If You Don't Want Low Testosterone DO NOT FAST

[Jsaute21]

I'd bet against it. Maybe in his pre UFC USADA days, but he's the most tested fighter on the roster, works like a mofo and has crazy body awareness and control, and has cardio issues that PEDs could solve. If he's using, he's both very good and very bad at it.

I hope your right, and maybe he doesn't. But to me, this right here looks like classic definition of too much DHT.

Conor mcgregor jaw - Google Search:

 

[Peater Piper]

I encourage @cyclops and others to use common sense when analyzing who to trust on this forum. @tca300 is another good example of someone who follows a similar RP protocol and has yielded impressive results. @lisaferraro is another one.

There's no doubt that some people have had wonderful results following Peat's advice. What about those that have followed his advice and haven't had great results? That's not a small number of people. Are we assuming they did it wrong, or didn't take enough time? I've been restrictive with PUFA for 4-5 years now. I used to eat walnuts every day before that. Have I improved? Not at all. I've tried going low fat for a month at a time. Did I improve? Nope. I switched out all starch for non fibrous fruit on two different occasions. Did I improve? No, in fact both times were a disaster. I actually think I may be worse now than I was five years ago when I started reading Peat's work. The only thing I haven't done is slam down high dose pharmaceuticals to see if they would push me over the edge into a recovery. I frankly have not been impressed by what I've seen of people who take a lot of supplements. Some improve, many seem to be worse off afterward. I don't know, but I'm just not seeing wonderful results for the majority following a high sugar, low(ish) fat, graze throughout the day type of diet, and I really can't see how it's such a complex idea that so many people are screwing up. I have no idea if Gbolduev is correct or not, but it's really interesting to me that a few seem to immediately thrive on a Peat style plan, and others seem to continuously spin their wheels without any real improvement. I personally don't care who's right or wrong, or what diet will help me look 40 when I'm 100, I just want to feel well and focus on factors in my life not involving what to eat.

 

[Jsaute21]

There's no doubt that some people have had wonderful results following Peat's advice. What about those that have followed his advice and haven't had great results? That's not a small number of people. Are we assuming they did it wrong, or didn't take enough time? I've been restrictive with PUFA for 4-5 years now. I used to eat walnuts every day before that. Have I improved? Not at all. I've tried going low fat for a month at a time. Did I improve? Nope. I switched out all starch for non fibrous fruit on two different occasions. Did I improve? No, in fact both times were a disaster. I actually think I may be worse now than I was five years ago when I started reading Peat's work. The only thing I haven't done is slam down high dose pharmaceuticals to see if they would push me over the edge into a recovery. I frankly have not been impressed by what I've seen of people who take a lot of supplements. Some improve, many seem to be worse off afterward. I don't know, but I'm just not seeing wonderful results for the majority following a high sugar, low(ish) fat, graze throughout the day type of diet, and I really can't see how it's such a complex idea that so many people are screwing up. I have no idea if Gbolduev is correct or not, but it's really interesting to me that a few seem to immediately thrive on a Peat style plan, and others seem to continuously spin their wheels without any real improvement. I personally don't care who's right or wrong, or what diet will help me look 40 when I'm 100, I just want to feel well and focus on factors in my life not involving what to eat.

Fair point. I am sorry you don't feel better. I wasn't aware that so many people have not experienced success with Peats methods. There are certainly a lot of variables at play for all of us. I think the fast & slow oxidizer idea is interesting and don't mean to shoot down methods as he seems knowledgeable. I do find his definition of what constitutes a fast oxidizer, and what constitutes a slow oxidizer as strange. He says slow oxidizers already have enough sugar so they can't tolerate much sugar in their diet. While Fast oxidizers need to eat fat & protein because they burn glycogen too fast? The latter makes sense to me but the former makes no sense. I think it is interesting to put everyone in two boxes as well. Your either fast or slow. Not very logical to me.

I would ask you these questions:

1.) What is your resting pulse & Temp?
2.) How much protein do you eat?

Also, my favorite quote is below. I find it to be true in most areas of life.

"Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

Jacob Riis

 

[DaveFoster]

People don't look particularly "estrogenic" after a fast. Look at concentration camp victims, or other people living in starvation. They don't exactly look like they have water retention, or are "estrogenic".

I did read some studies about female mice having higher estrogen blood levels during low calorie diets, but this wasn't true for males, and I'm not sure the diet was designed well, or how they measured estrogen was reliable.

Maybe @haidut or others can chime in:

Does fasting increase or decrease the tissue levels of estrogen? I assume that eventually, with high cortisol and catabolism, the cells just don't hang on to water and fat very well, and estrogen should eventually fall. Especially since the androgens decrease quite severely too, the substrates for estrogen should fall too. Any Ideas?

If you're in a concentration camp enduring starvation, you could take tripled doses of birth control and still not appear "estrogenic."

 

[schultz]

or may be too many young people follow trends too much these days. with all these stupid diets

I do think this is a problem. People feel the need to pick a diet (almost like a religion) and go all out. If they crash and burn then they decide they were doing the wrong one and go all out on a different one. I think at least one reason for this is the common food choices in our society. "Normal" eating isn't so healthy anymore so people are forced to try and figure things out.

I don't have a problem with balance. I have a problem with chasing balance that is different for "metabolic types", which may turn out to be just maladapted metabolic states. My main point (which did not come across clearly I guess) was that we ALL come from a fast oxidizer past as children. Even @gbolduev stated that in one of his older posts. Restoring that fast oxidation all of us had as children is all Peat is about, at least as far as I understand it. It is hard to argue that children are much healthier than adults. Yes, people have different lifestyles and will end up with different imbalances and metabolic states. But the point is they were optimal at some point, and Peat points out what he thinks is/are the causes to get into these suboptimal states and how to try and reverse it. He even said that long distance runners can adapt and even (temporarily) thrive on a very low calorie high fat diet. Same with fasting - good for some young/healthy people but probably not something most adults over 30 can endure for a long time. Again, I know I am a fast oxidizer according to Eck so it is probably a biased opinion. But that is what Peat is all about (according to me).
I guess the big discrepancy is one camp is saying these metabolic types are set in stone and people should learn to live with them while the other camp is saying they can be changed.

I've only just heard of the fast oxidizer/slow oxidizer thing, but what you're saying about it seems to make sense. I doubt metabolic types are set in stone. There is a metabolically healthy state and then there is everything else and all these other types are just deranged versions of the healthy state.

There are a lot of unhealthy kids these days it seems, so that might not be a great argument anymore, but when I was a kid there was like 1 fat kid in the class and 1 sickly looking kid, and everybody else was average. I see a lot of unhealthy looking kids now, and even babies.

 

[cyclops]

I hope your right, and maybe he doesn't. But to me, this right here looks like classic definition of too much DHT.

Conor mcgregor jaw - Google Search:

What is so different and interesting about Mcgregors jaw?

 

[TubZy]

Yeah, they both take gear. McGregor definitely does. Taking steroids and giving nutrition advice is like taking adderall and asking someone to study with you. Their metabolism is super charged and in the short term can perform at a supremely high level. Guys like you and i should be eating to nourish our bodies and improve hormonal function. To be fair, every athlete i mentioned above probably takes juice as well.

I understand the difference between ketogenic and fasting, i just think in the end, they accomplish similar feats. If you fast for an extended period of time, you will be burning fat opposed to carbs. No bueno. Better for endurance athletes than anaerobic athletes, but still no bueno. Joe Rogan also takes TRT, has admitted to it. So has Asprey. I do not know enough about "Water fasting" to comment about it. I just think avoiding calories and energy for that long is crazy.

I guess we can agree on the athlete perspective then.

You are going to start burning fats no matter what after a few days once glucose drops. I dont think burning fats for a week or so once or twice a year is going to do any damage.

Have you seen all of the studies I posted about water fasting for short periods of time? So what if you are burning fat for a very short period of time, your immune system dramatically regenerates, insulin sensitivity improves, your hormone levels sky rockets upon refeed, detox (autophagy), detox PUFA etc. So not sure why it is so no bueno. If a short water fast doesn't work well for you that is fine, I agree don't do it, but you can't deny that it does work well for slow oxidizers or a lot of people and has some benefits.

I think the OP of this thread @AretnaP just copy/pasted some info from another broscience juicehead forum without doing any research. He has yet been able to refute any points and his source is an article from "Think Steroids"...

 

[paymanz]

Those super athletic guys like McGregor, floyd..,

They all grown on a well fed diet, they have good genetics, or epigenetics...

And strong dopaminergic system is a big factor.

Dopaninergic drugs also suppress food intake, and in the sametime probably improve nutrient usage efficiency.


They have good kidneys which preserves mineral and nutrients very efficiently.

I mean if they can periodically do hard diets 3-4 per year and come back healthy it doesn't mean every person can do that like that, and even these guys get some damages from doing such extreme weight cuts. No doubt.

 

[Risingfire]

I personally think that the issue of testosterone aromatizing into estrogen is overblown on this forum, with not enough emphasis placed on the importance of T in general.
It seems that there is a kind of positive feedback loop between T and dopamine synthesis in the brain. Many people, including myself, experience severe mental health issues as a direct result of low T, and this phenomenon seems to be ignored by the medical community at large, which is deeply disturbing. My endocrinologist seems to be clueless about this mechanism, despite the fact that there is legitimate medical literature on the subject.
There are many young men who have become depesonalized and suicidal, only to discover that they were suffering from low T, and their symptoms disappear after weeks to months of TRT. Search for "bignoknow" on YouTube. His story is harrowing and not at all unique.
@haidut has suggested that T is nothing more than a prohomone for DHT, and most people on TRT who benefit are just feeling the effects of a DHT increase. Well, that may be, but it seems to marginalize the importance of T, especially since I have not seen any evidence of DHT being particularly dopaminergic. Also, I believe haidut mentioned a study wherein men with total T levels under 400ng/dl had trouble conceiving children, and this is within the "normal" range.
There is a stigma regarding testosterone in the medical community, and I'm not sure where it stems from.

Testosterone is evil, especially from the perspective of 3rd wave feminism

 

[TubZy]

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


The fasted groups had lower testosterone, lower T3, and overall lower respiration than the controls.
I don't find this surprising given what 16-hours of no food is communicating to your body about energy availability. Depleted glycogen stores lowers the conversion of T4 to T3, and T3 is involved in testosterone synthesis. Down-regulated respiration isn't surprising either. If you're not eating, your body would logically down-regulate metabolism to go longer on less while down-regulating non-essential functions like libido, anabolic metabolism of sex and muscle cells, etc.

Interestingly, the fasting group lost more fat mass (started lower at baseline). These were weight-lifters who likely had substantial muscle mass going into the study and they continued to lift throughout the course of the study, so the demands of their muscles. Myocytes primarily burn fat rest, so it stands to reason they burned through their fat faster than the non-fasters. So a trained athlete can fast to cut weight, something wrestlers, fighters, competitive body builders exploit for their respective sports.

I wish they had reported other hormones: cortisol, estrogen, and prolactin particularly.
There are lots of studies on fasting increasing cortisol, but it would have been interesting to see how resilient athletes would be to one of the common repercussions of fasting.

What are your thoughts on this study?

Your evidence just further supports my points and also Gbol's as well.

I'm not for intermittent fasting, I think it kind of pointless to be honest and I consider it chronic fasting because most IF people do it year round.

Yes, hormones dropping while in a fasted state is completely normal that is the entire point of how it can increase your sensitivity to hormones again which is what Gbol has been saying and also it is demonstrated in the study showed. Hormones and metabolism drops but you become more sensitive (than baseline) once you get off the fast. The gains at least hormonally come after fasting not during the fast by increasing sensitivity.

Also, you also proved my point further showing healthy and fit men even benefit more from fasting (i.e. fat loss).

 

[DuggaDugga]

I guess we can agree on the athlete perspective then.

You are going to start burning fats no matter what after a few days once glucose drops. I dont think burning fats for a week or so once or twice a year is going to do any damage.

Have you seen all of the studies I posted about water fasting for short periods of time? So what if you are burning fat for a very short period of time, your immune system dramatically regenerates, insulin sensitivity improves, your hormone levels sky rockets upon refeed, detox (autophagy), detox PUFA etc. So not sure why it is so bueno. If a short water fast doesn't work well for you that is fine, I agree don't do it, but you can't deny that it does work well for slow oxidizer or a lot of people.

I think the OP of this thread @AretnaP just copy/pasted some info on another broscience juicehead forum without doing any research.

The piece of the puzzle you're missing is that we're always burning fat. You don't need to starve yourself or avoid carbs to burn fat. Atkin's diet already tried that-- doesn't work. Your liver, muscle, and adipose tissue are the primary oxidizers of fatty acids. Conversely, the brain and red blood cells rely on glucose primarily (exclusively for RBC since they don't have mitochondria). You can go to pubmed and learn about this if it interests you.
Fatty acid metabolism in adipose tissue, muscle and liver in health and disease. - PubMed - NCBI

If you want to drive up your metabolism to lose weight in a healthy manner, the last thing you want to do is drive up cortisol and become insulin resistant, down-regulating your T3 production.

And finally, I don't think it's fair for you to call OP's post "bro science" in this instance, especially when the claims you're making are not aligned with basic physiology, basically the definition of "bro science".

 

[DuggaDugga]

Your evidence just further supports my points and also Gbol's as well.

I'm not for intermittent fasting, I think it kind of pointless to be honest and I consider it chronic fasting because most IF people do it year round.

Yes, hormones dropping while in a fasted state is completely normal that is the entire point of how it can increase your sensitivity to hormones again which is what Gbol has been saying and also it is demonstrated in the study showed. Hormones and metabolism drops but you become more sensitive (than baseline) once you get off the fast. The gains at least hormonally come after fasting not during the fast by increasing sensitivity.

Also, you also proved my point further showing healthy and fit men even benefit more from fasting (i.e. fat loss).

I'm not making anyone's point. You're failing to comprehend in context and instead latch onto tidbits-- knew you would, because that's all you've done all thread.
In resistance-trained individuals who are continuing to lift weights, of course they're going to oxidize more fat. I educated you that muscles are primary oxidizers of fatty acids in my last post. Look at the rest of the context: they're unfed high fat-burners receiving anabolic stimulus of primary fat-oxidizing cells. Think, my friend. "Sensitize your hormones again"????? What????

 

[paymanz]

I hope your right, and maybe he doesn't. But to me, this right here looks like classic definition of too much DHT.

Conor mcgregor jaw - Google Search:

He used to be like that even years ago.

 

[TubZy]

The piece of the puzzle you're missing is that we're always burning fat. You don't need to starve yourself or avoid carbs to burn fat. Atkin's diet already tried that-- doesn't work. Your liver, muscle, and adipose tissue are the primary oxidizers of fatty acids. Conversely, the brain and red blood cells rely on glucose primarily (exclusively for RBC since they don't have mitochondria). You can go to pubmed and learn about this if it interests you.
Fatty acid metabolism in adipose tissue, muscle and liver in health and disease. - PubMed - NCBI

If you want to drive up your metabolism to lose weight in a healthy manner, the last thing you want to do is drive up cortisol and become insulin resistant, down-regulating your T3 production.

And finally, I don't think it's fair for you to call OP's post "bro science" in this instance, especially when the claims you're making are not aligned with basic physiology, basically the definition of "bro science".

That is my point though. You are so worried about burning fat yet we technically are burning fat everyday so what is the big deal about "burning fat" for 10 days or 14 days straight once or twice a year? And my initial point has nothing to do with burning fat, OP referenced testosterone and AR (it is even in the title of the thread) and that was the initial point I addressed showing fasting increases testosterone MORE than baseline upon refeeding, it is really not that hard to understand I copied the chart straight out of the full study to make it simple as possible, which is exactly the opposite of what he is trying to prove.

I don't get it, what is your point and what you trying to prove to me?

The OP doesn't even realize or understand what he is posting. He copied pasted an article from Think Steroids, then when pressed he can't refute any points. He mentioned he is from anabolic minds, not me.

 

[Drareg]

Since we are talking about androgen sensitivity, @gbolduev seems to be right in this respect in terms of AFTER fasting your body responds extremely well and can re-sensitize it. I noticed this as well after a ten day water fast.

Look at the massive increase of T upon refeeding! Even going from OP's info, the higher T will increase AR density further, well I guess fasting will even increase AR density further with that massive spike..

https://sci-hub.cc/https://academic...during-Fasting-in-Men?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Also if you just wanted pure T levels, here you go.

Pituitary-testicular axis in obese men during short-term fasting. - PubMed - NCBI.

Short-term fasting increased the GnRH-elicited LH response by 67% in the non-obese group (LH incremental areas 2147 +/- 304 vs 3581 +/- 256, p less than 0.01), and the corresponding testosterone response by 180% (testosterone incremental areas 111 +/- 61 vs 311 +/- 49 micrograms.l-1.min-1, p less than 0.01). These results imply that food deprivation affects the pituitary-testicular axis differently in obese and non-obese men.



Since this thread is about BBing....

Fasting enhances growth hormone secretion and amplifies the complex rhythms of growth hormone secretion in man.


If you want more studies on the benefits of short term fasting and its benefits for insulin sensitivity and immune function, let me know. BTW, I'm not 100% pro fasting, but I think an occasional water fast isn't as bad as some of you demonize it. I did a ten day water fast and my muscle is still fine but my muscles respond to carbs 20x better, so I don't get all the hype that you are losing muscle, majority of it water.

And yet you still have issues with PFS ,it seems strange to offer anecdotes of all is great when you clearly drop back into the same issues. As do all of you and gbolduev still has issues with his health. These fasts are a form of self harm in effect,the relief you feel is a semblance of normality after an extreme,it’s the equivalent of looking at people in poverty in 3rd world to make you feel better about a rut you could be in here.

These men in the study were 20% to 70% overweight,they were obese ,the weight loss can’t be ruled out as the cause of a spike or the obvious reduction of crap endotoxin laden diet that goes hand in hand with obesity . The men 3 days prior to the fast were placed on a 1500 calorie diet and given a multivitamin and ferrous gluconate.

If the serum concentration of testosterone was significantly lower in day 9 to controls of course it’s going to spike back up as the body clearly needed it if it was needed in the past ,the cells didn’t forget their "past state" the increase within bloods would be normal as tissues would need it,if it hasn’t gotten into the tissue yet it will appear higher in bloods. To test this study you need to check the patients a few days later,all your getting is spikes for what exactly? Where is the evidence of long term increase?

They also won’t show SHBG concentration results for some reason.

 

[paymanz]

It is amazing how many people feel bad at 29, 25, 26. Crazy. I remember at 26 I could digest nails, fast, eat , not eat, drink milk , drink 1.5 liter of rum daily for a year. . Oh well. It must be something in the air. or may be too many young people follow trends too much these days. with all these stupid diets. I think at 25-26 I never even thought about what to eat, what not to eat. I just ate what I felt. And here you meet people at 24 with problems. at 29 with problems. Wow. I thought problems start at 50 or something.

What is the point if you was that healthy in your 20s?

BTW I remember you said you had 2-3 cancer in your life and very sick, maybe those are products of your unhealthy lifestyle when you was younger?

 

[Drareg]

Doubt that. Also find it funny how people doubt @haidut's methods even though he clearly operates at a high function. Guy has a full time demanding job and still reads and interprets more studies than all of us combined. He has proven his hormones are favorable and has helped many folks such as @tyler and others greatly improve their own health and metabolism.

I encourage @cyclops and others to use common sense when analyzing who to trust on this forum. @tca300 is another good example of someone who follows a similar RP protocol and has yielded impressive results. @lisaferraro is another one. I could go on and on. I think many folks on here think they are unique in how deformed their metabolism is, and i bet that is not the case. It takes time to heal, and IMO fasting is one of the worst things you can do to interrupt that healing process. Eat micronutrient rich, and eat when you are hungry or feel low blood sugar. The amount of carbs and fat both seem to depend on the person.

Danny Roddy took finasteride, TRT and messed himself up worse than probably anyone on here. Now he looks great, feels phenomenal and operates at a high function. Healing is possible! If you don't believe it can happen though, it won't.

There is a ton more people who don’t post here anymore who have had similar results,most have "successful" careers and more importantly drive for building structure in the future,they don’t regress back to reclusiveness.

Gbolduev has helped nobody,many of the accounts claiming help from him are gbolduev!

 

[Drareg]

It is amazing how many people feel bad at 29, 25, 26. Crazy. I remember at 26 I could digest nails, fast, eat , not eat, drink milk , drink 1.5 liter of rum daily for a year. . Oh well. It must be something in the air. or may be too many young people follow trends too much these days. with all these stupid diets. I think at 25-26 I never even thought about what to eat, what not to eat. I just ate what I felt. And here you meet people at 24 with problems. at 29 with problems. Wow. I thought problems start at 50 or something.

Their problems are from taking dietary advice from people like you.

 

[Milky]

I know your focus here is on testosterone but I just want to say that most of the people who are interested in MSWOF (medically-superivesed water-only fasting) aren't concerned with testosterone. They are concerned with lowering their blood pressure, reversing insulin resistance, preventing cancer, reversing cancer and aesthetic things like more bright white parts of the eyes, clearing out the skin, reset taste buds, among other things that are related to long-term health. Bodybuilding types tend to not care about those things as many of them take steroids and crazy supplements and protein powders. I'm sure there are some natural BB that care but I'm not going to not do a fast because of what the bro BB broscience types say on BB forums.

Rob Turner, the Peat inspired gym owner, told me when I asked him about my testosterone level "testosterone is downstream. I'm not concerned with it. Focus on upstream.." Meaning focus on the starting point, not the ending, meaning focus on my own pregnenolone production. My T has always felt fine. I can give myself a huge shot of T from my own balls just by looking at a hot pair of legs in real life.

Unfortunately, this is one thing that I agree with gbold on but I only think it's good if you go by True North's protocol.

Glad to hear some thoughtful comments from you about this.

I think the "testostorone is downstream, focus on upstream" comment from Rob Turner is in line with what Bolduev has been saying about hormone levels, especially in the blood. This is also why I think he recommends against taking them externally as an attempt to solve problems from the wrong end of the equation. It's even further downstream. Go back to the front end and feed all the energy pathways with the correct things to start with, that's what I'm hearing.

He's also recommending a long fast as a full reset for the sick slow oxidizers mainly, but I wonder if healing can be accomplished (albeit at a slower pace) by consciously taking steps to change the incoming minerals until they are better balanced, correcting macros per energy level and hopefully dealing with less intense side effects. As many folks have pointed out, it's hard for most of us to fast too long with our lifestyles, work, family, etc. so laying in bed all day sipping veggie juice in between leisurely swims in the ocean just isn't practical.

 

[paymanz]

So many opinions. Here's mine; if you think or find that fasting is harmful, don't do it. If fasting noticeably improves your health, then do it.

We really don't need studies to tell us what's helpful or harmful. You just need awareness.

Cheers.

You are cool,

But with what you said then there is no need for any forums Like this!

Awareness?! Everything is just a claim without anything like studies to back it up... Or at least a decent holistic point of view, wisdom to approve it!