{"id":7799,"date":"2013-04-16T13:30:17","date_gmt":"2013-04-16T17:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leehayward.com\/blog\/?p=7799"},"modified":"2013-04-16T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T17:30:17","slug":"the-importance-of-testosterone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leehayward.com\/blog\/the-importance-of-testosterone\/","title":{"rendered":"The Importance of Testosterone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attention Men<\/u> – This is a “Must Read” Article because it contains some very important information about Testosterone, Sex Drive, and How To Preserve Both!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

Hey there, it’s your muscle building coach Lee Hayward here and I’ve got a very important article that you should read.<\/p>\n

It’s about The Importance of Testosterone, Sex Drive, and How To Preserve Both.<\/p>\n

This is a guest article written by John Romaniello who is the author of the brand new book:<\/p>\n

Man 2.0: Engineering The Alpha<\/a><\/strong><\/u> <<--Click Here to check it out<\/em><\/p>\n

This is an amazing book that was forwarded and endorsed by the governator himself, the great Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/u> himself!<\/p>\n

\"Engineering<\/a>
\n

Click Here<\/u><\/a> to see a quick intro video explaining what this book is all about.<\/center><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How I Lost My Mojo (and Got it Back)<\/em><\/b><\/font>
\nBy John Romaniello<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

There’s a problem that men facing across the world \u2014
\na problem that few people are talking about, but a great
\nmany are experiencing. This problem needs a solution, but
\nmore than anything, it requires awareness. The problem,
\nvery simply, is that men are dying; at least, metaphorically.
\nTheir manhood is dying.<\/p>\n

Men are less manly. That’s not an opinion; it’s a fact.
\nIf you want to be a little more scientific and a little
\nless dramatic about it, testosterone levels are dropping
\nrapidly. And not just in older men; whereas decades ago,
\nthis was thought only to affect men in their late 30’s
\nand beyond, it’s now beginning to affect men as young
\nas 22. It’s so bad that researchers from Massachusetts
\nfound that the average man’s testosterone (not just older men)<\/em>
\nhas dropped 22% in the last 20 years, and that one out of
\nevery four men has below average testosterone. If those
\nfacts don’t scare you, if the fact that it’s very possible
\nthat you’re suffering from low T doesn’t scare you,
\nthen you may not know all of the devastating effects
\nthis condition can have.<\/p>\n

To help explain why this issue is so important, and help
\nillustrate just how impactful it can be, I’d like to tell
\nyou a story\u2014and a very personal story at that. It’s the story
\nof how I lost an important part of myself, and eventually got
\nit back. It’s a story about how I had work around a common
\nmedical condition, and take matters into my own hands to
\nsolve it. It’s story about how I lost one of the defining
\ncharacteristics of my masculinity, and about my journey to
\nreclaim it. And this is the first time I’m sharing it publicly.<\/p>\n

Despite all the content I’ve written and all of the articles
\nI’ve published, one of the things I’ve never really discussed
\nis how, at 25 years old, in the prime of my youth,
\nI personally struggled with low testosterone \u2014 and the way
\nit manifested itself was with low sex drive<\/strong>. Today, I’d like
\nto share the story of how I fixed it; and how in my journey
\nto do so, discovered how epidemic this problem truly was
\n\u2014 how my passion for this issue led me to write a book about it.<\/p>\n

During the course of this story, you’ll learn how this
\ndevastating issue might be affecting you; how it’s potentially
\nresponsible for lack of energy, or depression, or the nagging
\nfeeling that you’re aging faster a bit too quickly.
\nAnd, of course, you’ll learn what you can do about it.<\/p>\n

Let’s Begin at the Beginning…<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

I was 25 years old and had spent the majority of my
\nadolescent and young adult life as a very sexual being.
\nLike most young guys, to an extent, I defined myself by
\nmy aspects of sexuality \u2014 my virility, desirability, and
\nperformance all factored into my assessment of who I was
\nas a man. Before you judge me too harshly, I blame evolution
\nfor this. Feeling actualized as a sexual being is a factor
\nin self-esteem; this is just one of the idiosyncrasies of
\nbeing human. While it certainly applies to women, for men,
\nthe relationship between self-esteem and sexuality is
\nespecially strong. It’s been shown that this is just one
\nof the (many)<\/em> complications that comes of being born with
\na penis. Put another way, from the perspective of
\nevolutionary psychology, your manhood and your,
\num, manhood are indelibly tied together.<\/p>\n

Evolution and psychology notwithstanding, speaking purely
\npersonally, my sexual identity was part of my overall
\nidentity. And then one day it was gone. It may have been
\na gradual decline that I didn’t notice, but it felt like
\nstepping off a cliff. I simply woke up one morning and didn’t
\nwant to have sex. And, I don’t just mean with my girlfriend
\n(which I could have written off as relationship boredom),<\/em>
\nbut with anyone.<\/p>\n

Sex was no longer interesting to me. Not just uninteresting,
\nbut also unappealing to the point of revulsion. The thought
\nof a woman touching me made my skin crawl. If you’ve
\nexperienced low sex drive, you can relate; all of the
\npeople I’ve spoken to in my interviews for the book
\nreported a similar feeling. (If you’ve never experienced it,
\nthe best way I can describe to you is the feeling of being
\nreally full to the point of nauseous, and then someone you
\ncare about trying to feed a home cooked meal… and then
\ngetting really upset when you didn’t want to eat it.)<\/em>
\nThese subjects also discussed the feelings of shame and guilt
\nassociated with low sex drive\u2014shame for not wanting sex,<\/strong>
\nguilt for the way it made their partners feel.<\/p>\n

At first, I was bothered by the void\u2014the hole left by not
\nwanting sex, and all the extra time on my hands from not
\nhaving it. For a time, I wanted to want sex. Eventually,
\nit stopped bothering me. Then, in moments of reflection,
\nin the early hours of the night when I was pretending to be
\nasleep in an effort to avoid another conversation about it,
\nI was bothered about not being bothered about it. And then
\nthat stopped too. From that point on, I watched with a
\nstrange sort of detached bemusement as the ramifications
\nof my condition tainted piece after piece of my life.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, my relationship was one of the casualties.
\nAfter nearly eight months of incredibly infrequent and
\nprobably lackluster sex, my lady and I called it quits.
\nA dearth of sex is dangerous in any relationship, as it leads
\nto lack of intimacy and a widening fissure between partners.
\nSome relationships can survive that; mine couldn’t. She’d had
\nenough of feeling unwanted and unattractive, and I’d had
\nenough of feeling guilty about making her feel that way.<\/p>\n

This happens more than you can imagine, and as covered in a
\n2009 piece in a New York Times blog, psychologists see over
\nand over that when stops in a relationship, the couple begins
\nto struggle with lessening intimacy\u2014and the longer that
\nrelationship goes without sex, the harder it is to reclaim
\nintimacy. For many couples, that starts with testosterone.
\nFor this reason and a host others, low T can cause depression,
\nlack of ambition, and even thoughts of suicide. It didn’t go
\nquite that far for me, thankfully, but it certainly wasn’t fun.<\/p>\n

Here’s the truly scary part: I didn’t actually know I had
\nlow testosterone. I had no idea what was causing the issue;
\nall I knew is that I wasn’t who I had been. I had lost not
\njust one part of myself, but several\u2014because the fact is,
\nsex drive is strongly tied to all drive. When it drops,
\nso too does your ambition, and your motivation to achieve
\nthat ambition. For me, it felt like I’d become a different
\nperson, a lesser man. Without exaggeration, ever part of my
\nlife was negatively affected: my relationships, my sleep
\npatterns, and my physique\u2014even my productivity and business
\nwere all hampered.<\/p>\n

Eventually, I spoke to a friend of mine who suggested I get
\nmy testosterone levels checked. They were low, in a relative
\nsince\u2014certainly lower than they should have been at my age.
\nI measured less than 400ng\/dl. This is right about the point
\nwhere research suggests many men begin to experience symptoms
\nof low T. Unfortunately, that still fell within the range
\nof “normal”<\/em>, because that range of is so vast. Depending on
\nwhich lab you get tested at, “average”<\/em> can be from as low as
\n260ng\/dl (nanograms per decaliter) to as high as 1080ng\/dl).
\nMeaning, that if you’re at around 800ng\/dl and your
\ntestosterone falls by 50%, you’re still within the
\n“reference range”<\/em>, and therefore, not be considered low.
\n(As a related aside, this is something I humbly suggest
\nneeds to addressed by the medical community.)<\/em><\/p>\n

The problem for me personally became that I was in a strange
\ngrey area \u2014 I was low enough to be experiencing a ton of
\nsymptoms, but too high to qualify for treatment of any kind.
\nMy doctor advised me that while my levels were low for my age,
\nthey were still technically normal, and I just had to deal
\nwith it. Very rarely has stupider medical advice been given.
\nI had to take matters into my own hands, and had two choices:
\nI could either simply procure illegal testosterone and
\nstart injecting it, or figure out a way to increase T levels
\nnaturally. Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t briefly
\nconsider the former, in the end I’m happy to report I went
\nwith the latter.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the next several months, I dove into all
\nthe literature I could find and started making a lifestyle
\noverhaul. My sex drive returned\u2014rather rapidly. In 6 weeks
\nI felt different. After 12, I got tested again, and my
\ntestosterone levels had literally doubled\u2014doubled!
\nI was productive again. I started dating. I reclaimed
\nmy physique and liked the way I looked again.
\nI felt ALIVE again.<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

As you might imagine, I was struck by how well it worked,
\nand how simple it had been, once I knew what to do. And I
\ndecided that eventually, I would write a book about it \u2014
\nbecause I felt that men truly needed it. In the process of
\nmy research, for both my personal use and the book, I came
\nto realize just how much men need it, how epidemic this
\nproblem really is.<\/p>\n

The goal of Man 2.0<\/u><\/a> has been, from the outset, to not only
\nprovide a solution to a huge problem, but also to create
\nawareness of it. This article will certainly create some
\nawareness, but I’d like to use this platform to provide a
\nsolution. While I can’t be as starkly informative as I am in
\nthe book, below you’ll find three high-yield tips to naturally
\nincrease your testosterone and improve your sex drive.<\/p>\n

How to Increase Testosterone Naturally<\/b><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

– Reduce Carbohydrate Intake
\n<\/strong>
\nMore and more, it’s becoming obvious that high carbohydrate
\ndiets are a pretty bad idea for the majority of people.
\nIn this specific case, as usual, the reason is insulin;
\nalthough insulin is produced when you eat any food, the
\ninsulin response to carbohydrates is significantly greater
\nthan the response to fat or protein. Insulin affects your
\ntestosterone and sex drive in a number of ways.<\/p>\n

Firstly, production of insulin halts secretion of growth
\nhormone, which potentiates testosterone production. Secondly,
\nchronically elevated insulin levels have been show to
\nincrease the likelihood of erectile dysfunction.<\/p>\n

Limiting carbohydrate in helps to reduce the production
\nof insulin, and help avoid the sexual issue that can arise.<\/p>\n

Reduce Your Body Fat<\/strong><\/p>\n

As if your really needed another reason to bring your bodyfat
\ndown\u2014because, you know, diabetes and heart disease just aren’t
\nscary enough\u2014men with lower levels of body fat are consistently
\ntested with higher testosterone. Conversely, men with higher
\nbodyfat have greater levels of estrogen. This piece mentions
\nthe relationship between testosterone and bodyfat, but suffice
\nit to say that getting leaner will improve your T levels and
\nsex drive. But, since you’re going to follow the first tip
\nand lower carbs, losing body fat won’t be an issue,
\nso you’re set.<\/p>\n

Increase Dietary Fat Intake\u2014Especially Saturated Fat<\/strong><\/p>\n

For years, people have been afraid of fat and cholesterol,
\ndespite the fact that avoiding them seems not to be slowing
\nthe growth of the obesity epidemic at all. Gripes aside, fat
\nisn’t just “not that bad”<\/em> for you – it’s far healthier than
\nyou’ve been led to believe.<\/p>\n

Further is study is needed to confirm this, but seems likely
\nthat the “health issues”<\/em> that are sometimes thought to be
\ncorrelated with high dietary fat and cholesterol intake are
\nprobably more do to other lifestyle factors. For example,
\ndespite the fact that high fat intake has been linked to
\nheart disease, the recent popularity of the Paleo diet has
\nproduced a tremendous amount of anecdotal evidence that
\npeople on higher fat, lower carbohydrate diets do not seem
\nto experience a radical increase in cholesterol \u2014 particularly
\nwhen this diet is combined with exercise.<\/p>\n

In fact, often times cholesterol levels go down.
\nMost importantly, the ratio of HDL:LDL tends to improve,
\nas do other markers of health, like total triglyceride count,
\nwhich decreases.<\/p>\n

More importantly, concern about “high cholesterol”<\/em> is
\ngenerally overblown, because cholesterol is largely
\nmisunderstood. Something to consider is that cholesterol
\nis actually a pre-cursor to all sex hormones\u2014including
\ntestosterone. And so, for men looking to increase
\ntestosterone and sex drive, avoiding dietary fat
\nand cholesterol is a bad idea. In fact, it’s been suggested
\nthat increasing cholesterol increases testosterone.<\/u><\/p>\n

Wanna safeguard your sex drive? Bring on the bacon!<\/em><\/p>\n

Final Thoughts…<\/strong><\/p>\n

As I mentioned above, low sex drive is a harrowingly trying
\nproblem to deal with, and it’s more common than you think,
\nbecause low Testosterone is truly epidemic. And while
\ndeceased libido is, for most men, an unavoidable
\nconsequence of low testosterone, what’s not inevitable
\nis the drop in T.<\/p>\n

The first thing you need to do: get tested. Even if you’re
\nnot currently experiencing any of the symptoms, you should
\nat least know your T levels so that you have a baseline
\nof comparison for the future. From there, follow the above
\ntips to start taking control of your body and creating a
\nhormonal environment that will facilitate a healthy,
\nwell-balanced life\u2014one that includes sex.<\/p>\n

—————————–<\/p>\n

If you would like to get a copy of John’s new book;
\n\"Engineering
\n

Man 2.0: Engineering The Alpha<\/u><\/a><\/center> <\/p>\n

Just watch the intro video below and you’ll see what it’s all about as well as get several extra freebie bonuses that will help you jack your natural T levels and live your life to the fullest.<\/p>\n

\"Watch<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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