I already blogged last time about why you should train with me.

So now, I am just going to write about “why” you should train period, but I’m coming from a different, more specific angle. Baby boomers, or men as young as over 30, this is crucial information that can increase your health as well as save you tons of cash, now and in the long term! Ladies, scroll down to the very bottom for a picture of what natural levels testosterone in the female body can do for you, and why following the same plan as your cave-dwelling other half will have you looking slimmer, sexier and healthier 🙂

DO YOU SUFFER FROM LOW TESTOSTERONE?
If you are in your teens, early 20’s, have a nice day, you are dismissed (for most of you).
If you’re on the wrong side of 40, and even somewhere near, you should read this.
Yes, women too!
If you have man boobs, lower libido, excess body fat, no muscle tone, decreased confidence, are not in the same you were in your 20’s (which is hard to maintain, I know, but you can still look amazing if you do something about it) and you let coworkers walk all over you and never stand up for yourself, you probably are experiencing “low T”. Behavior, schmehavior. If you’ve been like that your whole life, you may just have been screwed when testosterone was handed out, like I’ve been every time I try to go get the new iPhone 4S!

WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT?
Back to my 4 pillars: exercise, nutrition, environment, hormones.
They all link together. Remove one, the rest falls apart, or falls short.
Exercise: you have to pick the right intensity to boost the secretion of testosterone, by stimulating the right parts of your brain (hypothalamus, pituitary glands). A typical (and thank God the trend is changing into facts rather than fashion) weight loss of low weights and treadmill is NOT the right thing to do to raise your testosterone.
Nutrition: The right kinds of foods help boost T levels naturally. Examples are celery, bananas, avocado, raw unsalted nuts, asparagus, basil, garlic, figs, whole eggs, lean organic meats to name a few. My vegan friends can be very happy up until I mentioned eggs, and vegetarians until I mentioned meats. So, you can raise those levels too!
Environment: get some sun! 30-60 minutes a day will help your body “luteinize” which is a precursor to testosterone. Make more lutein, make more testosterone. You need at least 1000 lux a day (lux: SI of illuminance, equal to 1 lumen per square meter). An office gets you about 500 lux a day. The sun produces 50,000 to 100,000!
Hormones: well, as you can see, that’s directly related to all of the above. Skip one, you’re throwing off the entire hormonal chain. Or, supplement poorly with inadequate hormone replacement therapy and the balance is off. Good therapy, on the other hand, is great if you’ve exhausted all options, but replacement therapy is that: replacement, not supplementation. It means you can never stop once you start, or the balance is off (again) and it’s very, very expensive ($500-$1000/month, not counting the lab tests and screenings to determine what amounts you should take).

WHAT ELSE CAN I DO?
Watch “guy flicks”. Seriously. Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, John Wayne, Bruce Lee, Charles Bronson were never accused of being sissies. Didn’t you ever feel pumped up after watching any Rocky movie? You can watch your favorite football team, but if they lose, you drop your T-levels too!

Avoid Dr. Phil and Project Runway. I know you can get easily suckered in. Walk away, turn on your iPod to some metal, download something cool and kick ass and watch it on your computer.

If your shampoo has paraben, laurel sulfate, F&DC yellow, trash it now! Those are respectively xeno estrogens that you’re rubbing in, toxins that cause infertility (and may even cause women to not carry full term) and penetrators so it can get into your blood stream!

Eat like a man: a low fat high fiber diet, commonly perceived as good for weight loss, is even more effective at dropping your testosterone levels too. You need fat, natural fat (mono and omegas for instance, stay away from trannies, I mean, trans fats). Oh yeah, and lift like one too!

Stop self-defeat right now! Most of what you do is driven by fear, your reptilian brain, also called the resistance. Stop looking at what you DON’T have and look at what you’re great at. Take that, and do more of it. Why? Cause great begets great, and you are engraining that behavior, which in turn helps you rebuild some confidence, which helps you boost your feel-good hormones, which make you want to conquer the world and yaddah yaddah yaddah…

Now, ladies, I promised you a picture. Be natural, be feminine, and be not afraid. I promise, on my son’s life.