How Low Testosterone Might Be Ruining Your (Love) Life, And What To Do About It

We’re aggressively making love… and the bed breaks. So we move to the kitchen, where a short time later, we break a chair. We finally give up and just fool around on the floor. And then again in the shower.

 

It hasn’t always been this good, and I thought it might never be this good again.

Fast forward. I’ve covered more ground in 3 months than I previously had in 10 years. My lifting performance had exploded nearly overnight, increasing by 50% or more. That is not a typo.

After plateauing for years, my bodyfat had suddenly dropped by 6% in 3.5 months. My weight has stayed fairly consistent, but my body composition has radically shifted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My girlfriend says I look like an Abercrombie model. I’m not sure how I feel about that…

And most importantly, my sex drive has gone CRAZY… like ludicrous plaid. Ikea beds are just not made to handle what I’ve been dishing out, so I had to upgrade…

It wasn’t always like this.

I’m just a regular guy, and thought that as I got older my sex drive would wane, that it was to be expected.

Until I met Roman, and subsequently started to practice what he preaches, I had never connected the dots between the symptoms I was feeling (lethargy, depression, anxiety, lack of focus, diminished sex drive) and an hormonal balance issue called Low Testosterone, or Low T.

Low T is the most insidious condition that could befall a man in his twenties, and you don’t think it could happen to you or realize it’s happening until it’s too late. She’s packing her things to move across the country and out of your life, and you can’t figure out what went wrong.

Let’s back up a bit.

After my dad passed away in 2010, I moved back to Long Island for a time to care for his house, collect my thoughts and do some soul searching. One day, I was on Facebook and started looking up old friends that might still be in the neighborhood.

Soon enough, I found and started chatting with a girl I had went to middle and high school with. We will call her Amber. She was young, full of energy, intelligent and beautiful. I had always liked her, but growing up with mostly male influences, in a mostly male social circle, and going to a very small school with the same people, I’d had very little experience with the opposite sex.

I had a crush on her from afar when we were younger, but our paths had never really lined up in any meaningful way until this point. One night I took her out to drinks. Another evening, I made us a steak dinner at my house.

Turns out, she was actually a chef now. She brought melon wrapped in prosciutto.

“You had me at ‘hello’.”

We quickly started dating, and became insatiable. ‘Smitten' might be the right word.

We would basically attack each other in the bedroom. Then bruised, beaten up and completely in love, we’d collapse into each other in a way I had only read about in romance novels.

I had to explain to people that I was not, in fact, a victim of domestic violence.

There was a problem, however.

I had already committed to moving across the country the following month. We were young and foolish, so she agreed to come help me get set up in San Francisco. After a short time dating, we were living together on the other side of the country.

Does anybody else see a giant red flag in the distance? Iceberg? I probably knew better, but didn’t care. The heart wants what it wants.

Coming off a my best month ever (up until that point) trading the markets, where I made about $45,000, I had this startup idea involving real estate in NYC. Unfortunately, there were forces at play there that I had no way to disrupt, and it became quickly clear that I had created a boondoggle. I lost a significant amount of cash. I had neglected to limit my downside, and test my ideas.

Now, I was paying the price.

My morale suffered. My sex drive waned.

Amber grew increasingly frustrated with the situation, and I did very little to help. Despite being madly in love and extremely attracted to one another, something just wasn't adding up. I ate well, swam everyday, and worked hard. I got up at 6am to trade the NY market. She worked nights, coming home reeking like a BBQ grill at 2am, and I would wake up just a few hours later to grind all morning.

We hardly had time for each other anymore. It was exhausting.

I had been neglecting to lift heavy, and despite getting physical exercise (mostly swimming, cardio and light weights) every day, the insidious effect on my hormones was rearing its ugly head.

We delayed the inevitable, often taking walks and getting away for the weekend up to Sonoma county and various other jaunts. But for some reason, I just was floundering, and couldn't figure out why. Our lovemaking went from 3-5 times a day to 1-2 times a week.

It was miserable.

After reading about John's similar struggles with low testosterone (much, much later), it became clear what had contributed to my own predicament, which eventually contributed to the end of the relationship.

The reasons weren't all sexual, of course, but sex played a huge role in keeping us together. Once my hormones were out of whack, all the time we used to spend making love turned to time spent bickering.

Finally the breaking point came; our last fight.

I was oddly calm as I told her it was over. Flat affect. Amber bawled and screamed and pleaded as she packed her things and left. I had pushed her away.

Instead of being the rock the relationship needed, I used any excuse to torpedo it. I’d like to say that this isn’t a pattern for me. It is. But I am learning.

For my part in this, I have apologized since. It was a bad situation made worse by hormonal issues on my part. Ladies: If you love your man, and I know you do, please take heed of this as well.

Along with physiology, the importance of a man’s hero’s journey cannot be understated. It's how we seek and ultimately find our identity, purpose, passion and goals– tied together with our energy and the very core of our being.

Having out of whack hormones makes it difficult to fulfill our destiny, and be the man you really want– that one you fell in love with.

Men: the world deserves your gifts. Don't shortchange it or yourself. Be the best you can be, and find a partner that inspires you to be the best version of yourself.

The problem, it turned out for me, was low testosterone. Once I got it back to normal, I was myself again and much more.

So what does Low T look like?

As Roman outlines in the lost chapter of Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha, even though his testosterone counts were within normal limits, if your testosterone suddenly goes from 800 to 300, even though that's still within normal range, that's still a precipitous drop from what you might have had in the past. Consistency over time is more important than statistical ranges or what’s ‘considered normal’. There’s also a great primer as well as a testosterone “flow chart”– how the magic happens and where things can go wrong– in the “Sex Machine” chapters of the Four Hour Body, by Timmy Ferriss. To make this article a bit more accessible with easy action items, I’ve opted to omit the extra long diatribes about how testosterone production occurs and all the various factors that can affect it, but feel free to do more research, those two books are a great jumping off point.

So listen up, guys. This is important. Trust me. Get your testosterone levels checked and track the data points over time.

Be aware of what is normal and what isn’t, and adjust your own diet and exercise protocol as necessary.

I’ve used WellnessFX performance panel in the past, which has been very cost effective, less hassle, and much more comprehensive when compared with traditional medical doctors. It comes with a handy app to track your progress. I’ve also tried Spectracell, but they’re notoriously hard to deal with. They didn’t even bill me for 6 months. Could be backlog but who knows. I couldn’t reach them by phone.

Anyway, once you get tested, if you find your levels out of whack, compared to what they’ve been in the past:

Here are some easy steps you can implement today to get your testosterone back to normal levels:

5 THINGS TO DO

1. Lift heavy weights, utilizing multiple muscle groups with complex movements. Sprints, calisthenics and plyometrics also encouraged. Check out Roman’s Engineering the Alpha or the Omega Body Blueprint and the myriad of articles on this site for more specifics.
2. Eat lots of healthy fats: eggs, avocados, almonds, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, coconut oil, grass fed butter. Plenty of dark, leafy greens. Keep your macros in line. Consider trying intermittent fasting as well.
3. Get plenty of sleep in a dark, quiet room.
4. Have frequent, passionate sex with your partner. Cuddle and touch each other often as well. This is HUGE for hormonal balance and outlook.
5. Consider a supplemental intake of Vitamin Rich Butter Fat/Cod Liver Oil Capsules. These are my favorite, I take 1-2 twice a day depending on where my levels are. You’ll see the effects quickly and learn to dial in your intake over time. These along with almonds, brazil nuts and egg yolks will comprise a 90% dietary solution.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you find yourself in rage mode (side effect of renewed testosterone, where you find yourself getting aggressive or angry for seemingly no reason) don’t react. Just take a deep breath, dial back the dose, and find a level that works better. Other great supplements include ZMA which includes essential minerals for hormone production and immunity. The Brazil Nuts provide Selenium which is important. Vitamin D has a barrage of positive health effects as well. Here's a video I made detailing my entire nutrition and supplement routine.

5 THINGS NOT TO DO

1. Focus too much on long range cardio, spinning, swimming, running, biking, etc. These all have a place, but in balance.
2. Eat dairy, wheat, corn, soy, sugar, fried, processed, or food covered in pesticides.
3. Sleep with the TV on or look at any screens one hour before bed.
4. Masturbate frequently or watch pornography.
5. Miss your daily routines, supplements, greens.

If you want more great info, John just put out a free course with his Omega Body Blueprint that talks about all of this. Since I’m also a voracious reader of anything he puts out, I’ve also picked up the whole premium package (only $27 for the next few days) and there’s about 100 pages of amazing content about hormones included. That’s just the first PDF. I’ve barely scratched the surface here in this article, so I highly recommend checking out the four free videos if you haven’t already. If you want to skip right to the good stuff– on hormones, diet, exercise and general life crushery– here is the link. He was gracious enough to put everything he’s learned in the last 13 years together at a price point that makes it accessible to ANYONE, so I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Guys… lifting heavy things, eating properly and regulating hormones is paramount to being a healthy, driven male. It's part of our makeup. We need to be challenged: creating things, loving, nurturing, providing, protecting and caring for those around us.

Men need to be a part of a collective of like minded individuals who challenge us to be the best version of ourselves, never settling for mediocrity. We need to provide a strong framework of consciousness through which the feminine energy can fully express itself. These are all things I've found since, but was not aware I needed at the time, while their absence was undermining my relationship.

SO WHAT DID WE LEARN, CLASS?

This whole saga taught me a lot. It taught me the value of continuously checking in with myself and my body. It is not a set it and forget it mechanism, and there is no “one size fits all” fitness and nutrition regimen. It taught me that the mind and the body are connected, and that one needs to be functioning optimally in concert with the other for optimal results in both.

Most importantly, I realized just how important sex drive is to a host of things, including money, relationships, overall well-being and sense of purpose.

This journey had other unintentional, but powerful benefits as well. It made me comfortable giving up alcohol as a way to numb out, block trauma and keep from processing it. At first, the intermittent fasting sucked, but now I prefer the eating schedule, even looking forward to 36 hour stints without food. The fasts clear my mind, focus my creativity and help my body to heal. My immunity is rock solid, and I rarely get sick, and when I do, I’m over it in a day or two and lose little uptime.

I used to miss the drinking, but now I thrive in social situations without the clouding of judgment. Sex is incredible: passionate and frequent. I've positively polarized my social and professional lives, shedding a lot of excess and dropping a lot of dead weight.  I've honed in on what is important, making the appropriate changes, and meeting many challenges that had been eluding me for years.

I’m less judgmental, and have begun to just accept people for who they are. I’m crushing challenges with ease that would have broken me before. I have more time to just be, and am much happier as a result.

Off label effects of being in line with your potential, I guess.

Sometimes you can't think your way through a problem. You can't just reason out a chemical imbalance, no matter how smart you think you are. Sometimes you have to grunt and sweat and work yourself to the edge of exhaustion, finding your limits daily and seeing what you're truly made of.

This is the very essence of manhood, the very fundamental purpose we identify with in nature. We create reality around us, the sum of all inspiration and perspiration that has ever taken place. The future is being created around us now in a similar fashion. We can all make the world into whatever we choose through consistent action because we all have the same amount of the most valuable resource– TIME. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, male or female, from Earth or Mars.

It won’t always be easy, and you will feel resistance. There are no shortcuts. I suggest you overcome whatever objection your brain is currently offering up.

Fuck resistance. Do the work. It will be hard, but it will be worth it. It will be hard. Every. Single. Day. Your brain is wired to see only the downside, so don't let this be a decision you make in your mind, because biology will betray you.

Maybe you can't see the upside right now. Maybe you’re surrounded by a cloud of negativity. But I'm here to give you permission to suspend disbelief and naysaying, both internal and external, and see the unbelievable upside that comes from living your true purpose and being your best self.

John and others can provide a blueprint, all you have to do is… well, what you always have to do if you want something worthwhile.

Go to work.

Now it’s your turn to weigh in: Have you ever struggled with Low T or waning sex drive? Are you still? If you beat this, how did you overcome it? What were the benefits?  What would you recommend someone do if they’ve been struggling with this insidious issue? Or how to avoid it in the first place?

Let me know your story and any questions you might have in the comments section below, and please do share this post with your network. This can happen to anyone, and it’s important that the word gets out so that men (and women!) everywhere can attack this problem head on without shame or fear of being alone in their struggle.

Prefer to join the discussion with me and my friends on Facebook? Join in below!

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