and expect to keep the muscle mass on. And really there's some of us that have better genes or better responsiveness.         

Some people are called hyper-responders to lifting weights. In other words, they just go into the gym, they don't have the best workout, but they start lifting and their body changes dramatically because of just working hard. I'm not that person. I have to work quite hard.         

And what I mean by hard is I mean smart. I have a very scientifically designed program, and I track my workouts over time to make sure I'm on top of my numbers and I'm making progress.  

So, these are really the things that matter the most. And when it comes to sexual performance, let's say issues with issues with erections or with desire, a lot of it in my opinion, how should I say this, a lot of it, generally speaking, has to do with people are out of shape.         

So even if you go to the gym and lift weights three times a week, but you're sedentary, you're sitting on your butt most of the time and you get maybe 5000 steps per day or less, you're out of shape. Your cardiovascular system isn't that good. And I learned this the hard way, by the way, because I had some issues with my libido in my early 30s. And I went down this road and what I ended up learning in that process was I was too fat. And in my case at that time, I wasn't exercising that much.         

And if you get in better cardiovascular shape, you're going to have a much higher libido, you're going to have much better performance, you're going to have much better circulation. So what I'm getting at here is it's mostly a fitness and circulatory problem for a lot of guys, but they think it's a hormonal problem.  

Now, again, you could actually have a hormonal problem. This is the last thing I'll say and then we'll wrap this episode up. But the testosterone, if you do have an issue with it, let's say you get lean, let's say you're working out consistently and you're still having an issue.         

Well, testicular injuries can influence testosterone levels. So if you got hit in the testicles a bunch of times, that can be an issue. A traumatic brain injury can also cause issues with testosterone. I'm not going to get into why, but you have some hormonal signaling that can get disrupted from your brain to your testicles, and that can get disrupted if you have a traumatic brain injury. And there's other things too, a varicocele, which is a varicose vein in your scrotum, and that can also cause low testosterone as well.         

So, there's all these things going on. Make sure if you really have an issue and you are lean and you're doing the right things and your levels are low when you test them, make sure you see a doctor to get helped by that and make sure they're thorough with the assessment. Make sure they don't say, well, you're getting older. That's what happens. That's not a good answer.         

It's like, why? What about age then is causing this? And if you are out of shape, you know, you look down, you can see your belly and you're not as consistent, or even if you are consistent in the gym lifting weights, the body fat is the biggest issue. It's the number one cause of low T. Now, certainly exercising will help with that, but just don't think there's anything that you can do that's going to make up for the problem, which is the problem is the excess body fat, the inflammation it causes, the insulin resistance, et cetera.         

So that is it for today's episode. I hope you found it educational, I hope you got some value out of listening today, and I hope you look at this whole testosterone for men conversation differently, a bit more nuanced.  

And I will also, in the future, do a deeper dive into this and have some experts come on and talk about it. Because even if you do raise your testosterone, let's say you're at 500 nanograms per deciliter and you bump it up to 600, are you really going to notice a difference? Are you going to feel like going after it more in life?         

Or are you going to notice a difference in your libido or anything like that? Really hard to say. And even if you do it, is it directly because of the testosterone or is it because of all the things that you needed to do and it just made your body healthier? And then all of a sudden, you're losing fat, gaining muscle, and your libido is up. Lots to talk about with this.         

So, again, I'll do a deeper dive in another day, but I thought it was a great way to get this conversation started about testosterone after being asked this on Twitter.  

So, I hope you enjoyed today and I would ask you if you found this helpful. Is there a buddy of yours or a friend or your husband or your boyfriend who you think might benefit from listening to this conversation about testosterone, how to boost it naturally and what are the factors involved and how should I even think about it? Share it. And that is it for today's episode.         

Hope you enjoyed it, have a great one, and I'll speak to you on the next episode.