Let's Talk Libido: What's Your Experience?

[General Orange]

The thing is, free test is regulated, will always be around 4%, total gets lower the older you get, yeah.
But the receptor of SHBG has a functional role on tissues and T production.
Sex Hormone Binding Globulin Modifies Testosterone Action.
This is a nice read
The myth of free testosterone and sex hormone binding

 

[General Orange]

It is actually too simplistic to say that estrogen just convert into testosterone. It seems that estrogen can function like testosterone relative to which receptors they bind.
Interestingly is that inhibiting 5AR and aromatase has more effect on preventing increasing estrogen:

Estrogens are generated mainly by the action of aromatase, which converts testosterone to estradiol and androstenedione to estrone. However, in addition to estradiol and estrone, a variety of other steroids, whose synthesis is not dependent on aromatase, can stimulate the estrogen receptor. Here we show that testosterone is converted into such estrogenic steroids by aromatase-negative HeLa cells. This aromatase-independent generation of estrogenic steroids is seen in aromatase-positive MCF-7 cells as well. In both cell lines, the synthesis of estrogenic steroids was blocked by inhibition of testosterone conversion into dihydrotestosterone using a 5 alpha-reductase inhibitor finasteride, suggesting that they are generated downstream of dihydrotestosterone. This finding raises the possibility that the combination of a 5 alpha-reductase inhibitor and an aromatase inhibitor may reduce estrogenic steroids in vivo more completely than an aromatase inhibitor alone.

https://www.researchgate.net/public...is_inhibited_by_a_5_alpha-reductase_inhibitor

 

[Cirion]

Wait, so you're saying eat high PUFA soy and fiber, don't eat carbs, don't take zinc or magnesium, to increase libido?

I'm also struggling with libido problems myself, and tbh, it's almost non existant eating Peat and I've been doing this for a couple months now. Losing faith in the Peat way of eating in regards to libido honestly.

It may be worth noting that indeed my highest libido was when I ate high PUFA / high fat in general, low to zero carbs.

I don't understand! This is completely contrary to what Peat says. Could Peat just be flat out wrong then??

*edit* just realized this was in response to an older post from page 3 , anabolicmen linked topic

 

[General Orange]

Wait, so you're saying eat high PUFA soy and fiber, don't eat carbs, don't take zinc or magnesium, to increase libido?

I'm also struggling with libido problems myself, and tbh, it's almost non existant eating Peat and I've been doing this for a couple months now.

It may be worth noting that indeed my highest libido was when I ate high PUFA / high fat in general, low to zero carbs.

I don't understand! This is completely contrary to what Peat says. Could Peat just be flat out wrong then??

No, not eating PUFAs ofcourse.
But it is just to indicate that SHBG is an important factor to consider, and misunderstood

 

[General Orange]

Then, you have to make a comparison, of the input of things that lower your SHBG and supposedly lower your 'free testosterone'.
Then check the trend, and adjust it towards increasing SHBG.
This could mean lower magnesium, but increase calcium. Drink some licorice root tea.

 

[Cirion]

Fair enough, there is plenty I do not understand yet. Although the last few days I've brought fat back, libido is still non existant, so I can't figure out what is going on. The only difference is I don't really do the veggie smoothies in the morning anymore, could the veggies really have made that much of a difference? Perhaps this is telling me that I have some vitamin/mineral deficiencies. I'd like to do a hair test to test my vitamin/mineral levels.

Luckily, I like to keep track of food logs from years in the past. Here is the complete list of foods I would eat every week back then.

Carrots
Cabbage
Celery
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Bell Peppers
Lettuce
Spinach
Arugula
Cilantro
Mushrooms
Protein powder (whey)
Shrimp
Deli cut turkey slices
Pork
Bacon
Chicken breast
Flounder
Tilapia
Salmon
Eggs
G. fed ribeye steak
G. fed beef
Butter
Chia seeds
Olive oil
Fish oil
Flaxseed oil
heavy whipping cream
Avocado
Apples
Orange
Lemon
Grapes
Lime
Kiwi
Banana
Pineapple
Grapefruit
Blueberries
Strawberries
Apple cider vinegar
Sweet potatoes
Amaranth
Brown rice
Buckwheat
Barley
Quinoa
Steel cut oats
Lentils
Almond butter
Peanut butter
cashew butter
no sugar added jellies
Low carb tortillas
90% lindt chocolate

macros looked something like 200g protein 200g carb 200g fat per day back then

if you notice, I violate lots of "Peat" laws from those foods, but I have yet to really feel as good as I did then, at least in terms of libido.

 

[General Orange]

did you drop olive oil and replace it with butter and coconut oil?

 

[General Orange]

Try lowering you carbs a bit but increase the fiber ratio and add olive oil again, it has omega-9 that convert into oleamide libido boosting fatty acid.
Oleamide - Scientific Review on Usage, Dosage, Side Effects

 

[Cirion]

For fats I don't ever have olive oil, nut butters, flax oil, avocado, or fish oils anymore.

All I have now is butter, coconut oil, heavy cream, chocolate, cheese, ice cream, basically anything that's mostly SFA

 

[Cirion]

Omega-9 is still a pufa though is it not?

Yeah I have been trying to bring my carbs back down. When I first did Peat I was doing obscene carbs (upwards of 1000+g a day), and still had nearly non existant libido so I steadily started bringing them down whilst bringing fats back up. Now I get something like 200g protein 300g carb 200+g fat, but whats weird is that's more calories than I had before, but with no libido, at least not like back then, so perhaps, as you said, I'm getting the wrong fats? And not enough fiber?

Perhaps, in response to fiber, that the reason my veggie smoothies were so successful then was simply due to loading up on fiber? In addition to fiber dense carbs. In fact, in noting my food journals, my carbs were a decent mixture of fruit & starch, not one or exclusively the other.

You maybe right with the olive oil. I can recall some times when I've had buckwheat drenched in olive oil, and would often get insta-boners lol. And buckwheat is very high in fiber as well as magnesium. I just feel like maybe starch is overly demonized?

So much misinformation, even around these forums... we keep getting told to avoid fiber, not embrace it ,because fiber supposedly feeds endotoxin... one of the main reason starch is demonized here... unless I'm misinterpreting?

 

[General Orange]

o

Omega-9 is still a pufa though is it not?

Yeah I have been trying to bring my carbs back down. When I first did Peat I was doing obscene carbs (upwards of 1000+g a day), and still had nearly non existant libido so I steadily started bringing them down whilst bringing fats back up. Now I get something like 200g protein 300g carb 200+g fat, but whats weird is that's more calories than I had before, but with no libido, at least not like back then, so perhaps, as you said, I'm getting the wrong fats? And not enough fiber?

You maybe right with the olive oil. I can recall some times when I've had buckwheat drenched in olive oil, and would often get insta-boners lol. And buckwheat is very high in fiber as well as magnesium. I just feel like maybe starch is overly demonized?

So much misinformation, even around these forums... we keep getting told to avoid fiber, not embrace it ,because fiber supposedly feeds endotoxin... one of the main reason starch is demonized here... unless I'm misinterpreting?

Nope, Oleic acid is MonoUnsaturated omega-9, the same stuff on your skin from sebum.

 

[Cirion]

ohhh... nice... learn something new every day... I seriously didn't know that omega-9 is mufa and not pufa...

On anabolicmen they show a chart showing optimal testosterone boosting. And they show that mufa is just as important as sfa for testosterone. In my experience I think that holds true - my libido was highest when both mufa and sfa are high - and balanced at about 50-50 each. I find that having more mufa than sfa doesn't work well, and more sfa than mufa isn't seemingly working well either.

Thanks, I feel like I'm getting closer to the answer here (at least for me)

 

[General Orange]

You dont have to avoid fiber, you can eat it but dont let it slow down your metabolism.
So combining high fiber with meat, is gonna slow down digestion.
Try fiber with fish, eggs, or veggies.

 

[General Orange]

200gr protein is too much IMO, no need to go over 1.8gr/kg bw for bodybuilder per day.

edit
The myth of 1 g/lb: Optimal protein intake for bodybuilders

 

[Cirion]

How do you know what combos will slow metabolism vs. boost it? So starchy carbs plus fish/eggs/veggies is fine, just don't have starchy carbs with beef for example? What about if the protein source is casein or gelatin? I managed to find pure unadulterated casein powder (without all the additives and crap) and it should be arriving today.

I would tend to agree 200g protein is probably too much (getting more tryptophan than I need). I have problems getting the amount of fat I need/want without getting a lot of protein though. I find I have to make "Fat bombs" for example, this morning had 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. coconut oil and 1/4 cup of heavy cream in my coffee, along with 1 scoop of casein and 2 tbsp. of gelatin.

Bayesian bodybuilding did a post saying that even the average gym goer probably doesn't even need more than 0.6 gram of protein per lb of body weight (so since I weight 215 lb or so, no need to have more than like 125g protein or so)

 

[General Orange]

fibers feed endotoxin indeed, but if your gut lining is not compromised, you can teach your gut microbes to eat it, and the short-chain fatty acids the make from it can be used for workout food for the muscles.
So eat more fibers on workout days.

 

[General Orange]

How do you know what combos will slow metabolism vs. boost it? So starchy carbs plus fish/eggs/veggies is fine, just don't have starchy carbs with beef for example? What about if the protein source is casein or gelatin? I managed to find pure unadulterated casein powder (without all the additives and crap) and it should be arriving today.

I would tend to agree 200g protein is probably too much (getting more tryptophan than I need). I have problems getting the amount of fat I need/want without getting a lot of protein though. I find I have to make "Fat bombs" for example, this morning had 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. coconut oil and 1/4 cup of heavy cream in my coffee, along with 1 scoop of casein and 2 tbsp. of gelatin.

Bayesian bodybuilding did a post saying that even the average gym goer probably doesn't even need more than 0.6 gram of protein per lb of body weight (so since I weight 215 lb or so, no need to have more than like 125g protein or so)

maybe this is useful:
Digestion Time Of Foods Is The Time Spent In The Stomach Before Emptying.

 

[Cirion]

Thanks... sorry for the million questions but a lot of what you have said is resonating with me and I like to learn and apply principles...

What if I feel like I'm compromised though gut wise? I have chronic bloat basically 24/7 and it's really annoying ,trying to fix it, I'm worried about obesity, have gained a lot of weight with the increased calories, but don't want to purposefully restrict calories if I can avoid it. I feel like this is a sign I have lots of endotoxin / serotonin in the gut chronically.

I've currently tried some things already to fix the bloat with limited success, such as constant apple cider vinegar dosing at many meals, lemon/lime drinks, generous helping of salt...

Perfect timing, as I'm literally going to the grocery as we speak, to pick up things.

Interesting post on digestion times. I will have to study it in more detail later. *edit* briefly went through it... interesting thoughts that I can try to implement today. The thought of less meals kinda resonates with me. I think part of my problem is that since going Peat, I've introduced lots of meals, more than just 3, part of that was because it was impossible to stay satiated with just carbs/sugar - part of the problem I think with Peat's philosophies. They're not wrong necessarily, but the average individual just can't stay full on sugar, only those who are healthy, and most of us aren't healthy, and need macros such as fat to stay full/sated between meals. And by constantly eating, you run into the digestion issues like I'm having now...

 

[General Orange]

I would tend to agree 200g protein is probably too much (getting more tryptophan than I need). I have problems getting the amount of fat I need/want without getting a lot of protein though. I find I have to make "Fat bombs" for example, this morning had 2 tbsp. butter 2 tbsp. coconut oil and 1/4 cup of heavy cream in my coffee, along with 1 scoop of casein and 2 tbsp. of gelatin.

Fats can stay in stomach for 8 hours, you only have to eat 6grams fat per meal to optimize vitamin uptake or 2x high fat meal per day. The higher the fat in a meal, the longer it takes to complete digestion and absorption.
Try to unlearn eating so much fat per meal. You could eat a rice meal with 1 tbs of coconut oil, finish with a piece of cheese and after your done maybe sip some more coconut oil from the bottle.

 

[Cirion]

Only 6g of fat per meal? 125g protein? 200-300g carbs? That's like how much starving kids in Africa get lol. I need *at least* 3000-3500 calories often way more (upwards of 5000) to feel satisfied. I have had days where I stopped after 4000 because I felt like "I had too much" and I often wake up hungry AF in the middle of the night even then. How does one untrain from that much fat if you need that many calories to function?

I've done both a low carb and low fat diet before - I literally almost starved to death (got down to 3-4% body fat) lol.

I bet once your thyroid is optimized you can get by with less, but I never see myself having less than around 3-3.5k a day even then. I'm still unhealthy which tends to make me need more calories to feel remotely well. Symptoms like learned helplessness and whatnot creep up quite quickly if my calorie are too low.