Fat And Libido

tanneron

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I'm confused about the relationship of fat to a robust libido. I've read conflicting views here. Some report that an ultra-low fat diet with high protein and high carbs make the libido skyrocket. Others have written that low libido is a sign of low fat, and that in order for libido to increase fat intake must increase. Apparently Peat recommends a high of 60g of fat. And other places I've seen a recommendation of 100-150g of fat.

So please give me some clarity here. It seems that more people are experiencing a libido boost with very low fat diets, at levels far lower than the 60g minimum that Peat seems to recommend. I'm at at moderately low fat level now. Breakfast is usually about 13g of fat, and I'll add another 10-20g of fat through lunch and dinner. I'm thinking of cutting out fat after breakfast, but should I? And what about Peat's recommendation of 60g minimum?

I need some clarity. Thanks.
 

Tenacity

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My libido was best at 60g of fat, although I'm currently experimenting with 40g and it seems fine.
 

milk_lover

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I think high fat might increase serotonin, thus lower libido. Try to find the best fat intake where you don't get serotonin symptoms like diarrhea or stomach ache or general anxiety.
 

natedawggh

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It's both. :) But the exact explanation is that all fat lowers testosterone somewhat or a lot. Saturated fat stabilizes mitochondria and can help increase testosterone if it's low (but might lower T if T is high). PUFAs destabilize mitochondria and must be avoided to increase T. So if you have a high level of PUFAs on your body, having saturated fat in the diet will be more beneficial than doing a low-fat diet. The way to tell is just how you feel. If you attempt a low-fat diet (and you have plenty of protein and carbs) but you don't feel good (achy, irritated, restless), then you need to keep saturated fat in your diet. If you do a low fat and you feel calm and pleasant, and experience an increase in libido then you can do low fat. Low fat is NOT necessary to increase libido, and keeping the balance of your dietary fat to fully saturated (and the few monounsaturated exceptions) will restore libido. I myself experience a large increase in libido doing a low fat diet, and wrote about it on my blog: How To Do A Low-Fat Diet
 

TheHound

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what are ways to replace fat intake with carbs and protein? I consume about 4000 calories a day and my fat intake is like 130-140 grams or something. It seems hard to eat this much while doing lower fat
 

Jayfish

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Inflammation is a libido killer. You can eat a range of fat and have great testosterone and libido, just be sure that inflammation is as low as possible.
 
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Sex hormones are made from cholesterol which is made by the liver from fructose, not fat. Libido has more to do with your personal sex life than it does eating "fat." What kind of relationship are you in? Are you single? Do you masturbate daily? Have you taken birth control or testosterone before? Are you monogamous or do you have multiple partners? What medications/drugs do/have you taken? These are all things that control libido.
 

tara

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Apparently Peat recommends a high of 60g of fat.
at levels far lower than the 60g minimum that Peat seems to recommend
Have you seen him recommend either a minimum or a maximum of 60g fat as a general recommendation for everyone? I don't think I have in what I've read so far.

... cholesterol which is made by the liver from fructose, not fat.

Curious about this, my quick superficial googling found no explanations in complexity between "the liver synthesises most of it" and this:
All animal cells manufacture cholesterol for their use, with relative production rates varying by cell type and organ function. About 20–25% of total daily cholesterol production occurs in the liver; other sites of higher synthesis rates include the intestines, adrenal glands, and reproductive organs. Synthesis within the body starts with the mevalonate pathway where two molecules of acetyl CoA condense to form acetoacetyl-CoA. This is followed by a second condensation between acetyl CoA and acetoacetyl-CoA to form 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA).[37] This molecule is then reduced to mevalonate by the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. Production of mevalonate is the rate-limiting and irreversible step in cholesterol synthesis and is the site of action for statins (a class of cholesterol lowering drugs).

Mevalonate is finally converted to isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) through two phosphorylation steps and one decarboxylation step that requires ATP. Three molecules of isopentenyl pyrophosphate condense to form farnesyl pyrophosphate through the action of geranyl transferase. Two molecules of farnesyl pyrophosphate then condense to form squalene by the action of squalene synthase in the endoplasmic reticulum.[37] Oxidosqualene cyclase then cyclizes squalene to form lanosterol. Finally, lanosterol is converted to cholesterol through a 19-step process.[38][39]
Cholesterol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems it not so simple. Personally, I don't know enough about chemistry/biochemistry to tell if this confirms what you said.

I think Peat said eating more fructose would likely increase cholesterol if it's low, but that's not necessarily the same as making it from fructose.
People who eat little or now fructose still synthesise some cholesterol, right?
 
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tanneron

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Have you seen him recommend either a minimum or a maximum of 60g fat as a general recommendation for everyone? I don't think I have in what I've read so far.



Curious about this, my quick superficial googling found no explanations in complexity between "the liver synthesises most of it" and this:

Cholesterol - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It seems it not so simple. Personally, I don't know enough about chemistry/biochemistry to tell if this confirms what you said.

I think Peat said eating more fructose would likely increase cholesterol if it's low, but that's not necessarily the same as making it from fructose.
People who eat little or now fructose still synthesise some cholesterol, right?


I picked up the 60g of fat minimum being a Peat recommendation on posts here on this forum. People here were attributing this minimum to him. But I have no knowledge of whether it's accurate.
 
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tanneron

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Sex hormones are made from cholesterol which is made by the liver from fructose, not fat. Libido has more to do with your personal sex life than it does eating "fat." What kind of relationship are you in? Are you single? Do you masturbate daily? Have you taken birth control or testosterone before? Are you monogamous or do you have multiple partners? What medications/drugs do/have you taken? These are all things that control libido.


I am married. I don't masturbate daily. I've been on brief TRT protocols in the past. I am monogamous. I don't take any medications.

One of the reasons I've brought this topic up is because there seem to be a fair number of guys on this forum who had either low testosterone or low libido prior to adopting a Peat diet, and once they did, ZING(!), their T levels and libido went through the roof. My T level is at the very bottom of the T range of normal used by my doctor. Several years ago I faced some personal trauma and deep depression and I think that had an impact on T production. Then four years ago I developed a gluten intolerance "out of the blue" and I think this issue has caused some problems with my sex life.

As I read the posts here about a Peat diet contributing to a high libido, I'm trying to duplicate virtually everything that any one has posted. I'm trying everything I can find, but so far the results are negligible. One of my frustrations with this forum is the wide variability of causes and effects. What works for one guy doesn't work for the next one, and so forth for virtually everything discussed here. So I have to experiment with everything to see if something will work, and that takes time, which is also frustrating.

Over the last three years I have tried about 75 different herbal supplements, and I can tell you that none of them have worked. Psychogenic erections are a thing of the past. Morning wood, which is my barometer for sexual health, is highly sporadic, and mostly struggles to get to half-mast (or none at all). Sexual intimacy with my wife usually needs the help of a PDE-5 inhibitor. And as for libido itself - absolutely, completely, utterly vanished! Nothing there to measure.

So you can see how I'm very interested in applying "lessons learned" here on this forum with respect to diet changes that can turn me back into that hypersexual man I used to be. A few years ago I tried Androgel for a brief period of time, but I became concerned about testicular atrophy, so I stopped. And now having spent time here I'm convinced that TRT is probably not a good idea, especially if I can resolve low T and zero libido with diet changes.

My blood work contains no red flags with respect to estrogen, prolactin, SHBG, cortisol, or T3. I look normal on paper, but we all know what "normal" means in the medical community. What looks normal to my doctor doesn't mean it's something I should tolerate. My diagnosis is idiopathic secondary hypogonadism with abnormally "normal" LH levels.

Anyway, that's the picture! Looking for the cure Danny Roddy wrote about: "becoming a sexual animal" again!
 

snowboard111

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Having a low fat intake won't be the only thing that will help libido in with a "Peat" oriented diet (it doesn't mean much IMO :bag:)...
There's certainly benefits to limit to your fat intake (PUFA/MUFA ) but I wouldn't try to be THAT strict has to not
go over 60g or 100g (mostly SFA) and becoming orthorexic about it :) Bodybuilders goes super low-fat before "competing" and their libido completely vanish (probably a combination of super low BF% and low-fat intake) so there's obviously no just good thing that come with eating low fat.

I think Haidut pointed out that libido has a lot to do with serotonin in the brain/guts and every other bad things that come with it (estrogen, prolactin, cortisol, etc) and most of what everyone here practice in term of diet and other things as a lot to do with controlling/reducing those...

Have you looked at this thread?
Sexuality And Libido Through A Peat Prism

Btw, having your body measurement (height, weight, etc) might be helpful
 
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tanneron

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Having a low fat intake won't be the only thing that will help libido in with a "Peat" oriented diet (it doesn't mean much IMO :bag:)...
There's certainly benefits to limit to your fat intake (PUFA/MUFA ) but I wouldn't try to be THAT strict has to not
go over 60g or 100g (mostly SFA) and becoming orthorexic about it :) Bodybuilders goes super low-fat before "competing" and their libido completely vanish (probably a combination of super low BF% and low-fat intake) so there's obviously no just good thing that come with eating low fat.

I think Haidut pointed out that libido has a lot to do with serotonin in the brain/guts and every other bad things that come with it (estrogen, prolactin, cortisol, etc) and most of what everyone here practice in term of diet and other things as a lot to do with controlling/reducing those...

Have you looked at this thread?
Sexuality And Libido Through A Peat Prism

Btw, having your body measurement (height, weight, etc) might be helpful


6ft, 160lbs, 32" waist. I'm certainly not fat, but I do have some belly fat.
 

Jayfish

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I think that the main mechanism to a vlf having a good impact on libido is a superior blood flow and very low inflammation. Eating a good amount of fiber from fruit keeps bowel transit time high which eliminates endotoxin and serotonin faster. A lot of fat in the diet impedes blood flow and some fats and endotoxin in the blood will cause arterial inflammation, reducing the amount of blood capable of being pumped.

Conversely though, I have seen many studies showing higher overall testosterone production from high dietary sat fat and cholesterol. Coconut oil could be detrimental to DHT since lauric acid is an 5-AR blocker.
 

skycop00

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I think we could use more discussion and clarification on micro vessel blood flow. I mean libido is one thing, but the inability of the small vessels to exchange blood is critical to erections. I have to go back and listen to the NO videos, but when I intentionally increase NO, erections are easy. Maybe we can work on that in the discussion as well.
 
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I think we could use more discussion and clarification on micro vessel blood flow. I mean libido is one thing, but the inability of the small vessels to exchange blood is critical to erections. I have to go back and listen to the NO videos, but when I intentionally increase NO, erections are easy. Maybe we can work on that in the discussion as well.

And yet, while I'm taking methylene blue, an NO scavenger, I get great erections. It may be the combo that I'm using. I'm also taking some calcium d-glucarate for instance, and drinking coffee, and taking some aspirin and K2 and E.
 

skycop00

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And yet, while I'm taking methylene blue, an NO scavenger, I get great erections. It may be the combo that I'm using. I'm also taking some calcium d-glucarate for instance, and drinking coffee, and taking some aspirin and K2 and E.
For sure. I find that the SWEET SPOT for me is estrogen. So as I move up and down with Estrogen, so goes the REM sleep wood. SO today I am 17 days off TRT and will re-do labs in 30 more days. Hope to have good data to crunch.
 
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tanneron

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I think that the main mechanism to a vlf having a good impact on libido is a superior blood flow and very low inflammation. Eating a good amount of fiber from fruit keeps bowel transit time high which eliminates endotoxin and serotonin faster. A lot of fat in the diet impedes blood flow and some fats and endotoxin in the blood will cause arterial inflammation, reducing the amount of blood capable of being pumped.

Conversely though, I have seen many studies showing higher overall testosterone production from high dietary sat fat and cholesterol. Coconut oil could be detrimental to DHT since lauric acid is an 5-AR blocker.

Perfect example of my dilemma -- on the one hand there are sexual benefits to a low fat diet, and then there are studies that show higher fat results in higher T levels. I guess I have to determine what the preponderance of the data shows and then go with that.
 
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tanneron

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I think we could use more discussion and clarification on micro vessel blood flow. I mean libido is one thing, but the inability of the small vessels to exchange blood is critical to erections. I have to go back and listen to the NO videos, but when I intentionally increase NO, erections are easy. Maybe we can work on that in the discussion as well.


How do you intentionally increase NO? I only know about taking l-arginine supplements. Are there other, better ways? I started taking lysine because of the rather large number of posts here that suggested that lysine can dramatically lower intestinal serotonin. But then I read (also here) that lysine can deplete NO. But I need NO for erections!! Yet I thought NO was something that Peat didn't like and should be avoided or lowered. Confused!
 
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tanneron

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And yet, while I'm taking methylene blue, an NO scavenger, I get great erections. It may be the combo that I'm using. I'm also taking some calcium d-glucarate for instance, and drinking coffee, and taking some aspirin and K2 and E.

I read a study [Reilly, et.al.] that suggested MB inhibited erectile response, but for you it's a boner bonus! How is this possible?
 

skycop00

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I have to listen to the NO audio again. Maybe someone can chime in for us. If NO is involved in facilitated erections or general blood flow to that area...how can it be bad...? Maybe constant or too much NO is the issue for Ray.
 

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