A brief but comprehensive guide on naturally optimising your testosterone levels to the MAX!

Hello everyone. So given the few posts I see every now and then about fitness, and my desire to give back to the forum, I have decided to make this post about how you can raise your testosterone in a completely natural and safe way!

A short background story first. Exactly 9 weeks ago, I started lifting weights. At the same time, I started reading about naturally increasing your testosterone levels, because I wanted to see big results happen fast. And indeed, I grew so much muscle mass, people thought I had been training for a year... But we all know that the benefits of high testosterone levels go beyond just more muscles. Most of the information I will be posting will be what I absorbed from the following 3 sources:

_Tim Ferris's 4 hour body.

_Test Shock program by Christoher Walker.

_Anabolicmen.com. The best online forum I have seen on optimising testosteone levels.

Lets start. You might find my post to be a little bit disorganised. Apologies for that, but there just so much information to cram in...

Vitamin A: Has a direct positive effect on testosterone production, and along with zinc has been shown to be as effective as anabolic steroid administration in stimulating growth and puberty , the latter defined as an increase in testicular volume of 12 millimieters or more.

Vitamin D: Vitamin D, it turns out, does more than most vitamins. Once activated within the body, it acts as a steroid hormone and regulates more than 1000 vitamin D responsive genes. For detailed information on Vitamin D, please check out this link: http://anabolicmen.com/vitamin-d-testosterone/. 

I advise you all to get tested for Vitamin D3 deficiency. I personally found out I was quite deficient, and fixing this deficiency, although I was ignorant to it at the time, had the best impact on my mood levels ever after meditation. I am talking twice as happy and energetic... Anyways, for optimal health and testosterone levels, your vitamin D levels should be between 50 and 80 ng/ml. To make this happen, I personally supplemented with vitamin D3. If you choose to supplement, do not get any other form of vitamin D. Vitamin D2 is pretty much useless, it has to be Vitamin D3. 

I took 1 pill of 5000IU in the morning, and another before sleeping. This is the supplement I was taking. http://www.amazon.com/NatureWise-Vitamin-Organic-Olive-Non-GMO/dp/B00GB85JR4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431183889&sr=8-1&keywords=vitamin+D3

Vitamin K2: This will make your intake of Vitamins A & D twice as potent and effective. To get all these together, plus high quality fish oil, which also has siginificant effects on testosterone production, I supplemented with this product. 1 or 2 pills in the morning, and another 1 or 2 at night. Its quite expensive, so I will tell you how you can get the same vitamins for food. 

http://www.amazon.com/Royal-Butter-Fermented-Liver-Blend/dp/B002M06SMU/r...

If you want to get the same combination of nutrients and vitamins. Cook some 4 or 5 eggs with 100% grass fed butter. It has to be pure butter, and better if its organic. None of that margarine or butter like products! 

Eggs have high levels of Vitamins A and D. The pure butter contains high levels of Vitamin K2 and also some vitamin D on its own. Even better, eggs contain ALL the ingredients your body needs for testosterone production. Including cholesterol and fat, which are probably the most misunderstood nutrients... 

If you want to supplement with Zinc, I recommend one pill of this per day, on an empty stomach. (Dont drink milk or dairy products with it because calcium hinders zinc absorption).

http://www.amazon.com/Optimum-Nutrition-ZMA-180-Capsules/dp/B000GIQS02/r...

Excercise: Any kind of resistance training is better than none for increasing testosterone. The most testosterone increasing excercises are those which use the body weight, like pull ups and weighted pull-ups, and dips and weighted dips. In addition to excercises that use lots of muscles at the same time like Squatting, deadlifting, and bench pressing. So hit the fucking gym ;). 

Rest and Sleep: Make sure you dont overtrain yourself as that will definitely reduce your testosterone levels and overall wellbeing. Make sure to have at least 3 days a week where you dont excercise at all! And also, make sure you sleep about 8 hours a day. Things like walking and especially MEDITATION will also increase your testosterone. Obviously, stress will lower it. Stress means more chortisol, which means less testosterone. And relaxing means less chortisol and more testosterone....

Water: Drink lots of water, that goes without saying. I drink about a liter of water when I get out of bed and leave a break of 45 minutes before I start eating actual food. A good remark: Dont drink lots of water at the same time when your stomach is full of food, as you will exhaust your stomach. Water dilutes the digestive juices... So drink your doses of water about 30 min or 1 hour after you eat. 

Diet: When it comes to testosterone production, the least important nutrient is protein! So whatever your fitness goals are, DO NOT decrease your intake of fats and carbohydrates. I will talk about about the sources as well. My diet is prettymuch 1/3 carbs, 1/3 fat, and 1/3 protein.

Carbs: For carbs, the best source would be potatoes! Try not to eat any form of pasta, bread, or rice! Sounds dramatic I know. So bottom line, eats lots of potatoes! Even better, eat sweet potatoes, as they have high concentrations of Vitamin A, Some Vitamin Bs, Iron, and the carbs you need.

Eggs: Mentioned above. Make it the cornerstone of your diet.

Avocadoes: Amazing superfood. Contains massive amounts of monosaturated fat, folic acid, and lots of other good vitamins.

Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli: Contains high doses of DIM, a substance which decreases estrogen.

Red Meat: Much better if grass fed. Steaks and lamb and things like that will do amazing shit for you testosterone production. They contain all the fat you need, and lots of zinc. 

Organic bacon: Will do amazing shit as well, due to the saturated fat and cholesterol it contains. MAKE SURE ITS ORGANIC THOUGH! The normal bacon will have estrogens and steroids deposited in it. It will do you more harm than good.

Organic celery: Celery is one of the best testosterone boosting foods, as it’s being said that even the scent of it can trigger the testosterone production process inside male testes.

 

It’s known to contain several androgens, including the androtestrone which just so happens to be a precursor of testosterone.

Again, the normal celery will have endocrine-disruptors that do more harm to your testosterone than good. There is much more information about testosterone boosting food here:

http://anabolicmen.com/50-foods-that-boost-testosterone-levels/.

Some things which should go into your diet:

Take 3 brazil nuts in the morning and 3 at night. As these will contain the selenium you need. Dont take any more than this though!

Eat 60g of raw almonds per day. This will supply you with the required dose of vitamin E and IT WILL SKYROCKET YOUR LIBIDO!

LIBIDO: I should say that beyond 400 ng/dl of testosterone (The normal range is 250-750), the additional testosterone will not have signifacnt impact on increasing your libido (sex-drive). All the other benefits will persist though. If you want to increase your sex drive after that, you'd have to focus more on increasing your LH hormone (which will skyrocket from your almonds ;).

Fat Percentage: Do not crash diet, as that will burn your testosterone to the ground. That said, having low body fat is one of the most important factors in increasing testosterone. But to do so safely, measure the calorie intake you need to maintain the exact waight you have right now. Then decrease that calorie intake by 200 only! Following the rules we layed out earlier about the ratios of fat/carbs/protiens.

Intermittent fasting: According to the guy who writes the anabolicmen.com forum, Intermittant fasting was one of the main factors of his testosterone optimisation. The way you can do it is just dont eat anything between 9pm and 1 pm the next day, or 10pm and 2 pm. You can drink as much water as you can in your fasting periods of course. If you want optimal results, go to the gym right before you break your fast!

I could write more, but this is enough for now. Hope you guys find it useful and let me know if you have any questions!

Grenade