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SEX. · No Forking Nonsense - The Nutritionist UK

• 0:00
  @paulthenutritionist: Before we get started on this episode, I just wanted to say if you want five days of completing free coaching from me, a registered leading nutritionist, for free straight in your inbox, go to tinyurl.com/kickstarter26 and you will get five days of completely free coaching straight in your inbox just by clicking that link. So if you've enjoyed anything that I've ever said, go to tinyurl.com/kickstarter20six. Let's get into the episode. Welcome to No Forking Nonsense, the podcast that slices through the nonsense and serves you straight talking nutrition advice that actually works. I'm Paul, a registered nutritionist and your host.
• 0:45
  And every episode, I'll be debunking diet myths, breaking down confusing food advice and giving you practical science backed tips to help you eat better, feel better and get your edge back. There'll be no fads, no shite, just real talk that makes sense. Let's get stuck in. Hello and welcome to another episode of No Forking Nonsense and today we are going there, we are talking about sex, specifically why you might not be that bothered about it anymore and why it matters far more than most people realise, because low sex drive is one of those things that kind of happen quietly, they pull it down to being tired, being busy, getting older, stress, kids, life and sometimes those things are genuinely a factor, but what almost nobody considers and what I want to talk about today is that what you're eating, how you're sleeping and how stressed you ve been for the last six months are directly, measurably, biologically connected to your sex drive. So the first place that I want to start is your libido.
• 1:52
  So imagine your body is a business and like any business it has a budget. Energy comes in from food and it gets allocated to different departments. The most important departments get funded first, so keeping your heart beating, keeping your lungs working, keeping your immune system ticking over, these are all non negotiable and these get the money first. Right at the bottom of that list is your reproduction, so sex drive. That department only gets funded when everything else is covered.
• 2:19
  So when you re chronically under eating, over stressed, not sleeping and your nutritionist shite, which is a lot of you listening a lot of the time, your body looks at the budget and makes a decision. Reproduction is a luxury, survival isn't and quietly without you noticing it first, it starts defunding the sex drive department. It s not a relationship thing and it s not that you are getting old, is your body just trying to keep you alive. A review published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2019 confirmed that diet quality, sleep and stress were among the strongest modifiable predictors of sexual dysfunction in both men and women. Not age, not medication, not how long you ve been with your partner, diet, sleep, stress.
• 3:11
  So if your sex drive has dropped, that is the warning light on your dashboard and the question is worth asking what has she going on under the bonnet? So now I want to talk about testosterone and why it matters for both men and women. So before women you switch off, this is very important for you. Testosterone is often framed as a male hormone, but women you produce it as well, just in smaller amounts and it plays a direct role in your libido, in energy, in mood and muscle maintenance in both sexes. And when it drops in anyone, you will feel it.
• 3:46
  And here's what most people don't know: average testosterone levels have been declining for decades. Not in individuals, in literally the population. There was a major study in the 1980s and it tracked thousands of men over time and found that testosterone levels have been falling by 1% since 1980s, sorry it was in 2007, and the researchers didn't attribute this to ageing, they literally pointed it to lifestyle environment and guess what? Diet! So what does food have to do with testosterone?
• 4:20
  Let's start with fat. It's important to note here that your hormones are largely stored in your fat cells and that is why if you're nervous you get butterflies that's your biggest kind of indicator that there is obviously that gut brain access there. Testosterone is a steroid hormone and steroid hormones are made from cholesterol, dietary fat, no cholesterol, no raw material to make that hormone, so it really is that simple. So people who aggressively cut fat to lose weight faster often report tanking in energy and have fucking no libido within weeks and they think that it's a calorie deficit and it is partly that, but it's also the fact that they've cut their hormonal production line by a fat. You need fat in your diet, not all fat, not unlimited fat but an adequate dietary fat is a non negotiable for your hormonal health.
• 5:13
  The other thing is zinc and zinc is directly involved in testosterone production. It's also one of the most common micronutrient deficiencies in people who are restricted eating or on a repetitive diet, which is most people are trying to eat healthy. Now there was a study that found that zinc supplementation in zinc deficient men significantly raised testosterone levels and you can get zinc in via food, so red meat, shellfish, particularly oysters which is where they get that reputation of being an aphrodisiac. Less sexy, you can get pumpkin seeds and legumes as well. Vitamin D is another one because it behaves like a hormone rather than a vitamin in the body because it has receptors in the testes and ovaries.
• 5:56
  It is directly involved in sexual sex hormone production which is why if you go on holiday and sit in the sun, suddenly feel a little bit fruity. A randomised controlled trial published in hormone and metabolic research paper showed that supplementing with vitamin D3 for twelve months led to significantly higher testosterone levels compared with a placebo. Most people in The UK are deficient in vitamin D for at least half a year. We don't get enough some, we don't get enough oily fish and if you've listened to the supplement podcast, if you scroll down, I talk about the importance of probably supplementing with vitamin D3 at about four thousand international units. So for women, this is a different conversation but just as important, women the relationship between nutrition and sexual health is at least as significant to be honest.
• 6:44
  Here s a scenario I see repeatedly, a woman s eating well, by which I mean eating carefully, she s tracking, she s restricting, she s keeping her calories low, she s training hard, she feels like she s doing everything right, but she is on her ass. Her mood is shit, she has no sex drive whatsoever, her periods are irregular or have stopped entirely and she cannot understand why because on paper she s being disciplined. What's actually happening is that her body has interpreted the calorie restriction and the training load as a threat and it's responded by shutting down reproductive hormones. This is a documented physiological response. It's called relative energy deficiency, described extensively in research published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine as RED and it's the loss of libido as one of the earliest signs and it shows up before periods stop, before bone density drops, before anything else obvious.
• 7:45
  And the woman thinks she probably needs to try harder in this scenario and maybe eat less and train more when actually they often need to do the opposite. This does not mean that women should not train or manage their nutrition. It means that there is a floor below which energy availability can drop without serious or manal consequences. And a lot of women are living below that floor without realising it. So the important one, sleep, and this is one that genuinely shocks people.
• 8:16
  The majority of daily testosterone production in men happens during sleep, not in the day, not in the gym, during sleep, specifically during REM sleep. So if your sleep is disrupted, shortened or shit, you are directly cutting into testosterone production every single night. One of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, JAMA, took healthy young men and restricted their sleep to five hours a night for one week. One week, five hours of sleep and the result was a 10 to 15% reduction in testosterone in healthy young men in seven days. To put that in context that s the equivalent of ageing roughly ten-fifteen years hormonally from one week of bad sleep and yet people accept five-six hours as just what life is like right now.
• 9:03
  It s not nothing, it s directly eroding your hormonal health night after night. And here s where nutrition connects directly to this. Magnesium is one of the most critical minerals for sleep quality. I spoke about it previously on the supplement podcast because it helps regulate nervous system, supports melatonin production and helps the body transition into deep sleep. It also independently supports testosterone levels so it s super important that you are getting enough magnesium because magnesium deficiency is extremely common, it s depleted by stress, by sweating, by alcohol, by a diet low in vegetables and whole grains and most people are running low on it without even realising.
• 9:43
  Food high in magnesium dark, leafy veg, nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, whole grains, even bananas or magnesium glycin as a supplement in the evening which is again you can listen to in the supplement episode. So stress is chemically incompatible with sex drive, so your cortisol which is stress hormone and testosterone share building blocks. Think of it like two factors on the same street competing for the same raw materials. When demand for cortisol goes up because you re stressed, under slept, under fuelled, overworked, the body prioritizes cortisol production, testosterone leads us out. This is sometimes called the cortisol steal and research published in hormones and behaviour paper confirms a direct inverse relationship between the two.
• 10:29
  When cortisol goes up, testosterone tends to go down. Now think about when, what chronic stress actually looks like in daily life. Skipping meals because you re busy, eating badly because you re tired, drinking more than you should to decompress even though it doesn't help, sleeping less, training harder to compensate, undereating to try and lose weight faster, every single one of those things drives cortisol up and every single one of them is therefore pushing testosterone and libido down. And here s the thing that surprises people, skipping meals bites cortisol. When blood sugars drop because you haven t eaten, your body releases cortisol to raise it.
• 11:08
  Do that repeatedly across the day, skip breakfast, work through lunch, eat everything in the evening and you've been running on elevated cortisol day after day, week after week. Regular consistent eating, even simple, nothing fancy, is one of the most underrated things you can do for your stress hormone and by extension your sex drive. So let s talk about foods that actually make a difference, so let s be practical. So I mentioned oysters already but they are the highest dietary source of zinc on the planet. One serving can cover your entire daily requirement.
• 11:42
  The aphrodisiac reputation is not entirely nonsense because the zinc content is directly relevant to testosterone and dopamine production. There are also high in vitamin B12 and omega-three so if you eat shellfish eat your oysters. Eggs are genuinely one of the most nutritionally complete foods available, rich in cholesterol, the raw material for steroid hormones as well as vitamin D zinc, choline and B vitamins. They were demonised for decades over cholesterol, but the science has moved on, the stigma hasn't quite caught up, so eat your eggs. Oily fish, salmon sardines, mackerel, trout, high in omega-three which reduces inflammation and chronic inflammation obviously directly suppresses testosterone production, and there's also associations between omega-three intake and improved hormonal profiles, two to three servings of those a week.
• 12:32
  Dark leafy greens, spinach kale, rocket, these contain dietary nitrates which convert to nitric oxide in the body. Nitric oxide dilates blood vessels and improves blood flow, which is important for men. Better circulation is directly relevant to your sexual function, but then in both sexes as well, this is actually part of the mechanism behind interventions for erectile dysfunction as well. It's like the food version but less dramatic. Pomegranate this one's underrated, so a study published in endocrine abstracts gave participants pomegranate juice daily for two weeks and their average salivary testosterone increased by 24%.
• 13:14
  Mood improved, anxiety reduced. The researchers attribute it to their polyphenol content reducing oxidative stress in reproductive tissue, that one has a kind of meaningful finding from a free juice, so drink your pomegranate juice. Brazil nuts, they are the richest dietary source of selenium, a mineral that supports testosterone production and sperm health. Two to three nuts of those, that's it, easy. And then red meat if you eat it, so two to three times a week, obviously high in zinc, iron, B12, creatine, all supports testosterone and energy.
• 13:49
  So yeah, if you eat it, really good for hormonal health and is genuinely really useful. So what is actively killing your sex drive? First thing is alcohol. In the short term, it obviously reduces inhibition, so people associate it with sex. In reality, alcohol reduces testosterone, disrupts sleep architecture, increases oestrogen in men by activating aromatase and impairs sexual performance directly.
• 14:15
  Chronic daily drinking consistently suppresses testosterone and sexual function. The odd drinking is unlikely to be an issue, it a regular habit at will. Chronic undereating, as I said, is no hormonal health without adequate energy intake. The body requires a calorie surplus or at very minimum adequate calories to maintain hormonal production. Substantial fat loss requires periods of eating at maintenance.
• 14:42
  It is not a character weakness to eat enough, it is literally a requirement. Ultra processed foods, I don't want to go too deep on this, but high in inflammatory seed oils, low in micronutrients and actively damaging the gut microbiome. The gut produces and regulates hormones, including oestrogen, so diet built heavily and I'm going to say that word again heavily on ultra processed food is a diet built against hormone health. Not because one packet of biscuits is a problem but because when it's the foundation of daily eating, then the cumulative effect is obviously quite significant. And then poor sleep, already covered but worth kind of re emphasising, five to six hours of sleep is not a badge of honour, it is testosterone suppressing, cortisol elevate and libido destroy and habit.
• 15:33
  It compounds and it's one of the easiest things to change if you decide it's a priority. So there we go and here's summaries. So sex drive is not a frivolous metric, it is one of the most sensitive indicators of how well your body is actually functioning and when I speak to potential clients and I have these conversations, often I will talk about relationships and when people don't feel like they look good and they're not feeling good about themselves, their energy is on its ass, then obviously relationships are impacted. And when your sex drive drops consistently, not just on a tired Tuesday, something's worth looking at. And the things worth looking at are almost always the same.
• 16:18
  Are you eating enough? Are you getting enough fat, enough zinc, enough vitamin D, enough magnesium? Are you seeping? Are you chronically stressed and trying to manage it with restriction and alcohol? These are not complicated questions but they're questions most people have never asked in this context.
• 16:35
  Your body is not broken, in most cases it's just responding logically to the inputs it's being given. Change the inputs and the outputs change too. So if this resonated to you, anything I've said here, please do share it with somebody who needs to hear it. And it would be really, really good if you could leave a nice little review on Spotify or Apple, only had a couple. But it only takes two minutes, apparently it s really good.
• 17:02
  Hope you ve enjoyed that. I am going to do a separate episode on men's health and women s health where we will talk about these things in more detail but until next time, thanks for listening. That's it for this episode of No Forking Nonsense where the fluff gets binned and the facts get served. If you found this helpful share it with someone who could do with some clarity from an expert, that's me by the way, and make sure you hit follow so you don't miss what's coming next and if you want more straight talking, no nonsense nutrition advice, come and find me on Instagram Paul, the nutritionist. Until next time, eat smart, feel human again and stop falling for the Forking Nonsense.
• 17:38
  See you next time.