If You Don't Want Low Testosterone DO NOT FAST

Dhair

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Explain to me how achieving a 1000 point jump in test levels within 5 days is expected. By yours and OP's logic, steroids users who come off a steroid into PCT should react that way, quite the opposite.

The title of this thread is fasting causes low T BTW.
No, that is not following my line of thinking at all.
Again, the adaptive process of fasting may increase sensitivity to AR resulting in higher androgen levels immediately after refeeding. This is a short term effect, and I see no reason to believe that a 180% increase in T for a few days after this event is going to be sustained or effect AR density long term. The body is simply responding to nourishment and upregulating androgen receptors accordingly in an attempt to seek homeostasis, assuming the stressor (starvation) is no longer an issue.
I do not see the usefulness in the study that you posted unless there are several consecutive blood tests for at least a couple months after the fast.
 

Drareg

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I'm not going to give you an entire lecture on PFS, the info is out there you can read it or better yet go to the 200+ page PFS thread on here for the 100th time go read it instead of asking me to explain things for you.

Anyways, so what exactly are you asking me, your sentences and questions are all jumbled all over the place. And I'm not on any PFS sites, I think that is what you are asking?

Tubzy you keep repeating yourself to maintain faux credibility,keep dodging questions and points and we will keep wasting time with tit for tat although you pfs boys are lacking some "tat" evidenced by your responses ,maybe when you get your brief mojo back get involved. I understand your concerned your brahs are looking in.....
This back and forth is the exact nonsense that caused issues in the pfs thread and you blamed new people signing up,people were asking questions yet all of you were avoiding them,this is gbolduevs style,what’s to hide if this protocol has worked for him and many others,nobody gets this???
 

Drareg

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No, that is not following my line of thinking at all.
Again, the adaptive process of fasting may increase sensitivity to AR resulting in higher androgen levels immediately after refeeding. This is a short term effect, and I see no reason to believe that a 180% increase in T for a few days after this event is going to be sustained or effect AR density long term. The body is simply responding to nourishment and upregulating androgen receptors accordingly in an attempt to seek homeostasis, assuming the stressor (starvation) is no longer an issue.
I do not see the usefulness in the study that you posted unless there are several consecutive blood tests for at least a couple months after the fast.

The endotoxin load reduction alone could cause this spike I’m guessing.
 

Drareg

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Because pro BBers are on TRT, they don't need to fast or to really do anything for that matter to keep their T levels high when they are shooting up once a week.

And you can’t see a pattern here.....
 
OP
AretnaP

AretnaP

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Not at all. Chronic fasting can be anything from intermittent fasting year round to just barely eating (1-2 meals a day like many people eat these days) for months at a time.

Long term fasting means water fasting for ten days straight or 14 days straight once or twice a year. You didn't clarify any numerical value or explain your context in the OP and ended your post with "DO NOT FAST".

Regarding hormones, did you even read any of the studies (or just look at a basic chart) I posted they were all longer than a "day or two" they were around 10-14 days.

Testosterone shot through the roof during refeed, it was significantly HIGHER than baseline so how is that "nuking your hormones"? Please explain your strong broscience coming from anabolic minds forum...
You didn't read the first post well. I was talking about when guys try to look up what happens with androgen receptors when large doses of androgens are applied. gbolduev thinks that lowered hormones during fasting will be made up for by increase receptor density, this probably isn't true (unless you lower estrogen significantly, but peaters already want lower estrogen)

Yes, if you fast your body will ramp up LH in an attempt to restore low testosterone levels, if you can refill your body with cholesterol while LH is still elevated from the fast you could, for a temporary time, raise testosterone.

But even ramadan lowers testosterone, in this study testosterone was measured in men taking part in ramadan: two days before, 10 days afterward, 20 days afterward, and 28 days afterward
Ramadan lowered androgens, the thing that muslims do where they can still eat but not during the day? That lowers testosterone.
Effect of Ramadan fasting on secretion of sex hormones in healthy single males. - PubMed - NCBI

only being able to eat for 8 hours during the day hurt hormones:
Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) on basal metabolism, maximal strength, body composition, inflammation, and cardiovascular risk factors in resistance-trained males

I didn't want to include animal studies, so here are two other misc studies on fasting and hormones.
Reproductive function during fasting in men. - PubMed - NCBI
Influence of short-term fasting on the pituitary-testicular axis in normal men. - PubMed - NCBI

I think that if you can get some cholesterol stored in the testicles quickly while LH is still high from fasting you could increase T, but that would only last until the body corrects course.

It's not that fasting has zero benefits, I think if you're very obese fasting might be what makes you be able to finally shed that weight.
 

TubZy

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You didn't read the first post well. I was talking about when guys try to look up what happens with androgen receptors when large doses of androgens are applied. gbolduev thinks that lowered hormones during fasting will be made up for by increase receptor density, this probably isn't true (unless you lower estrogen significantly, but peaters already want lower estrogen)

Yes, if you fast your body will ramp up LH in an attempt to restore low testosterone levels, if you can refill your body with cholesterol while LH is still elevated from the fast you could, for a temporary time, raise testosterone.

But even ramadan lowers testosterone, in this study testosterone was measured in men taking part in ramadan: two days before, 10 days afterward, 20 days afterward, and 28 days afterward
Ramadan lowered androgens, the thing that muslims do where they can still eat but not during the day? That lowers testosterone.
Effect of Ramadan fasting on secretion of sex hormones in healthy single males. - PubMed - NCBI

only being able to eat for 8 hours during the day hurt hormones:
Effects of eight weeks of time-restricted feeding (16/8) on basal metabolism, maximal strength, body composition, inflammation, and cardiovascular risk factors in resistance-trained males

I didn't want to include animal studies, so here are two other misc studies on fasting and hormones.
Reproductive function during fasting in men. - PubMed - NCBI
Influence of short-term fasting on the pituitary-testicular axis in normal men. - PubMed - NCBI

I think that if you can get some cholesterol stored in the testicles quickly while LH is still high from fasting you could increase T, but that would only last until the body corrects course.

It's not that fasting has zero benefits, I think if you're very obese fasting might be what makes you be able to finally shed that weight.


Ramadan is essentially intermittent fasting. I specifically mentioned probably 10 times that I don't agree with IF, I already directly you told you that in another post when discussed chronic vs long fasting. Either you stay in a fasted state (like water fasting) for a set period of time or don't fast at all. As soon as you eat it can turn off autophagy. Gbol wasn't a fan of IF from what I can tell from his posts anyways so not sure who you were directing that to.

Your first two studies are IF, which again I don't agree with (I told you this already) not sure why you keep referencing IF. All my posts have been about short water fasts.

The other study you mentioned I posted already in this thread.

The title of this thread is "If You Don't Want Low Testosterone DO NOT FAST" not IF but "FAST". Many people have fasted before and have high T levels, including me which is above 800. There is nothing you showed in your initial post that fasting will permanently lower your test levels.

You mentioned obese people fasting to lose weight? Well in the long run, fasting would technically technically increase T levels for them. Estrogen is the most suppressive on the HPTA, less fat = less estrogen = less suppression = higher T
 
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TubZy

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No, that is not following my line of thinking at all.
Again, the adaptive process of fasting may increase sensitivity to AR resulting in higher androgen levels immediately after refeeding. This is a short term effect, and I see no reason to believe that a 180% increase in T for a few days after this event is going to be sustained or effect AR density long term. The body is simply responding to nourishment and upregulating androgen receptors accordingly in an attempt to seek homeostasis, assuming the stressor (starvation) is no longer an issue.
I do not see the usefulness in the study that you posted unless there are several consecutive blood tests for at least a couple months after the fast.

Correct, I do agree with you that on both sides we really don't know long term (I haven't seen any studies on just pure water fasting long term) the effect on fasting and T levels. However, the other benefits displayed while fasting seems to indicate that starvation "stressor" isn't necessarily a bad thing or there has to be something else going on. Increased insulin sensitivity, the ability for the immune system to regenerate (which is pretty compelling given the fact that high levels of cortisol can shrink the thymus), the ability to dissolve scars (same as my prior point, you would be inclined to think cortisol would inhibit wound healing).

Read the title of thread, he specifically says fasting lowers T, that is not true so if my study isn't relevant neither is his argument then as he didn't propose anything that demonstrates it.
 
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TubZy

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Tubzy you keep repeating yourself to maintain faux credibility,keep dodging questions and points and we will keep wasting time with tit for tat although you pfs boys are lacking some "tat" evidenced by your responses ,maybe when you get your brief mojo back get involved. I understand your concerned your brahs are looking in.....
This back and forth is the exact nonsense that caused issues in the pfs thread and you blamed new people signing up,people were asking questions yet all of you were avoiding them,this is gbolduevs style,what’s to hide if this protocol has worked for him and many others,nobody gets this???

What questions did I dodge? Just ask me a direct question, your posts make my head hurt how you word them they are all over the place, not sure what point you are trying to make.

When are you going to release the evidence that Gbol has multiple accounts like you said? I want to see it.
 
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OP
AretnaP

AretnaP

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Read the title of thread, he specifically says fasting lowers T, that is not true so if my study isn't relevant neither is his argument then as he didn't propose anything that demonstrates it.

It's true, fasting will only increase testosterone for a short time after refeeding because of the LH/FSH boost. During the fast hormones are lowered.

If you fast regularly you will experience lowered hormones regularly.

How long does the post-fast boost last? How many days on average?
 

Dhair

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Correct, I do agree with you that on both sides we really don't know long term (I haven't seen any studies on just pure water fasting long term) the effect on fasting and T levels. However, the other benefits displayed while fasting seems to indicate that starvation "stressor" isn't necessarily a bad thing or there has to be something else going on. Increased insulin sensitivity, the ability for the immune system to regenerate (which is pretty compelling given the fact that high levels of cortisol can shrink the thymus), the ability to dissolve scars (same as my prior point, you would be inclined to think cortisol would inhibit wound healing).

Read the title of thread, he specifically says fasting lowers T, that is not true so if my study isn't relevant neither is his argument then as he didn't propose anything that demonstrates it.
I'm not going to tell anyone to stop doing something that makes them feel better. You seem to have gotten some positive effects from it. However, I think it is irresponsible to recommend fasting to a sick person, and don't take this the wrong way, but you seem very healthy. I'm well aware of your battle with PFS, but you are mostly cured now. You are lean and muscular, able to hold down a job, have a social life, function sexually, etc. That's a lot more than I could say for myself or some of the other people who post here regularly.
Haidut mentioned that Peat said that fasting could be beneficial for healthy young people, simply because you aren't putting any poisons in your body for a short time. You tick all the boxes in that scenario.
I'm not trying to shut down a conversation about fasting because I disagree with it, but the fact that it has become a hot topic here as of late is frankly ridiculous.
 

TubZy

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It's true, fasting will only increase testosterone for a short time after refeeding because of the LH/FSH boost. During the fast hormones are lowered.

If you fast regularly you will experience lowered hormones regularly.

How long does the post-fast boost last? How many days on average?

Who said to fast regularly? I never did. I simply said one or two short water fasts a year.

That is what me and Dhair are saying. We don't know, there are no studies on it for water fasting. It elevated for at least 6 days or so for sure, could be longer or much longer we just don't know.
 
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TubZy

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I'm not going to tell anyone to stop doing something that makes them feel better. You seem to have gotten some positive effects from it. However, I think it is irresponsible to recommend fasting to a sick person, and don't take this the wrong way, but you seem very healthy. I'm well aware of your battle with PFS, but you are mostly cured now. You are lean and muscular, able to hold down a job, have a social life, function sexually, etc. That's a lot more than I could say for myself or some of the other people who post here regularly.
Haidut mentioned that Peat said that fasting could be beneficial for healthy young people, simply because you aren't putting any poisons in your body for a short time. You tick all the boxes in that scenario.
I'm not trying to shut down a conversation about fasting because I disagree with it, but the fact that it has become a hot topic here as of late is frankly ridiculous.

Yeah, I agree with that. OP referenced steroids and bodybuilders in his post, so my assumption was he was referring to healthy males who work out (he even referenced to a steroids site article). If you are weak and sick, I wouldn't suggest it, I agree. The thread title was in reference to testosterone and OP's words and sources were all bodybuilding based (anabolic minds etc.), I think his argument was weak or not clear enough TBH.

I'm not trying to convince anyone to fast (except PFS people if only they really want to) otherwise I would have made a thread saying "Fasting increases testosterone".

Good points though, I don't have any disagreement with anything you said.
 

Drareg

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No I can't

That’s your problem.
Keep fasting it’s a patch that’s working for you,the very think gbolduev claims Peat can only offer,patches,yet gbolduev is now recommending many of the things Peat has spoke about from hormones and supplements.

Why do want to see the gbolduev multiple accounts? What’s the concern that he posts with multiple usernames on many forums? It’s not going to change anything your doing,the bottom line is people should know it so they can be a guinea pig and genuinely know it and make decisions accordingly. Don’t you think it’s reasonable if gbolduev made claims of healing others in the past only for those guys to have symptoms return?
If gbolduev is data mining on health forums collecting bloods and mineral analysis etc he should state that,The bottom line is you are going with it either way so it’s not your concern.

The one thing dhair has wrong is that your in good health,probably not the worst but as asked earlier why the obsession for PFS?
The problem with what the op is saying is your own projection,Fasting lowers testosterone in majority of cases,your claim it increases after fasting and for how long? Clearly the problem persists if you do fasting twice per year.
 

Milky

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It's not that fasting has zero benefits, I think if you're very obese fasting might be what makes you be able to finally shed that weight.

Or it might get rid of your arthritis, help grow your hair back, or starve your cancer to death.
 

haidut

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or starve your cancer to death

That last part has been definitively proven NOT to work. In fact, after a brief (1-2 week) hiatus the cancer becomes even more aggressive because it depend son fat for growth and when you fast you flood it with fatty acids.
I know it is N=1 and probably not the best example but Steve Jobs was famous for his long fasts, which game him feelings of euphoria initially and then made him psychotic and highly aggressive in his later years. That is what cortisol does to you. Makes you feel great when you are younger and then it really messes up your brain when you are middle age or older.
Speaking of Jobs, his doctors begged him to eat while he had cancer but he refused and kept his long fasts and fruitarian diets. Not saying fasting gave him the cancer but when Ashton Kutcher was preparing for the biographic movie on Jobs he also did long fasts and ate only fruits...and ended up in the ICU with acute pancreatitis, which almost killed him. Do you think both of these are coincidence?!
So, N=2, do not mess with your pancreas by fasting for weeks!
 

Milky

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That last part has been definitively proven NOT to work. In fact, after a brief (1-2 week) hiatus the cancer becomes even more aggressive because it depend son fat for growth and when you fast you flood it with fatty acids.
I know it is N=1 and probably not the best example but Steve Jobs was famous for his long fasts, which game him feelings of euphoria initially and then made him psychotic and highly aggressive in his later years. That is what cortisol does to you. Makes you feel great when you are younger and then it really messes up your brain when you are middle age or older.
Speaking of Jobs, his doctors begged him to eat while he had cancer but he refused and kept his long fasts and fruitarian diets. Not saying fasting gave him the cancer but when Ashton Kutcher was preparing for the biographic movie on Jobs he also did long fasts and ate only fruits...and ended up in the ICU with acute pancreatitis, which almost killed him. Do you think both of these are coincidence?!
So, N=2, do not mess with your pancreas by fasting for weeks!

I'm actually neutral but open-minded on this subject, so my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I would say that every person's situation is vastly different though, and right off the bat your Steve Jobs analogy has the fruitarian thing going against it, not to mention many vegetarians/fruitarians in general consume way too much vegetable oil.

I'm actually reading Breuss' book now and there are many testimonials in the book from people whose cancer disappeared and never returned for 20+ years, so as always, it's a stretch to say stuff like "has been definitively proven NOT to work". In every single case? Breuss claimed it worked for over 40,000 people! Surely not all of those grew the cancer back, even if those numbers are exaggerated. And his theory is that the cancer fed off the actual fiber and proteins in solid food, hence the vegetable juice/tea-only approach. So what, is he wrong? It's fats then? You know this how? Studies? Ok.

I really think we know a lot less than we think we know.
 

haidut

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I'm actually neutral but open-minded on this subject, so my comment was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I would say that every person's situation is vastly different though, and right off the bat your Steve Jobs analogy has the fruitarian thing going against it, not to mention many vegetarians/fruitarians in general consume way too much vegetable oil.

I'm actually reading Breuss' book now and there are many testimonials in the book from people whose cancer disappeared and never returned for 20+ years, so as always, it's a stretch to say stuff like "has been definitively proven NOT to work". In every single case? Breuss claimed it worked for over 40,000 people! Surely not all of those grew the cancer back, even if those numbers are exaggerated. And his theory is that the cancer fed off the actual fiber and proteins in solid food, hence the vegetable juice/tea-only approach. So what, is he wrong? It's fats then? You know this how? Studies? Ok.

I really think we know a lot less than we think we know.

I should have said, has been found not to work in the clinical studies done with it. Obviously if there are verifiable accounts of helping somebody that has to be considered but it maybe an individual thing. Like I said, in the first 1-2 weeks some benefit is observed possibly related to reduced endotoxin and ammonia load, which are high in cancer patients. But if the tumor is anything but microscopic its energetic demands are high enough so that in fasting it can start dissolving muscle and fat tissues and cause cachexia, which is what most cancer patients die from.
 

Milky

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But if the tumor is anything but microscopic its energetic demands are high enough so that in fasting it can start dissolving muscle and fat tissues and cause cachexia, which is what most cancer patients die from.

I am familiar with this. I haven't finished the book, but Breuss seemed to think that people's bodies were much more capable of handling fasting if fed an adequate supply of vitamins and minerals from the juices and teas, the cancer being much more susceptible to being wiped out completely than the individual. It's easy to see how this is a no-brainer for some if they have nothing to lose.

One thing he also mentions early on in the book is that people without cancer who just want to heal some chronic condition, lose some weight, etc. do perfectly fine with a 21-day fast. He insists that 42 days is minimum to starve cancer though.

I've considered a 7-day fast for awhile similar to the controlled water fast Westside always talks about, but 7 days of veggie juice actually sounds more sensible (and appetizing).
 

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