Testosterone - The "T" Factor

The male hormone, Testosterone, is a key contributor to men’s health.  As Rick Collins, co-author of The Alpha Male Challenge said, “it’s what makes men, men”.  When you think about men and testosterone, the images that pop up in your mind are not very positive ones.  Hollywood and the media has portrayed men overloaded with testosterone as muscle heads, barbaric, abusive, hostile and psychotic.  It has wrongly been blamed for all negative behaviors among men.

“Testosterone, for all the good and bad publicity about it, is the hormone that makes males what they are.  It not only changes us physically, but affects us psychologically as well and, contrary to much publicity, those changes are pretty much all for the better when it comes to men; they relate to better cognitive function as we age as well as our dominant (not aggressive) attitude.  It is the “take charge and get things done” hormone” – Jack Darkes, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of South Florida

Most people know that testosterone (T) is responsible for sexual development in men and is important for libido and sexual function. However hormones, by definition, have effects throughout the body. There are testosterone receptors in nearly all tissues in the body, so this primary male hormone impacts nearly every organ system.

Testosterone influences psychological factors such as mood, memory, libido, assertiveness and confidence. It also affects physiological factors such as cholesterol levels, blood sugar which means equates to body fat and obesity.

The decline of testosterone

Studies have shown that over the past decade, men’s testosterone levels have been on the decline.  There was a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metaboliosm in January 2007 which provided evidence of a new physiological de-masculinization of the modern man. The study compared testosterone levels of three generations of men in the 80’s, 90’s and new decade and the news was quite troubling. Their study found that of the age-matched subjects, the men in the 80’s had higher average testosterone levels than the men of the 90’s, and the men of the new century have on average the LEAST testosterone of all. Simply put, testosterone levels are going down. 

Symptoms of Low Testosterone

Low libido
Decreased morning erections
Low energy or fatigue
Depressed mood
Irritability
Osteoporosis
Shrinking testicles
Loss of muscle mass or failure to gain muscle despite working out

What causes low testosterone?

Low testosterone may be caused by diseases of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland or testicles. Usually, however, low levels are the result of a natural decline with age (after the age of 40 or so) and/or lifestyle factors such as stress, physical inactivity, chronic illness, poor sleep or substance abuse (including tobacco and alcohol). To some degree this decrease in testosterone due to stress is evolutionary. The body's production of sex hormones is exquisitely sensitive to stress - be it physical or emotional. Testosterone in men drops in the face of chronic stress or anxiety, partly because the primal role of the sex hormone system is to drive reproduction. If the body senses an inability to care for itself, the last thing it wants is to produce a child needing to be taken care of in the face of such external stress. This system can't differentiate attack triggers from the daily grind in an unhappy job - it is all translated chemically in the body and ends in low testosterone production.

What are the health risks associated with low testosterone?

Low T is associated with serious diseases like osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, depression, diabetes and heart disease. Therefore it is unhealthy to leave low T untreated.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in men in the United States. Men with subnormal T levels have higher cholesterol and an increased risk of diabetes, both of which are significant risk factors for heart disease.


Need a good reason to start pumpin’ iron and eating healthier foods?
Obesity also increases the risk for diabetes and heart disease, and men with low T have more body fat. In fact, the obesity-low T link manifests as a vicious cycle. Body fat causes an increase in the conversion of testosterone into estrogen - yes, men have estrogen. In fact, a 50-year-old man has, on average, more estrogen than a post-menopausal 50-year-old woman. The more T that gets converted, the lower is the ratio of testosterone to estrogen and the more muscle mass is lost and fat is gained. This gets to be self-perpetuating.


What to do if you have Low Testosterone?
Men over 40 should have their levels of testosterone checked regularly, especially if they are experiencing any of the symptoms listed above. That level may be as important to overall health as cholesterol number or blood pressure. There are many proven ways to treat low T, under a doctor's supervision. 


Making lifestyle changes can help naturally elevated testosterone levels.  Building lean muscle can help elevate testosterone and strength training is a great place to start.  Stress plays a major role in your testosterone levels and studies have shown that regular exercise can help reduce stress and depression. 


Eating unhealthy, processed foods, fast foods, sugary snacks and beverages can cause testosterone levels to drop.  Rick Collins and James Villepigue, authors of the Alpha Male Challenge suggest eating a Paleolithic Diet which basically means you would be eating as if it were 1,000 years ago, before agriculture.

Testosterone and The Alpha Male

We established that testosterone does affect men psychologically.  It’s what separates an Alpha Male, from a Beta Male.  So, what is a True Alpha Male?  According to Rick Collins and James Villepigue, a True Alpha Male is a man who has respect, who is a leader among leaders, who doesn’t need to abuse or take advantage of other to get ahead.  A man who is healthy, strong , and confident. 

Now is the time to take a good look at your self physically and mentally.  If you are over weight, sedentary and don’t have the healthiest habits, you may be at risk of having low testosterone.  Do you think of yourself as a leader among leaders, a man who has respect, who is looked up to by others, who is healthy, strong and confident?

By making simple changes to your lifestyle, you can put yourself on the road to improved health that can bring your testosterone levels back up and not only will you look better, you will feel better physically, mentally and emotionally.

  

Sources and related articles:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/myles-spar-md/testosterone-friend-or-fo_b_479224.html

http://sharifitness.blogspot.com/2009/11/is-alpha-male-extinct_22.html

http://sharifitness.blogspot.com/2009/03/your-sexual-health-and-fitness.html

http://fittalknews.blogspot.com/2010/03/get-in-best-shape-of-your-life-with.html

Recommended Reading:

Get in the Best Shape of Your Life with James Villepigue

Listen to my FitTalk Show Interview with James Villepigue

  James Villepigue

www.jamesvillepigue.com

www.bodybyjames.com

www.alphamalechallenge.com

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with James Villepigue and he said to me “the best workout is the one you’re not currently on”.  Think about those words and the truth behind those words.

This is something James would know about.  James has been involved in the health and fitness industries for over 20 years. With one million copies of James’ books sold, he has helped many hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world—of all ages and from all walks of life—achieve extraordinary results to their body’s & their lives.

If you’re looking to sculpt your perfect body regardless if you’re new to fitness, a pro, male or female, James Villepigue’s Body Sculpting Bible series of books, The Body Sculpting Bible for Women and The Body Sculpting Bible for Men will help take you to your next fitness level.  The Body Sculpting bible books provide not only a great workout program, but also a diet that will help you shed those stubborn unwanted pounds or give you the body of a physique athlete. His Body Sculpting Bible franchise has been revered as one of the most successful fitness book lines in history.

James also co-authored the best selling book, Alpha Male Challenge, which was recently featured on FitTalk with his co-author, Mr. Rick Collins.  The Alpha Male Challenge is aimed at restoring men to true Alpha Male status – a state of optimum physical, professional, mental and social performance. This challenge is more than just a diet and workout program for men.  It’s a mindset.

I recently had James Villepigue as a guest on my FitTalk Show to talk about his books and how to they can help you get in the best shape of your life.

Weight struggles and an eating disorder

James was overweight as a child and spoke very candidly about it and how it affected him.  He was bullied and made fun of.  He developed an eating disorder and become bulimic for several years simply because he didn’t know any better.  You don’t generally think of boys/men having an eating disorder, let alone, bulimia.  James was losing a lot of weight in a short period of time.  He went from 270 lbs down to 135 lbs in a year.  He was sickly.  People thought he was doing drugs because he was so skinny.  James had had it with being heavy.  He hated being disrespected and being mistreated by not only his peers, but adults and teachers who were treating him differently from other kids who were athletes, in good shape or average.  In the eyes of other people, James was below average.

Through his experience as an overweight child, James identifies with the current child obesity crisis.  “It’s so sad.  Kids are going through this all the time.  We have an epidemic in the country not just with adults, but with children being obese.” 

Fortunately, James turned himself around and began losing weight in a safe manner.  This is what spawned his passion.  He wanted to help people.  He began to read, got certified as a trainer and went to school.

The Body Sculpting Bible

James went on to create The Body Sculpting Bible series of books.  The Body Sculpting Bible books are based on periodization training.  This is a training style that elite athletes were doing and not something the mainstream knew about.  Although the Body Sculpting Bible is a 14 day program, please don’t think that it’s a quick fix and that you’ll be in shape in 14 days. 

Periodization training is scaled up or down in the way of time.  James changes the routine every 14 days to prevent the body from adaptations and keeping the results flowing.

Weight loss and the subconscious mind

You want to be aware of resistance against weight loss self sabotage.   Be aware of your thoughts on a consistent basis.  It’s easy for the negative thoughts to sneak in and dictate where your day goes.  When you have negative thoughts, you’re directing your subconscious mind to continue on that path. If you change those thoughts to positive ones, you’re directing the subconscious mind to continue in that direction.  The subconscious mind controls your behavior.  James recommends that you map out your wants, your goals and why.  Be specific about weight loss.  I want to lose body fat.  I want to lose 10 lbs in 30 days.  Don’t just say you want to lose weight.

5 Muscular Tiers of Training

James says there are 5 muscular tiers of training that work together.  They are Resistance Training, Cardio Training, Nutrition & Supplementation, Rest & Recovery, and Mental Mindset.  These 5 pieces are crucial in order to obtain the results you expect. 

What you want to do is create a well-oiled machine which will create amazing results provided you don’t cut yourself short.  If you ate perfectly, don’t blow off your training that day or vice versa.  As for rest, you may get only 4 hours of sleep and think that you’ll be fine in the morning.  By doing that, you’re not allowing your body to recover from the workout.

When you throw your body out of whack, you will halt your results.  When you have the 5 Muscular Tiers in balance, then you have a well-oiled machine that is working efficiently and it’s a no-fail type of plan.

The Zone Tone

The mind directs our bodies.  When you’re mindless when you’re training not focused on what you’re doing with every rep and set of your workout, you’re losing energy and not getting the results you should be getting.

Zone Tone teaches you to really make the mind-muscle connection.  Over the years, James has been teaching people this through meditation, visualization, and mental imagery.  By doing this, it has helped people become more aware of the various muscles in their bodies.  Teaching people how to contract those muscles, so that when they go to the gym, they would be able to compound their efforts 5 times more had they not known how to contract the muscle.  When they were in the gym doing a specific exercise for a specific muscle, they would know exactly what to feel.

Have a Plan of Action

Most people who walk into the gym have no idea what they’re going to be doing.  They have no plan of action.  As James describes it, it’s like getting in a car in New York and saying you’re going to drive to California and just winging it.  You may get somewhere, but not to California, and if you do get to California, it may be a long, long, time from now.  When you got to the gym and you wing your workouts, how can you expect to reach your destination to achieve your goal if you don’t really know what it is and how to get there?

James maps out your plan of action in his books, The Body Sculpting Bible and Alpha Male Challenge.  Everything is mapped out for you so from the moment you walk into the gym you know exactly what you’re going to do when you hit the gym.  Follow  the workout, do it, be done, train with focus and intensity. 

Changing up your workouts

If you have been following the same workout program for more than three months and have made no changes to it and continue doing the same exercise, with t he same weights, same reps, etc., your body won’t change.  Making changes to your workout will not only give you better results, but will make a yawn, ho hum workout into one that is not only challenging, but fun.

All of the workouts in James Villepigue’s books not only give you a plan of action, but change so that you are challenged and you will get maximum results.

The Truth About Stretching

Some people say that stretching is unnecessary.  Some people think you should stretch before you workout. Some people say you should stretch after your workout.  I asked James to help set the record straight about stretching. 

Stretching is essential.  Before a workout, your muscles are like taking a rubber band out of the freezer.  They’re not as flexible or pliable.  Before your workout it’s important to get your muscles warmed up and more pliable, however, it’s not necessarily done through a static stretch.  The problem with a static stretch is that if you’re trying to stretch a cold muscle, you can injure yourself.  With a static stretch, you’re also sending a signal to the muscle telling it to relax.  So if you do this before a workout, will your muscles perform at optimum levels?  Probably not.  James recommends doing a dynamic warm up before your workout bringing blood and nutrients into the muscle.  Save the static stretching after the workout when the muscles are more pliable and resilliant.

Alpha Male Challenge

When Rick Collins and James Villepigue teamed up to create the Alpha Male Challenge, they wanted to create something that was tips from the tops in the industry.  Not just a book that says “this works”.  They brought the premiere experts in exercise science, psychology, nutrition, etc., to give their stamp of approval on this book saying “yes, this works and here’s why.”

The Alpha Male Challenge is not only innovative, but revolutionary. The plan provides 27 individual workouts in 10 weeks.  They created a 60/20/20 training principle which they call Alpha Waves.  One wave is allocated to building muscle, 60%, while 20% is directed to strength and 20% to power.  As you move into the next Alpha Wave a few weeks later, 60% is allocated to building strength, 20% towards power and 20% to preserve the muscle you worked to build.  You’re always building and preserving what you did.  

The workouts have plyometric, strength building, muscular building, and muscular endurance exercises.  The workouts don’t make you just all show.  They make you show and go, go, go, so you don’t just look the part, you cant the part.

Is the Alpha Male Extinct?

Testosterone levels of American men have been on the decline over the past 10 years.  Our fathers and grandfathers were physiologically more manly than today’s man.  Studies on this had brought about a “call to action” by the authors of this book, James Villepigue and Rick Collins. 

Let’s face it, men want to be manly.  The Alpha Male is NOT the stereotype that the media created.  He is not a bully or a club wielding man who abuses women or takes advantage of others to get ahead.  James and Rick define what a “True Alpha” is.  So what is a “True Alpha Male?”  It’s a man who has respect, who is a leader among leaders, who doesn’t need to abuse or take advantage of other to get ahead.

The book has attitudinal training such as how to build confidence, chivalry, resilience and empathy.  Men forget how to be men, particularly with the whole metro-sexual trend that was going on. 

Men need to increase and maintain their testosterone.  Testosterone is the hormone that makes men, “men”, and it affects men physically as well as psychologically and a lot of people don’t recognize that.  It doesn’t mean that you’re going to be an aggressive or overly dominant male.  If men want to be in better shape, or a better mood, they need to maintain or increase their Testosterone levels which is done naturally.

Nutrition for the Alpha Man and Woman

Like your workouts, if you really want to be on top of your nutrition, you need to have a plan of action.  You really should be preparing your foods for the week ahead.  By doing this, you’ll stay out of trouble eating the wrong things.  Yes, this does take work and not only will this keep you out of trouble, it will help you eat more frequently throughout the day to make your metabolism more efficient. 

You want to eat every 2 ½ - 3 hours to avoid running on empty and slowing doing your metabolism.  A lot of people are stressed, short on time, and end up eating one big meal at night, and by doing that, you are basically sending a signal to your brain that you’re in starvation mode.  Your body, in an attempt to protect itself from starving, is going to slow down your metabolism.  The last thing you want to do is have 1 big meal which causes an insulin rush or spike of blood sugar in your body and ultimately, your body is going to lay down more body fat.  The idea is to feed your body quality nutrients throughout the day so that your body is running more efficiently and you’re not sending the wrong signals to your brain.

James provided a simple tip when it comes to eating.  In the morning, eat like a king; in the afternoon, eat like a prince; in the evening, eat like a papuer.

You can also eat according to your activity level.  If you know you’re going to be active, eat more carbohydrates 3 hours later.  If you know you’re going to be sedentary, eat more protein 3 hours later.

Alpha Male Diet

The Alpha Male Diet is more stylized towards a Paleolithic diet which means you’re eating as if it were 10,000 years ago  before agriculture set in.  This is the way our bodies were designed to eat.  Lean meats, fish, berries, nuts, etc.  With the introduction of agriculture, over the years, we’ve been bringing all these cereal grains, high fructose corn syrup and sugar into our bodies and that’s when obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease started coming about.

The Alpha Male Challenge talks about the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 ratio – carbs to protein to fat.  Making sure you’re getting the right quality of these foods and eating them in the right timing which is important for losing body fat, building lean muscle and getting in the best shape of your life.

Putting it all together  – The 5 Muscular Tiers

If you walk into the gym with your plan of action  your workout, and you really put your mind into it and really work your muscles with each exercise, giving it everything you got, and properly fueling your body with the right nutrients, non only pre and post workout, but throughout the day, allow proper rest and recovery, you can’t help but build lean muscle and burn body fat, look better, feel better and be healthier.

For more Alpha Male Challenge check out my Is The Alpha Male Extinct? interview with co-author Rick Collins 

 I've done the Body Sculpting Bible Program and The Alpha Male Challenge Program and got great results with both programs.  Ladies, although the Alpha Male program is written for men, don't let that stop you.