Low Libido Advice

[danielbb]

Thanks for the response @danielbb

Great tips too on the starch elimination. Your symptoms & mine are similar and the fact that you've resolved them is encouraging.

Burger for dinner & Coke before bed for me tonight!

I'll let you know how it goes

That's great @Spartan300! I usually eat the burger and mashed potatoes for dinner and several hours later have the Coke before going to bed. I've ran dozens of experiments and tried different combinations of fruit, vegetables, fat, and so forth. Burgers (e.g., 80/20) plus the potatoes provide maximum hormonal results with Coke before bed being the catalyst for the whole testosterone cycle. Other meat works fine as well. Make sure to include lifting in your weekly exercise routines. Very excited to see if you get results. I hope I am indeed not an outlier.

 

[Spartan300]

I'm hoping you're not an outlier too @danielbb !

I've been lifting weights for 30+ years & still have that covered with 2 or 3 sessions a week. (I'm only a little younger than you ).

Breakfasts without starch is a tricky one for me - what do you do?

 

[Blossom]

If anyone is interested, I can post the recipes.

Yes please! I have a bumper crop of zucchini this year.

 

[danielbb]

I'm hoping you're not an outlier too @danielbb !

I've been lifting weights for 30+ years & still have that covered with 2 or 3 sessions a week. (I'm only a little younger than you ).

Breakfasts without starch is a tricky one for me - what do you do?

@Sparten300 - I am assuming you are talking about bread/toast and muffins and things like that? All I can tell you is that I cured depression and runny nose by removing that type of starch. I used to be a bacon and eggs guy and would dunk my toast in the eggs. Before I completely eliminated starch, I gave up the toast and was just eating the bacon and eggs. I noticed I never quite felt 100% after that type of breakfast. I felt satiated but not feeling at peak energy level. Now its usually 1 cup of Greek yogurt (most of the lactic acid has been strained away in the process), fruit with a little salt sprinkled on top to raise my body temperature, 2 cups of OJ, and 1 or two cups of milk. If available, I'll eat a couple of the cookies or cake I described above.

What are your goals? I think starch (as in flour) is a small price to pay to achieve them and there are healthy alternatives. Pizza was my big hurdle. I don't really think about it any more. If I want some, I know how to make pizza crust without using starch but I really do not want the calorie load associated with pizza anymore.

Actually, I won't be 58 until September but mine are to be ripped. I feel 100% healthy but not quite ripped yet. Showing abs is the hardest thing to do in all of fitness imho and hopefully by the time of my next birthday, I'll be there. I believe removing starch has been a revelation for me because I feel like I am operating at 100%. I think I mentioned above, I no longer feel the need to use alcohol. I prefer club soda now and don't miss alcohol one bit. In October, it will be my 1 year anniversary from alcohol and I am not an alcoholic btw. I don't see many people talking about this on these forums, but removing alcohol makes a BIG difference in how you feel.

 

[Spartan300]

Thanks @danielbb , I have always tended to do cereal for breakfast with a protein shake. I'm only using casein powders now though.

You are definitely right on the starch thing being a small price to pay for the benefits you describe. I think I need to focus on more milk, fruit & salted OJ for breakfast as you say.

Our goals are very similar but I'd also like to regain some lost muscle & strength which occurred as my metabolism declined over the last 5 or so years. I rarely drink much alcohol but have a few drinks on occasion with friends.

I'm looking forward to that coke tonight!

 

[danielbb]

Yes please! I have a bumper crop of zucchini this year.

Ok @Blossom - but I have to tell you, I think turning raw zucchini into flour would take a lot of work. It can be done using a dehydrator however.

Anyhow, here are the recipes. I’ve also attached a file for my spaghetti sauce and meat recipe I’ve been making for almost 40 years. The only substitute I now do for spaghetti is to use spiralized zucchini as mentioned above (peal off skins and boil or microwave to soften) in place of pasta as I no longer eat starch/gluten. I also no longer eat any bread with the spaghetti although I use a little bit for the meat balls. I give tips in the recipe on how you can "tune" the sauce to your liking.

I hope you enjoy them and please send me a message if you have some success with them.

Here are the recipes and formulas using zucchini….

Here is the link to buy the zucchini chips. I have been buying 3 lb bags and it will make approximately 5 cakes or 5 batches of cookies. I’ll admit, this is expensive but I do not have the time to dehydrate that much zucchini.

https://www.northbaytrading.com/air-dried-zucchini


The formula for replacing flour is 2 to 1. Two cups of dried zucchini chips replace one cup of flour in a recipe. For example, the carrot cake recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, and thus you would use four cups of dried zucchini which has to be ground into flour for about 12-15 minutes in a food processor. After grinding, I take a metal whisk and work the flour for a minute or two to make sure all the flour is ground into a nice homogenous mixture. The cookies call for 2 and ¼ cup of flour thus of course you need four and ½ cups of dried zucchini. (Note I think four cups for the cookies is fine as well because I’ve added a new ingredient to the mix – 1 cup of crushed macadamia nuts which makes up for having slightly less zucchini flour)

Secondly, I have found that each recipe needs one additional egg. Also, do not use brown eggs as I learned the hard way they make hard/dry un-enjoyable cookies.

For cookies, use Nestle’s toll house recipe. Use one additional egg than the recipe calls for. Use Enjoy Life Brand Mini-Chips as they do not use Soy. Use two bags of chips which is more than the two cups called for in the Nestle recipe. Bake for exactly 9 minutes at 375 degrees like the recipe calls for. Make sure to add one cup of chopped/crushed macadamia nuts. Enjoy Life can be purchased in any Super Market.

https://enjoylifefoods.com/our-foods/baking-chocolate/

Here is the carrot cake recipe:

https://www.momontimeout.com/to-die-for-carrot-cake-recipe/


1. Remember to use one additional egg than the recipe calls for.

2. Use 1 and 3/4 cup of sugar which is less than the two cups the recipe calls for. Zucchini is naturally sweet and the cake is too sweet with 2 cups of sugar.

3. Bake for 35 minutes rather than the 30 minutes called for in the recipe.

4. Substitute ground Macadamia nuts for Pecans.

The zucchini cakes are a little more brittle than regular flour cakes. Thus, when laying them, you have to get them up on a cutting board and flip them on to the next layer – don’t try and pick them up as they will break in half. I cool my cakes on parchment paper and then after at least three hours of cooling, I slide the cake using the parchment paper onto the board. From here, you can easily flip it onto the cake stand. The reason I don’t use regular flour is the starch and gluten in the flour. I believe these things are highly inflammatory (from my own personal experience) and are very bad for proper digestion.

 

[Blossom]

Ok @Blossom - but I have to tell you, I think turning raw zucchini into flour would take a lot of work. It can be done using a dehydrator however.

Anyhow, here are the recipes. I’ve also attached a file for my spaghetti sauce and meat recipe I’ve been making for almost 40 years. The only substitute I now do for spaghetti is to use spiralized zucchini as mentioned above (peal off skins and boil or microwave to soften) in place of pasta as I no longer eat starch/gluten. I also no longer eat any bread with the spaghetti although I use a little bit for the meat balls. I give tips in the recipe on how you can "tune" the sauce to your liking.

I hope you enjoy them and please send me a message if you have some success with them.

Here are the recipes and formulas using zucchini….

Here is the link to buy the zucchini chips. I have been buying 3 lb bags and it will make approximately 5 cakes or 5 batches of cookies. I’ll admit, this is expensive but I do not have the time to dehydrate that much zucchini.

https://www.northbaytrading.com/air-dried-zucchini


The formula for replacing flour is 2 to 1. Two cups of dried zucchini chips replace one cup of flour in a recipe. For example, the carrot cake recipe calls for 2 cups of flour, and thus you would use four cups of dried zucchini which has to be ground into flour for about 12-15 minutes in a food processor. After grinding, I take a metal whisk and work the flour for a minute or two to make sure all the flour is ground into a nice homogenous mixture. The cookies call for 2 and ¼ cup of flour thus of course you need four and ½ cups of dried zucchini. (Note I think four cups for the cookies is fine as well because I’ve added a new ingredient to the mix – 1 cup of crushed macadamia nuts which makes up for having slightly less zucchini flour)

Secondly, I have found that each recipe needs one additional egg. Also, do not use brown eggs as I learned the hard way they make hard/dry un-enjoyable cookies.

For cookies, use Nestle’s toll house recipe. Use one additional egg than the recipe calls for. Use Enjoy Life Brand Mini-Chips as they do not use Soy. Use two bags of chips which is more than the two cups called for in the Nestle recipe. Bake for exactly 9 minutes at 375 degrees like the recipe calls for. Make sure to add one cup of chopped/crushed macadamia nuts. Enjoy Life can be purchased in any Super Market.

https://enjoylifefoods.com/our-foods/baking-chocolate/

Here is the carrot cake recipe:

https://www.momontimeout.com/to-die-for-carrot-cake-recipe/


1. Remember to use one additional egg than the recipe calls for.

2. Use 1 and 3/4 cup of sugar which is less than the two cups the recipe calls for. Zucchini is naturally sweet and the cake is too sweet with 2 cups of sugar.

3. Bake for 35 minutes rather than the 30 minutes called for in the recipe.

4. Substitute ground Macadamia nuts for Pecans.

The zucchini cakes are a little more brittle than regular flour cakes. Thus, when laying them, you have to get them up on a cutting board and flip them on to the next layer – don’t try and pick them up as they will break in half. I cool my cakes on parchment paper and then after at least three hours of cooling, I slide the cake using the parchment paper onto the board. From here, you can easily flip it onto the cake stand. The reason I don’t use regular flour is the starch and gluten in the flour. I believe these things are highly inflammatory (from my own personal experience) and are very bad for proper digestion.

Thank you so much! Do you mind if I put this in the recipe section? BTW did you know that you can buy gluten free bread crumbs to use in your meatballs? It's still a small amount of starch but not much.

 

[danielbb]

@Blossom - I do not mind at all. Good tip on the gluten free bread crumbs but I prefer fresh bread over crumbs as is makes "mosit-er" meatballs imho. There is so little bread in the recipe, and the meatballs cook for hours and hours in the sauce, the bread pieces basically disintegrate and I believe the starch is broken down in the cooking process. I don't believe there is any harm in this small amount.

 

[Wolf]

Sjw will kill your libido.
Something like he Shou Wu will increase dopamine without affecting nitric oxide too much. Low dose pde5 plants like horny goat weed standardized to icariin help, not too peat. Same with citrulline and arginine in 1g:1g ratio. Stopping masturbation for an extended period of time along this protocol also helps.

 

[Blossom]

@Blossom - I do not mind at all. Good tip on the gluten free bread crumbs but I prefer fresh bread over crumbs as is makes "mosit-er" meatballs imho. There is so little bread in the recipe, and the meatballs cook for hours and hours in the sauce, the bread pieces basically disintegrate and I believe the starch is broken down in the cooking process. I don't believe there is any harm in this small amount.

That makes sense. I'm celiac so I have to use gluten free. I wasn't sure how sensitive you were to gluten so I figured I'd mention it.

 

[tara]

I am no expert, with no medical advise, but as a lay person I tend in general to think of attending to basics first. That means:
Nutrition: use cronometer or similar to get an idea what you are getting in your food. BTW, AIUI, the average normal adult male eats about 3000 cals. Enough calories, protein, micronutrients, Not too much poisons, PUFA and anti-metabolic substances.
Daylight and sunlight.
Breathing and CO2 levels.
Suitable movement.
Sleep.
Good company, interesting life, doing things you enjoy every day, ...
Seeing if there are current excess life stresses that can be positively addressed/reduced.

My hunches for you would be to try (and see if it helps - if it doesn't notice and back off):
- gradually increase the amount of carbs you are eating, mainly using fruits, roots and veges
- eat breakfast within an hour of waking up
- eat at least every 4 hours, maybe less

I have never had epilepsy, but I suffer migraines. There seem to be some similarities. I have not solved them.
I think amongst many factors, brain stress and fatigue may be factors in both.
Hunger and low blood sugar and the adaptations the body makes to sustain blood sugar in the absence of sufficient food can be stressful.
Serotonin is one of a number of hormones that rises to deal with stress situations.

You could look up epilepsy on this forum. There are at least one or two threads mentioning it. One person wrote about her daughter using progesterone to help stabilise.

I probably don't eat enough, I think it's between 2,000 and 2,500 calories daily. I have lost a lot of muscle tone so think I probably need more protein??

Is there a reason you are not eating very much?

I am seeing my GP on 21st August to try and get a vitamin/mineral breakdown so I can see if I have any deficiencies. Is there anything, in particular, I should/could ask for? Not that I expect my GP to give me a full vitamin and mineral panel of course

I'm not sure that you can get a realistic idea of this from tests a GP will order. If there is something really extreme it might show up.
One thing that I think can happen is that even when people are quite malnourishing themselves - losing lean tissue to burn for energy - minerals and vitamins are released into circulation, so that blood tests for some micronutrients can look as though they are all fine.

 

[Spartan300]

Well the coke with sugar before bed was worth a try. Not sure if it was the sugar or caffeine but I didn't get to sleep until about 3 hours after I went to bed. Waking temp 96.6

I'm not sure if it was the sugar or the caffeine but sadly not a good experience for me

 

[danielbb]

Well the coke with sugar before bed was worth a try. Not sure if it was the sugar or caffeine but I didn't get to sleep until about 3 hours after I went to bed. Waking temp 96.6

I'm not sure if it was the sugar or the caffeine but sadly not a good experience for me

Sorry to hear that. I will not give that advice anymore. An aunt of mine tried it and had the exact same result as you with respect to falling asleep. She is much tinier than me and I thought maybe a whole coke before bed was too high of a dose for her. The amount of caffeine is 30 mg and for me, after about 20 minutes the lights go out. What is your normal waking temperature as that concerns me as well? Again, sorry for that. I sent you a private message.

 

[Spartan300]

Hi, no hard feelings - I'm willing to try anything that's working for others.

So many people here sing the praises of Cypro here so I'm also trying that at the moment - early indications are that it doesn't knock me out/improve sleep & it seems to lower libido at low doses of 0.5 or 1mg.....

 

[nwo2012]

Wuthout reading the whole thread and im not recommending you mess around with meds but maybe under GP guidance switch to sodium valproate. It is more Peaty than carbamazepine.

 

[Darren]

omg I go away for a few days and this thread lights up lol

Thank you so much for all of your replies, I'll have to schedule some time to go through and read them tonight. So many people willing to help - I'm speechless!

@tara I'm not specifically eating too little, that's just what I naturally eat during the day. I'm not a massive frame, I'm a 36" waist and a 42" chest, so not a big guy. I'm sedentary for a large chunk of the day, which is why I walk an hour a day minimum now. I also think that sleep is the number one issue right now, I haven't slept properly in three years. I can't even remember what a refreshing sleep feels like. It would also suggest that my GABA is severely depleted, which could/would cause so many of my symptoms. Since I've recently learned that my Carbamazepine raises Serotonin (the actual mechanism which it actually works by!) I should think that is high enough.

@nwo2012 thanks for the suggestion, the only issue is that in the UK under relative law if I changed my medication it would, in essence, be the same as having a seizure, in that I would lose my driving license for the year while I established that I was no danger on the road. Likewise coming off the medication altogether has the same effect. Thank you for your input though, I'd never heard of Sodium Valproate before.

 

[tara]

@tara I'm not specifically eating too little, that's just what I naturally eat during the day. I'm not a massive frame, I'm a 36" waist and a 42" chest, so not a big guy. I'm sedentary for a large chunk of the day, which is why I walk an hour a day minimum now. I also think that sleep is the number one issue right now, I haven't slept properly in three years. I can't even remember what a refreshing sleep feels like.

This is what I was going by:

I probably don't eat enough, I think it's between 2,000 and 2,500 calories daily. I have lost a lot of muscle tone so think I probably need more protein??

Often I will have a late or absent breakfast then lunch around 2pm, dinner about 7pm and that will really be it aside from snacks between, which are usually apples, bananas or yogurt. Recently I have been craving sugar rich foods, usually later at night so I guess the walking is obliterating my glycogen stores?!?

It might not be the key thing, but if you haven't tested it, I wouldn't be so sure.
Low blood sugar and glycogen stores are likely to raise stress hormones. That can make it hard to sleep.
It took me a while to work it out for myself years ago. I didn't know I was undereating, and I didn't feel obviously hungry. But I eventually figured out that I had to eat supper if I wanted to sleep through the night, and that if I was lying there ruminating in the wee hours it was usually a snack (carbs) that was the simplest solution.

If you are delaying breakfast till 2pm, then unless you have strong glycogen storage, there's a good change that this is setting you up to be unnecessarily running on stress hormones for hours.

If you are small and sedentary, you may not need quite 3000 cals. But if you have been restrictive dieting, walking an hour a day, delaying breakfast, and craving sugar, there's at least a possibility that energy deficit is part of the issue.

 

[Jamo77]

@danielbb

Really interesting about your burger experience. I found a big Mac with vanilla thickshake tends to give me a lot of physical strength it really kicks in not long after. It is a useful combo for my physically demanding job. I avoid the fries because of PUFA. What is in those burger patties that provide such benefit? I am giving gluten up so will try your burger methods thanks for the suggestions and recipes.

 

[theLaw]

@danielbb

Really interesting about your burger experience. I found a big Mac with vanilla thickshake tends to give me a lot of physical strength it really kicks in not long after. It is a useful combo for my physically demanding job. I avoid the fries because of PUFA. What is in those burger patties that provide such benefit? I am giving gluten up so will try your burger methods thanks for the suggestions and recipes.

You might consider a triple cheeseburger which is less than 1/2 the pufa or even 2 McDoubles. The Big Mac hits you with pufa in the sauce, which brings it to around 7G, while the other 2 are around 3G.

A small shake is less than 1G, so that's not really the problem.

This is how we get hit with so much pufa on a regular basis without even realizing it.

 

[raypeatclips]

You might consider a triple cheeseburger which is less than 1/2 the pufa or even 2 McDoubles. The Big Mac hits you with pufa in the sauce, which brings it to around 7G, while the other 2 are around 3G.

A small shake is less than 1G, so that's not really the problem.

This is how we get hit with so much pufa on a regular basis without even realizing it.

You can customise your order at McDonalds, so could even get the Big Mac without the sauce.