Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / 7 Natural Testosterone Boosters That Actually Work (Evidence-Based) | Ep 438

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7 Natural Testosterone Boosters That Actually Work (Evidence-Based) | Ep 438 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: If you've ever Googled testosterone boosters, you might have seen the landmine of pills, potions, powders promising to skyrocket your T levels.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: Most of it is expensive, worthless garbage, but your testosterone levels can actually be influenced and significantly by specific behaviors you control.
• 0:20
  Philip Pape: Today you'll learn the seven evidence-based factors that genuinely affect your tea levels, why the supplements you're probably considering are the last thing to focus on, and one common habit that can slash your tea by 10 to 15%, which you want to avoid.
• 0:36
  Philip Pape: Plus, stick around to the end because I'm going to share a counterintuitive insight about dietary fat and testosterone.
• 0:43
  Philip Pape: That's a simple fix you can make today.
• 0:45
  Philip Pape: Ironically, as I recorded, as I record this, just recently was an episode on Mind Pump about natural testosterone boosters.
• 1:13
  Philip Pape: And I had prepared this episode a few weeks ago.
• 1:15
  Philip Pape: I didn't listen to that episode.
• 1:17
  Philip Pape: I have no idea how ours compares to theirs, but I'm just mentioning it in case you guys think I ripped it off because I did.
• 1:22
  Philip Pape: Here's the uncomfortable truth.
• 1:24
  Philip Pape: Most of us, especially men, but you know, testosterone affects women as well, who are over 40, who are walking around with suboptimal testosterone.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: We often don't actually have a problem with the hormone itself.
• 1:36
  Philip Pape: It's an input problem.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: How many times have we talked about on the show?
• 1:39
  Philip Pape: It's the behaviors, it's the inputs that affect the hormones downstream.
• 1:43
  Philip Pape: And rather than try to put a band-aid on the downstream effect, we have to look upstream and say, what's going on?
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: Are we chronically undersleeping, chronically dieting, chronically stressed, and then wondering, oh, why don't we have the energy and the recovery and the strength gains and the libido and all these things that we want?
• 2:00
  Philip Pape: You know, why am I having trouble building muscle, et cetera?
• 2:03
  Philip Pape: And so the testosterone supplement industry takes advantage of this.
• 2:07
  Philip Pape: It's a multi-billion dollar machine.
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: It's built on that confusion, just like many things in the fitness industry.
• 2:12
  Philip Pape: And they want you to believe your T levels require intervention as a default.
• 2:17
  Philip Pape: And some of the best people in the industry, you know, we had Ali Gilbert on, and I've spoken to folks that are in the HRT space, will even they will say, look, get your life in order as you take TRT if needed, but let's look at the symptoms, let's look at the blood work, let's look at all that.
• 2:33
  Philip Pape: But if your lifestyle is not there, that alone could be the main issue.
• 2:37
  Philip Pape: Your testosterone is a downstream signal of how you treat your body.
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: That's what it is.
• 2:42
  Philip Pape: So that's where I'm starting from from this podcast, hence the episode title about natural testosterone boosters.
• 2:48
  Philip Pape: And I'm not going to tell you it doesn't matter.
• 2:49
  Philip Pape: Testosterone is absolutely critical for muscle protein synthesis, for bone density, for body composition, energy, mental clarity, sex drive, obviously all of that.
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: But the path to healthy testosterone isn't through definitely any of these supplements, most, if not all of them, and also isn't necessarily through TRT if you don't also address these issues.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: And in fact, I know many men and the evidence will demonstrate this that just because you're on TRT doesn't mean all of these other issues go away if they're not supported.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: So we're gonna talk about that today, and I want you to stick around to the end because I'm going to share an insight about a food pattern that a lot of people are talking to me about, thinking it's gonna help with testosterone, and it might be an easy fix for you to implement.
• 3:39
  Philip Pape: So let's start with a quick overview of testosterone, what it is, how it works in your body.
• 3:44
  Philip Pape: You have something called the hypothalamic pituitary gonatal axis, the HPG axis.
• 3:51
  Philip Pape: And it responds to signals from the environment, from your training, your nutrition, your stress, your sleep.
• 3:57
  Philip Pape: And so when those conditions are all favorable, your testosterone production goes up.
• 4:01
  Philip Pape: When your body perceives some sort of load or stress or energy scarcity, it goes down.
• 4:07
  Philip Pape: And this is just deeply programmed into our survival programming, like many of our other things, just like with food cravings, you know, our brain-related cravings for food in an environment that doesn't really support it too well because of how food is manufactured, et cetera.
• 4:23
  Philip Pape: And the reason that most quote unquote testosterone boosters don't work very well, usually on the supplement side, is because they don't contain bioactive compounds.
• 4:32
  Philip Pape: Some of them do, but they're trying to override a highly stressed system that you cannot supplement your way out of.
• 4:39
  Philip Pape: You just can't.
• 4:40
  Philip Pape: So if you want to take the lazy approach and give them a shot, who am I to tell you not to?
• 4:44
  Philip Pape: But I hope you're here because you want to do it the right way.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: Think of testosterone less like a tank that you fill up and more like a thermostat.
• 4:53
  Philip Pape: Okay, that's my engineer brain.
• 4:54
  Philip Pape: I go to control systems.
• 4:56
  Philip Pape: If your body has threat signals like you're not eating enough or you're not sleeping enough, or you have all this stress, it's gonna dial the thermostat down.
• 5:04
  Philip Pape: If you want to dial it up, you have to change those signals.
• 5:06
  Philip Pape: That's all it is.
• 5:07
  Philip Pape: That's what I'm saying.
• 5:08
  Philip Pape: It's like a control system, like anything else with our lifestyle.
• 5:11
  Philip Pape: So today I'm gonna give you seven factors with the strongest evidence for affecting that thermostat.
• 5:18
  Philip Pape: And I wanted to pick ones that are supported by recent research, that have decent effect sizes, right?
• 5:25
  Philip Pape: That can sometimes far outpace and dwarf anything you can get from a supplement.
• 5:30
  Philip Pape: They all stack as well.
• 5:32
  Philip Pape: So if you can implement multiple factors, it's gonna create a compounding effect.
• 5:36
  Philip Pape: And I'm going to cover them in order of impact.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: I'm gonna tell you what quote unquote boosters you could probably ignore and not waste money on.
• 5:44
  Philip Pape: And I'm gonna give you a few honorable mentions that could be helpful.
• 5:49
  Philip Pape: So let's start.
• 5:51
  Philip Pape: Lever number one, the first natural testosterone booster, is no surprise, progressive resistance training, strength training, especially compound multi-joint lifts at moderate to heavy loads.
• 6:04
  Philip Pape: This creates one of the best acute and chronic testosterone response.
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: The acute response, that temporary spike during and after your training, it doesn't matter as much as you think.
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: And some people can overblow it, okay?
• 6:20
  Philip Pape: What matters is the adaptation to that that occurs as you sleep, and then you train again and then you sleep again.
• 6:27
  Philip Pape: So then it's the consistent resistance training over time, which increases your insulin sensitivity.
• 6:32
  Philip Pape: It reduces your body fat, which is a huge impact on testosterone.
• 6:37
  Philip Pape: It helps you build that beautiful metabolic active tissue we call muscle, and it improves your body to regulate hormones across the board.
• 6:44
  Philip Pape: When you regularly tell your body, hey, I need to lift heavy things, I need to be strong and capable, I need to be functional for what out what's out there in the real world, it adapts by providing or improving the hormonal environment that supports adaptation.
• 6:59
  Philip Pape: That is it.
• 7:00
  Philip Pape: This is a foundational first principle.
• 7:02
  Philip Pape: If you're not resistance training at least three days a week in general, I mean, it could be two, but three, if not four, with progressive overload, then you're leaving a lot of that testosterone growth on the table.
• 7:14
  Philip Pape: And you might be living with suppressed testosterone.
• 7:17
  Philip Pape: Here's the thing, the thing about today's episode: it's not all about increasing testosterone as much as eliminating things suppressing your testosterone, which is amazing.
• 7:27
  Philip Pape: Um, and I know since I've started lifting weights, you know, just to share some numbers, I'm now 45 years old.
• 7:32
  Philip Pape: My total testosterone is somewhere in the 600s.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: So it's not like gloriously amazing, you know, super anabolic, but it's quite healthy and in a decent range for my age.
• 7:42
  Philip Pape: But it used to be down close to 400.
• 7:45
  Philip Pape: And the only thing I changed was getting healthier and lifting weights over those years and doing some of the other things we talked about today.
• 7:51
  Philip Pape: The thing that a lot of people overlook is that train resistance training seems to blunt the natural age-related decline in testosterone.
• 8:03
  Philip Pape: So we can't stop the clock, but we can kind of slow it down, right?
• 8:06
  Philip Pape: So it strength training is not optional.
• 8:08
  Philip Pape: It's not optional, optional, no matter your age.
• 8:11
  Philip Pape: And if you're not doing it, start now, it's gonna make a big difference, including for your testosterone.
• 8:14
  Philip Pape: Okay, number two, the second testosterone booster, is not undereating.
• 8:20
  Philip Pape: Stop the chronic dieting.
• 8:22
  Philip Pape: I talk about this so much now that I am of the mind most people over 40 should be rarely dieting.
• 8:28
  Philip Pape: Should be rarely dieting.
• 8:29
  Philip Pape: By the time you're going into a fat loss phase and an intentional deficit, you should have checked all the other boxes for supporting your lifestyle and be lifting weights and maybe even build some muscle.
• 8:39
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 8:39
  Philip Pape: There are some edge cases of people who have a lot of weight to lose, and that's a different thing.
• 8:44
  Philip Pape: But for the vast majority of you listening to the show, health conscious, wanting to get in shape and all that, this is a big one.
• 8:51
  Philip Pape: This is a big one.
• 8:52
  Philip Pape: Now, you would think, okay, I get leaner though when I go in a deficit, so that's going to improve my testosterone, right?
• 8:57
  Philip Pape: And actually to some extent, it does, especially if you have excess body fat, and that's where that edge case comes in.
• 9:03
  Philip Pape: But if it's a chronic, if you're chronically dieting, if you're always in a deficit, prolonged energy deficits all the time, well, your body is suppressing a bunch of things.
• 9:11
  Philip Pape: It's suppressing your LH, that's your luteinizing hormone, that signals testosterone production.
• 9:16
  Philip Pape: And that's something you can see in blood work.
• 9:18
  Philip Pape: Your body is saying, hey, now is not the time for things that require a lot of energy, like building muscle or reproduction.
• 9:26
  Philip Pape: And this is we see this in athletes and chronic dieters and physique competitors and people who are, you know, older men, especially who are like always cut and shredded, they don't have great testosterone, right?
• 9:37
  Philip Pape: And so if you've been in a version of a calorie deficit for many, many months or years, and really years, you know, a few months here or there is not a big deal, probably.
• 9:46
  Philip Pape: But if your recovery is a problem, you you can't get stronger, you feel like you're running on empty, just look at that.
• 9:52
  Philip Pape: Are you just under-eating?
• 9:54
  Philip Pape: And this is men and women, but yes, even men for testosterone this is a big deal, right?
• 9:58
  Philip Pape: So your testosterone also is gonna adapt downward, even in a short dieting phase.
• 10:03
  Philip Pape: But again, that's more temporary, and that's where a recovery, a recovery diet to come out of it is gonna be the best thing you can do for your hormones if you don't need to diet anymore.
• 10:10
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 10:11
  Philip Pape: Number three natural testosterone booster is sleep.
• 10:15
  Philip Pape: Now, I'm going through this list, and you guys are probably like, snore, we hear this all the time, we know these other things.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: But if you're not doing any of these things, don't go to the supplements and the necessarily TRT.
• 10:27
  Philip Pape: Again, TRT, it depends on your medical professional and where you are in life and all that.
• 10:30
  Philip Pape: I'm not telling you not to do that.
• 10:31
  Philip Pape: I'm just saying that's not the be-all-end-all solution.
• 10:34
  Philip Pape: You have to do both.
• 10:35
  Philip Pape: So I've got some really cool data here.
• 10:38
  Philip Pape: A University of Chicago study found that sleep restriction of five hours a night for just one week reduced T by 10 to 15%.
• 10:46
  Philip Pape: And this was in young, healthy men.
• 10:47
  Philip Pape: That's in young, healthy men.
• 10:49
  Philip Pape: And when we look at the curve of what happens with T over age, that's like aging them by 10 to 15 years, right?
• 10:55
  Philip Pape: So one week of poor sleep can make your testosterone look like a much older person.
• 11:00
  Philip Pape: And if you're always getting poor sleep for years and decades, ah, that there you go.
• 11:04
  Philip Pape: That could be a very simple solution, even though it takes effort to change your behavior, I get it, to address testosterone.
• 11:13
  Philip Pape: The majority of our testosterone secretion, this is, and I say our as in men, occurs during sleep.
• 11:19
  Philip Pape: And it especially occurs during slow wave sleep, which occurs in the first half of the night.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: So if you're fragmenting that sleep, if it's interrupted, if you've got a racing mind with lots of stress and anxiety, if you've got insomnia, if you've got sleep apnea, the list goes on and on, and then you just really don't get enough hours of that kind of sleep, you're cutting short that window for hormone production.
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: And then sleep fragmentation is very important.
• 11:44
  Philip Pape: If you are getting enough hours, but you're waking up a bunch, you're you're also getting less of the benefits.
• 11:51
  Philip Pape: And I mentioned sleep apnea briefly, but that has a major testosterone suppressor.
• 11:55
  Philip Pape: And I would say that it is massively undiagnosed or underdiagnosed in men over 40.
• 12:00
  Philip Pape: So if you snore heavily, I mean, ask your ask your significant other if you have a partner and ask them if you snore all the time.
• 12:07
  Philip Pape: You probably know by now.
• 12:08
  Philip Pape: If you wake up tired all the time despite having enough quote unquote hours in bed, if you have headaches in the morning, all of those, you might want to do a sleep study.
• 12:16
  Philip Pape: Just consider a sleep study.
• 12:18
  Philip Pape: And then the target is that seven to nine hours of quality sleep.
• 12:22
  Philip Pape: We're not gonna go through all the sleep hacks today, but this is another non-negotiable that could be a big lever for you.
• 12:27
  Philip Pape: Now, as we go through this, you're gonna be wondering, okay, how do I get started with some of this stuff?
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: If you're looking to dial in the first couple behaviors that it really takes to kickstart your journey, if your goal is fat loss, but you also want to preserve your hormonal health and your performance, grab my free 14-day rapid start fat loss guide.
• 12:45
  Philip Pape: Go to wits and weights.com slash fat loss.
• 12:47
  Philip Pape: Now I have other guides.
• 12:49
  Philip Pape: I have one for muscle as well.
• 12:50
  Philip Pape: You can go to wits and weights.com slash muscle if you're in the muscle building mode.
• 12:53
  Philip Pape: But either of those are gonna walk you through how to set up your nutrition, your training, your next steps to get started.
• 13:00
  Philip Pape: So again, go to wits and weights.com slash fat loss for the 14-day rapid start fat loss guide, or wits and weights.com slash muscle if you want the muscle building nutrition guide.
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: Now, we're gonna get to number four here.
• 13:12
  Philip Pape: And this is body fat reduction if you are what's considered over fat.
• 13:18
  Philip Pape: And I know you don't might not like that term, but that's like the technical scientific term.
• 13:22
  Philip Pape: So if you before you think I'm contradicting myself, right, I just recently said chronic dieting suppresses testosterone, and now I'm telling you fat laws can increase it.
• 13:31
  Philip Pape: I want to clarify if you're carrying excess body fat, especially visceral fat around the midsection, so that's belly fat, the adipose tissue, that actively converts testosterone into estrogen in a process called aromatization.
• 13:45
  Philip Pape: And this is why overweight men often have lower T and higher estrogen levels and things like man boobs and all the other stuff that come with it, then losing body fat from that perspective, especially visceral fat, can very meaningfully increase both your total and your free testosterone.
• 14:02
  Philip Pape: It has, however, it has diminishing returns once you get to a healthy body fat range.
• 14:07
  Philip Pape: And that's a pretty wide range.
• 14:08
  Philip Pape: It's up to you know 15 to 20 percent.
• 14:10
  Philip Pape: We're not talking about being cut or shredded, just a healthy body fat range.
• 14:15
  Philip Pape: Then the benefit of getting leaner on on getting leaner for testosterone is minimal.
• 14:21
  Philip Pape: And then it could backfire because now you're aggressively dieting and stressing yourself out.
• 14:25
  Philip Pape: Which you know what computes the idea that we should be living in a healthy state of body composition, not super shredded, not over fat.
• 14:33
  Philip Pape: And that's generally a good place to sustain things.
• 14:35
  Philip Pape: So my guidance is this if you're significantly over fat, then a moderate, time-limited fat loss phase is probably gonna help you with your testosterone quite a bit.
• 14:44
  Philip Pape: And then if you're reasonably lean, say you you've gotten under 25%, maybe you're in that 15 to 20 percent, I wouldn't chase lower body fat just for tea, right?
• 14:53
  Philip Pape: It's it's the chronic restriction might actually suppress it.
• 14:56
  Philip Pape: And I've again experienced that myself, kind of maintaining around that 15 to 20 percent is a really nice place to be.
• 15:01
  Philip Pape: All right, step number five to boost testosterone naturally is to manage a chronic stress and your cortisol, right?
• 15:10
  Philip Pape: And again, you knew this would come up on the list.
• 15:13
  Philip Pape: And this one always often gets dismissed, you know, as the woo kind of advice with the stress and the mindfulness and everything, but physiology very highly backs this up.
• 15:21
  Philip Pape: Cortisol and testosterone have an inverse relationship.
• 15:26
  Philip Pape: That means they move in opposite directions.
• 15:28
  Philip Pape: If you have chronic psychological stress, chronic psychological stress, so that could even be perceived stress, it suppresses the HPG axis we talked about, the hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis.
• 15:42
  Philip Pape: And so when cortisol, a stress hormone, is chronically elevated, and that could be your work stress, relationship, conflict, financial pressure, lack of recovery, maybe overtraining, your body downregulates testosterone production.
• 15:54
  Philip Pape: So, you guys that are just living stressful lives, you executives, I had a lot of clients like this, we've got to get that stress off your system at least a little bit.
• 16:02
  Philip Pape: Every little bit helps.
• 16:04
  Philip Pape: And if you don't, you're just making a trade-off.
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: You are basically prioritizing the short-term survival from these stressors, right?
• 16:12
  Philip Pape: Your body trying to be in this fight or flight mode over the long-term benefits of not having that state.
• 16:18
  Philip Pape: So, do you want long-term health, longevity, strength, function?
• 16:22
  Philip Pape: You want to be a strong, healthy man far into your golden years, or do you want to just keep chasing what you're chasing today and then see that decline and maybe a heart attack, maybe some sort of issue down the road?
• 16:35
  Philip Pape: You know, I don't mean to be a fearmonger, but that is the reality of it for many men.
• 16:39
  Philip Pape: So I'm not asking you to be a Zen monk.
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: I couldn't do anything like that.
• 16:43
  Philip Pape: It's recognizing that this unmanaged, crazy stress in your life is physiologically affecting your endocrine system.
• 16:52
  Philip Pape: It is disrupting you.
• 16:53
  Philip Pape: All right, way more than any quote unquote toxins in the environment or EMI waves or any of this nonsense you hear on social media about these minor things.
• 17:00
  Philip Pape: And nothing against, you know, there are toxins in, you know, there are microplastics and all that stuff.
• 17:05
  Philip Pape: But this is chronic stress is dwarfs a lot of those for most guys.
• 17:10
  Philip Pape: The practical tip that I have is get outside, move, make sure you're resting between your training, make sure you spend good time with people you love and care about.
• 17:21
  Philip Pape: Make sure you set boundaries on your work hours.
• 17:25
  Philip Pape: I have a client who has been stressed out of his mind all year, runs a business with his wife.
• 17:31
  Philip Pape: And as much as he wanted to like get more steps and do a few of the things we talked about, he just literally had no time.
• 17:38
  Philip Pape: And I'm talking about you guys know what I'm talking about.
• 17:40
  Philip Pape: It's like 100 plus hour work weeks, go, go, go, go, go, go, go with kids, trying to help out with everything.
• 17:47
  Philip Pape: And there was just no time.
• 17:48
  Philip Pape: And he finally realized, you know what, something's got to give.
• 17:50
  Philip Pape: I've got to jettison some things for my life.
• 17:52
  Philip Pape: I've got to delegate, I've got to hire some people, I've got to just accept, you know, maybe less business over here or doing things in a different way.
• 17:59
  Philip Pape: If I'm going to salvage my health, salvage my relationship with my wife, not salvage, I mean, in his case, it's not a bad relationship, it's just prioritizing them, right?
• 18:08
  Philip Pape: Prioritizing them.
• 18:09
  Philip Pape: And so if you're working 12 hour days, and then on top of that, maybe you're training six days a week because you love being in the gym, and then you're sleeping poorly and you're like, I wonder why my tea is still low.
• 18:18
  Philip Pape: It's not a testosterone problem.
• 18:20
  Philip Pape: It's it's a recovery problem with your stress.
• 18:22
  Philip Pape: All right, lever number six, and this one, this one is a favorite of mine because low carb and keto are so popular still for some crazy reason.
• 18:33
  Philip Pape: But we know clearly by now from the research that low carb diets, chronically low carb diets, not just low carb during a deficit for a short while, but chronically, can reduce testosterone levels in resistance strained men.
• 18:45
  Philip Pape: So carbs have to be under consideration here, guys.
• 18:48
  Philip Pape: A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis found that low-carb diets were associated with lower testosterone compared to high carb, period.
• 18:57
  Philip Pape: And they proposed the mechanisms include elevated cortisol that comes with carb restriction, and impaired recovery that comes with carb restriction.
• 19:06
  Philip Pape: Two of the biggest topics I always talk about when it comes to eating more carbs is let's recover, let's perform, let's reduce our stress by increasing our carbs.
• 19:14
  Philip Pape: I did a whole episode on carbs and stress.
• 19:17
  Philip Pape: So it's so important.
• 19:19
  Philip Pape: Now, does that mean you have to eat four or five, six hundred grams of carbs?
• 19:22
  Philip Pape: No.
• 19:22
  Philip Pape: But if you're training hard and you're trying to get your sleep and you're trying to stay, keep that stress low, like we just talked about, and you want more higher testosterone, your body needs carbohydrates to fuel your training, to manage your stress, to support testosterone production.
• 19:36
  Philip Pape: And I'm just saying don't go down into the sub-100s or the low 100s for a long stretch of time.
• 19:42
  Philip Pape: And I say, you know, the numbers change based on your size, but that's generally the threshold for the vast majority of men.
• 19:49
  Philip Pape: So if you're getting on its lowest end, 100, 150 in a diet, but then up to maybe in the 200s, 300s, 400s when you're not dieting, you're probably fine.
• 19:59
  Philip Pape: It's where you are deliberately just cutting out all carbs because you think it's somehow helpful and it's not gonna be helpful.
• 20:05
  Philip Pape: It's just not.
• 20:06
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 20:06
  Philip Pape: So I have a lot of episodes that talk about it.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: Just type in carbs into my library and you'll probably find it.
• 20:11
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 20:12
  Philip Pape: So carbs are your friend for testosterone.
• 20:14
  Philip Pape: That could be the thing you're missing.
• 20:16
  Philip Pape: Number seven is alcohol reduction.
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: Oh, yes.
• 20:19
  Philip Pape: I'm not gonna lecture you on drinking, guys.
• 20:21
  Philip Pape: I'm not, I know I see it every day.
• 20:23
  Philip Pape: Oh, I love my bourbon.
• 20:24
  Philip Pape: Oh, I love my IPAs, whatever.
• 20:27
  Philip Pape: If we're talking about what the evidence says on testosterone, then alcohol is one of the clearest dose-dependent suppressors of testosterone.
• 20:37
  Philip Pape: And we also know it creates a lot of visceral adipose tissue and belly fat.
• 20:41
  Philip Pape: So there's probably a correlation there too.
• 20:43
  Philip Pape: Alcohol is directly toxic to your testes, to your testicular tissue at higher intakes.
• 20:50
  Philip Pape: I mean, alcohol is a toxin, but if you flood your body with it, it's going to get to other areas of your body we don't want.
• 20:56
  Philip Pape: Even moderate regular consumption can matter if you already have borderline low testosterone.
• 21:01
  Philip Pape: If you're consuming alcohol multiple nights a week, you've got to consider this as a factor.
• 21:05
  Philip Pape: And the relationship is pretty linear.
• 21:08
  Philip Pape: The more alcohol, the more it gets suppressed.
• 21:10
  Philip Pape: So if your testosterone is a priority for you and your health is a priority for you, reduce or eliminate regular alcohol consumption.
• 21:18
  Philip Pape: And that's the way I'm gonna put it reduce or eliminate regular alcohol consumption.
• 21:22
  Philip Pape: I'm not saying don't occasionally have a beer or mixed drink or at a party have a glass of champagne.
• 21:27
  Philip Pape: Whatever.
• 21:27
  Philip Pape: Okay, that's that's that's not gonna hurt you.
• 21:29
  Philip Pape: As much as I know alcohol is a toxin and has no benefits, having it once every three, four, five months here or there, not gonna be a problem.
• 21:37
  Philip Pape: It's the regular consumption that's really the big problem.
• 21:39
  Philip Pape: Just to give you a little bit of wiggle room, okay?
• 21:42
  Philip Pape: And I know this isn't what people want to hear sometimes, right?
• 21:45
  Philip Pape: But sometimes we have to have this level of structure and commitment when things are just not helping us out.
• 21:50
  Philip Pape: And if you're spending a bunch of money, by the way, on supplements and then you're drinking four nights a week, well, you're just offsetting things.
• 21:55
  Philip Pape: So we've covered all the seven natural testosterone boosters.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: Stick around.
• 21:59
  Philip Pape: Because I'm gonna share something about dietary fat and testosterone that I hear.
• 22:03
  Philip Pape: There's popular advice that's getting around.
• 22:05
  Philip Pape: I don't know if it's on TikTok or where, because I'm not on TikTok, but I want to address it.
• 22:10
  Philip Pape: Before we do, some honorable mentions.
• 22:12
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 22:13
  Philip Pape: There are some compounds that have legitimate evidence, but only if you are deficient.
• 22:19
  Philip Pape: Only if you are deficient in these supplements, in these compounds or in these nutrients, that might be why you have some lower testosterone.
• 22:27
  Philip Pape: So vitamin D is huge.
• 22:28
  Philip Pape: Vitamin D, it's on my short list of pretty much everyone should consider taking vitamin D, get your levels tested.
• 22:34
  Philip Pape: There is correlational.
• 22:35
  Philip Pape: There's also interventional evidence that links vitamin D deficiency to lower testosterone.
• 22:41
  Philip Pape: And many of us, myself included, are in northern latitudes or we work indoors.
• 22:45
  Philip Pape: And I take it, I take it because if I didn't, it would be low, right?
• 22:49
  Philip Pape: And so maybe that has also contributed to a decent testosterone level.
• 22:52
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 22:53
  Philip Pape: But if you already get enough, well, supplementing is not going to help.
• 22:56
  Philip Pape: Zinc.
• 22:56
  Philip Pape: Zinc is the next one.
• 22:58
  Philip Pape: Same principle.
• 22:58
  Philip Pape: Um, zinc deficiency clearly lowers testosterone.
• 23:01
  Philip Pape: And so you can supplement if you eat enough protein from animal sources, you might probably get you're probably getting enough zinc, which a lot of men are.
• 23:10
  Philip Pape: Obviously, if you're not omnivorous, that could be something to look into.
• 23:14
  Philip Pape: If you restrict a lot or you have a lot of training and stressed out, that could be have less zinc in your body.
• 23:19
  Philip Pape: So get that checked.
• 23:20
  Philip Pape: Sleep apnea, we already mentioned, believe it or not, like having a CPAP and not obstructing your sleep anymore, and you get treated for it.
• 23:29
  Philip Pape: This is a massively underappreciated for men over 40.
• 23:32
  Philip Pape: Get a sleep study and figure it out.
• 23:34
  Philip Pape: So the the frame I want you to adopt is not that these are testosterone boosters per se.
• 23:40
  Philip Pape: We already talked about the seven boosters.
• 23:42
  Philip Pape: These are things to prevent suppression when you are deficient.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: Now, what can you what's a waste of money potentially for testosterone?
• 23:51
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 23:52
  Philip Pape: Ashwaganda, very popular.
• 23:54
  Philip Pape: I think there's benefits for certain symptoms like stress and anxiety, for example.
• 23:58
  Philip Pape: Um, I take Legion's Triumph, men's multivariate.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: It has it in there.
• 24:02
  Philip Pape: I don't think there's anything wrong with taking it, although I have heard some people reference like long-term use could be an issue in some in a study here or there.
• 24:12
  Philip Pape: But I think the effect size is pretty small, regardless, and it's likely mediated by the stress reduction of the ashwagandha.
• 24:19
  Philip Pape: That could then help with the testosterone, but you don't want to rely on that.
• 24:22
  Philip Pape: And I've seen people get build up a tolerance to it as well.
• 24:25
  Philip Pape: Then there's Tongat Ali, which is very popularly mentioned.
• 24:30
  Philip Pape: And the data is that weak there, I think.
• 24:31
  Philip Pape: I think there's a lot of issues with dosing as well and quality control depending on where you purchase it.
• 24:36
  Philip Pape: Uh fenogreek is another one, mild effects, mixed quality.
• 24:40
  Philip Pape: I wouldn't rely on it.
• 24:41
  Philip Pape: Diaspartic acid, tribulus, boron, you've probably seen those as well.
• 24:46
  Philip Pape: I again, I wouldn't say there's any meaningful data.
• 24:48
  Philip Pape: A lot of these are just a waste of money, I'm gonna be honest.
• 24:50
  Philip Pape: And then there's all the multi-ingredient test booster blends, right?
• 24:55
  Philip Pape: And most of these are complete garbage.
• 24:57
  Philip Pape: There was actually a study that looked at these in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition.
• 25:02
  Philip Pape: It found that less than 25% of the ingredients in the most popular testosterone boosters had any supporting evidence at all.
• 25:10
  Philip Pape: So that's less than 25% of the ingredients in all of them.
• 25:13
  Philip Pape: And about 10% had evidence of decrease testosterone.
• 25:17
  Philip Pape: So be very careful with those.
• 25:18
  Philip Pape: If they'd worked, I would love it.
• 25:20
  Philip Pape: I would tell people to use it, I'd be telling my clients to use it, and they don't.
• 25:22
  Philip Pape: The seven boosters we talked about before are your biggest lovers.
• 25:25
  Philip Pape: And then fixing any of these important deficiencies that are evidence-based.
• 25:30
  Philip Pape: So we want to reframe the fact that you may not have a testosterone problem.
• 25:34
  Philip Pape: You may have a problem with the inputs, and your testosterone is low because you're not training, or you're not eating enough, or you're not sleeping, or your stress needs to be fixed, or you're drinking too much.
• 25:44
  Philip Pape: And if you know this is the thing for you, acknowledge it right now.
• 25:48
  Philip Pape: Admit it to yourself, be honest with yourself and say, hey, I've got something to go after.
• 25:52
  Philip Pape: That's a positive thing I just learned about myself.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 25:55
  Philip Pape: That is, I don't need to chase supplements.
• 25:57
  Philip Pape: I may not need TRT.
• 25:59
  Philip Pape: Again, I'm not telling you one way or another on that, because that's gonna depend on you know, physiological levels versus where you should be given your lifestyle.
• 26:07
  Philip Pape: I would fix the lifestyle stuff and do some before and afters on your labs, though.
• 26:10
  Philip Pape: I think that's a great way to look at it.
• 26:12
  Philip Pape: And that's it.
• 26:14
  Philip Pape: So uh before we wrap up, I rem I told you I'm gonna share this thing about dietary fat.
• 26:19
  Philip Pape: So I'm gonna do that in a bit.
• 26:21
  Philip Pape: I do want to remind you again, grab my either fat loss guide at wits and weights.com slash fat loss or my muscle building guide, wits and weights.com slash muscle.
• 26:29
  Philip Pape: If you're looking for a way to jumpstart some of this stuff on a practical level, because we didn't have time in this episode to get into all of it, these are free.
• 26:37
  Philip Pape: Wits and weights.com slash fat loss or wits and weights.com slash muscle.
• 26:40
  Philip Pape: All right, here we go.
• 26:41
  Philip Pape: One of the most common pieces of testosterone advice you're going to hear is you should eat more fat.
• 26:47
  Philip Pape: And I've heard it more with especially the carnivore crowd and the keto crowd, and maybe just low carb in general.
• 26:54
  Philip Pape: And it is it is true that extremely low fat diets where you've got well under 20% of your calories from fat, can test they can suppress testosterone.
• 27:05
  Philip Pape: But I think the type of fat matters less than the adequacy of fat.
• 27:12
  Philip Pape: And there's no evidence that loading up on extra fat beyond adequate levels does anything for testosterone.
• 27:19
  Philip Pape: So, for example, if you as long as you're getting at least, let's say 20, 25%, closer to 30 is the the default that I use with people from fat, you're getting everything you need.
• 27:30
  Philip Pape: And going beyond that, like the 35, 40, or 45% fat, like you might see in carnivore or keto, up to 50% fat, isn't going to move the tea anymore.
• 27:38
  Philip Pape: It should, I mean, you can prove it to yourself, but that's what we understand from the evidence.
• 27:42
  Philip Pape: And and what's nice about that is you don't then need a high-fat diet.
• 27:46
  Philip Pape: You don't have to be on carnivore or keto or something like that for your testosterone, right?
• 27:51
  Philip Pape: You also don't have to be on an extremely low-fat diet.
• 27:54
  Philip Pape: So guess where that leaves us?
• 27:55
  Philip Pape: A reasonable balanced diet with plenty of protein, all the great protein sources we like: eggs, meat, fish, dairy, nuts, olive oil.
• 28:03
  Philip Pape: Well, olive oil is not protein, but olive oil has a fat source, nuts as a fat source.
• 28:07
  Philip Pape: I'm mixing the two, but a balanced diet, right?
• 28:10
  Philip Pape: And not trying to increase your tea by just eating more and more fat or thinking the carnivore crowd has some sort of advantage for testosterone.
• 28:17
  Philip Pape: And I think hopefully the the liver king situation and the fraud that that that was exposed there, when the fraud with Saladino and all those crackpot crazies out there is has has settled this kind of nonsense once and for all.
• 28:29
  Philip Pape: And not like I have a strong opinion on it, do I?
• 28:32
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 28:32
  Philip Pape: So if you're tracking your macros, if you're around 20 to 35% of your calories from fat, that's fine.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: That's it.
• 28:37
  Philip Pape: That's fine.
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: Focus on your energy, focus your energy on the seven levers we talked about already.
• 28:41
  Philip Pape: Focus on those.
• 28:42
  Philip Pape: All right, you don't have to fix everything today, guys.
• 28:44
  Philip Pape: Just pick one or two to get started.
• 28:46
  Philip Pape: Just pick one thing.
• 28:47
  Philip Pape: Pick one thing to get started on, commit to the next 45 days to move the needle just a little bit, one step at a time, in an achievable way.
• 28:54
  Philip Pape: Set the bar low, right?
• 28:55
  Philip Pape: Set the bar low.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: Reach out for help, use my resources, and that's it.
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep using your wits, lifting those weights.
• 29:03
  Philip Pape: And remember your hormones work for you when you give them the right symbols.
• 29:07
  Philip Pape: I'm Philip Pape, and I will talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.