Tips to Increase Testosterone Levels

Tips to Increase Testosterone Levels

It’s no secret that testosterone one they key hormones behind looking and feeling our best. It’s associated with lower levels of fat mass, high quantities of muscle and increased physical performance.

 

Yet, many men actually have much lower testosterone levels than what’s optimal or even considered healthy. In fact, around 1 in 40 men over the age of 30 have low testosterone levels, affecting around 4 to 5 million men in the U.S. alone. The natural healthy range is generally defined as being between 400ng/dl (nanograms per decilitre) to 800ng/dl with anything below 300ng/dl being considered ‘low’. Just some of the symptoms that low testosterone can cause are poor sleep, increased fat storage, muscle breakdown, decreased motivation, depression, reduced sexual libido, infertility, and much more. Therefore, not only can low testosterone affect the way you look, but the way you feel, too.

 

What’s the cause?  And can we increase testosterone levels? Well, there are actually a variety of reasons why our testosterone might decline. The most prevalent reason is age. Once we get past thirty our natural testosterone levels start to decline. According to a 2010 paper, between 19 and 39 percent of men over the age of 45 have low levels of this important hormone.

 

The other big influencer is the way we live. Under exercising and overeating dramatically affect the response and production of our hormones. Not only eating too much food but eating the wrong foods is an easy way to lower your health in a number of ways. The modern western diet is based around convenience opposed to nutrition which means that there’s a high amount of processed food.

 

Thankfully, this also means there’s an easy way to raise our testosterone back to normal or take it even higher. First, make sure that you’re getting enough physical activity each week. 3-4 45-60 minute sessions per week is enough. Strength training has been shown to have a greater impact on raising testosterone than cardo, so it’s wise to make sure a majority of your time is spent resistance training. In terms of your diet, try to follow the 80/20 rule. This is where 80% of your intake is natural, whole and unprocessed food whilst saving 20% for some less-nutritious indulgences.

 

Lastly, you can also try including some testosterone boosting supplements. Supplements such as d-aspartic acid, vitamin D, Tribulus Terrestris, fenugreek, DHEA, and ashwagandha have all been associated with naturally increasing testosterone levels.

 

Testosterone is strongly linked to many aspects of our health and therefore, it really all comes down to common sense. Things we tend to think are unhealthy for us usually are.


Interviewing Ben Greenfield, high performance athlete and the author of Beyond Training

 

It was such a pleasure interviewing Ben Greenfield at the BioHack Summit in London, with Vy from High Achiever Diets.

Here is a summary of our interview with Ben Greenfield, who is amongst the top 100 most influential individual in the fitness industry and a New York Times best seller author. Check out his amazing book, beyond training!

What would you say is one key Bio-Hack any athlete could do to increase performance?

Get extremely resilient to cold temperatures because it shocked me at world champions to see how many people dropped off, had to stop, didn’t finish or got severely slowed down from a simple cold water plunge at the top of the mountain there, that frankly was not that big of a deal. The human nervous system should handle swimming through a cold pool at top of the mountain and getting off and running. It’s not that hard, it’s just that we are broken and nervous system are broken too. And if you expose yourself to cold every day for 5 or 10 minutes that’s all it takes.

How do you get used to or get comfortable in the cold?

Here is where we take a deeper diver. If you are just using cold to calm your nervous system that’s not enough. There are literally dozens of way that you can increase vagal nerve tone. Meditation prayer, breath work, gargling, music, UV light, UV Read More


Finding time for fitness – Part 1

I talk about time management often here. The truth is, with the correct time management you will be surprised how much you can do in a day!

With time management comes success and discipline.

Before you start time management, you need to monitor your daily habits. You can do this by timing each of your activities. This can be done using a stopwatch or an apps. aTimeLogger is my favorite, which can keep track of your activities.

Monitor your daily habits and doing so you may be surprised how much time you are wasting! One of my clients was shocked to discover she was wasting up to 10 hours a day on trivial things. This was someone who always complained she has no time to exercise.

Here are some of the typical activities that you may be spending more time on than you think:

TV: Most people will switch on the TV to “relax” for a “bit” or catch up on a specific program. Most likely you will spend more time on the TV that originally planned and you won’t even realise this has become a habit. TV is a perfect distraction machine. You are very likely to watch a random program that follows after your intended program. And if it is news, or a documentary, you fool yourself into thinking you are becoming educated by watching the program, and it is necessary.

Things to time using your stopwatch or App include:

  • Shower and bath durations
  • Social media browsing
  • WhatsApp and other messaging services
  • TV / Netflix and other online streaming websites
  • YouTube and other video sharing websites
  • Sleep
  • Cooking and eating
  • Cleaning
  • Commuting
  • Emails
  • News
  • Shopping

Monitor and write down the duration of these activities for a week. After you have some data, try to find a way to cut down the time spent on each activity.

Unfortunately, this could seem very hard at fist. It is most likely that the excess time spent on all the above activities has already become a habit.

Set yourself new daily rituals. Don’t try to get rid off all your bad habits at once. Start with spending 5 minutes less on each activity and cut down daily.

If self-control is hard for you, switch off your Internet access few hours a day to avoid wasting time on social media. Read a book instead or exercise. You can download and print our offline workout guides.

Remember, always plan your day ahead. Set your rituals, set the time you will workout tomorrow and change can happen. You need to be consistent.

Good luck

If you found this article useful, please share it so that someone else can benefit.


No time to train? Leonardo Da Vinci did!

No time to train? Are you busy?

How often have you heard “I don’t have time for…”, or have you used it yourself?

Do you think Leonardo Da Vinci ever said it? Probably not. Yet days have not been getting any shorter.
We all have, and always have had, 24 hours in a day.
Time is not important, it’s what you do with it that counts.
Just 20 minutes a day is enough to maintain a fit and healthy body

Can you say with hand on heart that you honestly don’t have time to set aside 20 minutes in a day?

Just a glance at your YouTube history will prove you a liar.
Have a look at your Facebook log. Also take a look at your WhatsApp / SnapChat history.

You know the culprits
If you really want to exercise, you will find a way. If you don’t really want to, you’ll find excuses. Have a look at the Excuse Blanket.

We are all naturally lazy. Don’t be ashamed of it. We all take the easy road, it’s part of our nature.

People who say “I don’t have time for fitness”, would probably, on analysing their reality of the situation, would see that they are deluding themselves.
With a little honest introspection, they would come to see that the excuses they make is just that, excuses. Their excuses become a blanket to hide under when the exercise monster arrives.

Have you ever said to yourself one of these things:

But it will take 30 minutes to get to the gym?
But it will take about 30 minutes to just drive to the gym!
But the gym is expensive and I am trying to save money!
But it’s not just the workout, you will need to eat after the workout, you will need to take a shower and you need to change your clothes 3 times!

My response to the contents of your excuse blanket is, don’t go to the gym.
You can do high intensity exercises home. You don’t need any equipment.

The shower and eating excuses are very silly. Don’t you have to take a shower and eat regardless of exercising?

With the right nutrition and constant training your recovery times will reduce dramatically. So if this is your issue, the only way it can get fixed, is by training more.

Running is also free! Well, almost! All you need are a pair of trainers. I’m sure most people can afford a basic pair of trainers. I do recommend investing in a good pair if you can afford it.

Some people have an intricately woven excuse blanket. If you don’t have one click here to buy one

Next time you tell yourself you’ve got no time, think like Leonardo Da Vinci. Like everyone else, you will have 20 minutes to spare.
You need to make sure that you invest in your body, because it is the best investment you will ever make.
Stay fit.
Sam


Habits of fit people – part one

Five habits of fit people

Habits of sixpack fitness. Abs of fire 5 habits

 

Fit these five habits into your daily life and you are five steps closer to full health and fitness.

 

1) Ultra Hydration

There are plenty of reasons to drink water, as I am sure, you have heard that around 60% of your body is made out of water. So logically makes sense that water plays such important role in your health.

You have more water in your body than a fish. Fish don’t sweat, but you do, especially when you exercise. When you sweat, you lose water and a loss of water causes muscle fatigue.

Water also slows down the aging process by keeping your skin healthy and slowing down the wrinkling process. Muscle fatigue is not the most damaging aspect of water loss, your kidneys can suffer too. Fit people drink plenty of water.

 

2)Fit without excuse

 When did you settle for an excuse rather than a workout?

  • Too many dumplings, too few dumbbells.
  • Muscle’s spraining, I’ll do no training
  • Mood is no good, I’ll hit the snooze
  • I’m just too busy, can’t get too fizzy

Don’t listen to excuses. All the above are just excuses.

A good athlete knows these are just excuses and it is guaranteed that 99% of the time he will be very happy that he didn’t listen to his excuses.

Even with minor injuries, you can still train other parts of the body or at least do some stretching.

 

3)Time Managers

 Schedule your food intakes to maintain high energy levels and avoid feeling sluggish.

You cannot exercise without Energy, neither can you with a full stomach .

You need to make sure you have had no food

 

 4)Protocol is no alcohol

 Athletes are very careful what they drink. If they are on a night out, they will stay away from high calorie alcohol with high sugar content such as cider and beer.

Alcohol intake will leave you dehydrated the next day and can cause your energy levels to be lower than usual.

 

5)They don’t sit at the bar, they raise the bar.

Being fit fit is a lifestyle.

Have you heard the expression, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with” ?

Friends who catch up at bars have lower fitness levels than friends who catch up through physical activities.

 

In a nutshell

 More than 60% of your body is made out of water. Water also helps remove toxic substances from your body and it’s the logical action to drink plenty of water.

If you don’t feel like exercising, ask yourself why. Understand that 99% of excuses are just that, excuses. You will be surprised how much satisfaction you’ll get out of a workout. Your working out will release endorphins in your brain (The Happy hormone)

Eat 2 to 3 hours before your workout.

Drink alcohol occasionally, and only if you plan on having a rest day the following day.

Try to find places other than the pub to meet your friends.


Live by your Gym – Avoid wasting time commuting

Are you throwing away 450 training session a year? I was.

My gym was just 20 minutes away but in a year I discovered I had lost over 450 potential training sessions seating in my car.

How many calories do you burn driving to the gym? How many calories does the car burn?

Had I walked to the gym, I could have benefited from 40 minutes extra training on each visit, but I chose to sit in a car when I should have chosen a gym nearer home.

Sometimes it was even worse, I wasted over an hour because of the traffic. I spent £3 on petrol on every visit to the gym. Minimum wage per hour is around £6 after tax and NI deduction. Meaning if I was on minimum wage, I would be wasting another 30 minutes, as I had to work 30 minutes in order to pay for my petrol. That is not even taking into account my car insurance, taxation and stuff.

So in theory, I will be spending a total of 156 hours working, to earn money to cover the cost of traveling to my gym.

Taking into account a very optimistic 10 minutes, for getting dressed, getting in the car, parking the car, changing at gym, not even taking into account the shower time, then you are wasting 26 days each year on the gym journey alone. All that adds up to 468 hours. I forgot to mention the hours you have to work to pay for your gym membership too.

In my opinion, if your gym is more than 15 minutes’ drive away, your wasting too much training time.

There is one exception, if you can make the journey part of your workout, e.g. run or cycle to and from the gym, then you are not wasting any time.

If your journey takes a total of 30 minutes by car, here are some ways you could have better used those lost 30 minutes:

  • Tidy up the house
  • Prepare a meal
  • Watch an episode of SouthPark
  • Work on your mobility
  • Do a full Yoga workout
  • Do a high intensity CrossFit workout

 

Thirty minutes travel means 3 hours a week. In three hours you can:

Edit several video clips

Design a fully functional WordPress website from scratch

Do your grocery shopping followed by a haircut

Read several chapters of an average size book

Watch Star Wars

Prepare your meals for the whole week

Each minute of travel equals to …. Hours lost in a week.

If your gym is a long way away, but you really want to go, I suggest working out away from the gym half the time and spending the other half using the gym.

There are plenty of workouts which can be done outside the gym. These include body weight workouts and cardiovascular workouts such as running and cycling.

Find more home workouts on our home workout section.

For the purposes of this article, days are calculated as 18 workout hours, 8 sleep hours and 6 workouts per week.

 

 

 

 


How to get started and navigate through AbsOnFire

Quick tips on where to start 

You OWN a six pack ab already! You just need to shed off the excess fat! In theory it’s really that simple.  Let’s set them abs on fire! Keep reading and I guarantee you WILL get your 6pack abs in no time following these instructions.
If you are a total beginner, or not worked out for a long time, lacking motivation to start or too lazy, then read this article first

 

We have put together a number of effective and popular workouts in the form of a video. If you would like to browse through our workout videos, then click here

Before you jump into the exercises, it’s always a good idea to stretch! Check out this section for some simple stretches. Make sure you stretch your neck before every workout! Check this out for 3 simple neck stretches.

We are working on a new video series, called “Food Shopping With”. We basically find some healthy and fit people, and follow them around on their normal grocery shopping and get some tips. Our first guest was M-Daddy AKA Merdi. He used to obese and then transformed himself, maybe going a bit too far, he became anorexic, but managed to save himself on time. check out the interview we had with Merdi here.