Statistics show that men’s testosterone levels decrease by about 1% per year after the age of 35. This is the conventional norm. And I’d like to add, you do not need to be part of convention, and you can get back to your prime, without a great deal of effort. Do you suffer from any of these symptoms?

• A decrease in energy levels
• Increased body fat (which seemed to just appear out of nowhere)
• You’re finding it harder to build muscle
• You’re finding it harder to concentrate and focus – maybe experiencing ‘brain fog’
• Loss of libido (sex drive)
• Increased fatigue
• You hit the “3pm slump” every day

These are all symptoms of a decrease in testosterone levels. If you’re searching for supplements or even testosterone replacement therapy, understand that there are ways to optimise your body, so that you produce it naturally. The key is to address the underlying root cause of accelerated decline in testosterone decline. By doing this, your body produces more testosterone – NATURALLY. This is way better long-term.

Join me for a webinar on Thursday 9 May 2019 here

Check out this 5 minute video to find out more. It’ll be worth your time, I promise..

Join me at the Webinar on Thursday: https://vitalitysecret.com/revive

The post Men Over 40: Get Your Energy Back And Revive Your Drive appeared first on Mojo Multiplier: Build Muscle, Burn Fat And Increase Energy.

Nutritional ketosis is a very cool way of burning fat and also becoming sensitive to insulin again. I believe it’s the best way to get lean and stay lean in combination with intermittent fasting. It’s actually a survival mechanism and is perfectly safe as long as you’re not depriving your body of crucial micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) from plant-based foods and healthy fats and decent sources of protein. Going back to ancestral times, hunter gathers would firstly, not be feeding on any type of grain (which are inflammatory), and secondly, not be consuming 3 large meals at regular intervals throughout the day and a considerable carbohydrate overload. They would go for days without feeding at all and would have a huge meal in one sitting (apparently…I’ve not personally met any but this is what I’ve learned).

Bulking up may be a little more challenging though. The reason for this, is that high glycemic carbs provide you with energy to a) work out hard and b) recover fast. It aids with hypertrophy (the growth of muscle tissue) and therefore helps to increase testosterone (which increases with muscle growth) and when you build muscle, your resting metabolic rate increases too (your metabolism increases).

When we consume high GI carbs our blood sugars spike rapidly like an injection of sugar (glucose) into the blood. Insulin needs to extract the excess glucose from the blood to prevent the blood from becoming toxic. One of insulin’s main functions is to regulate blood sugar levels. The excess glucose is deposited into either your liver, or muscle, or fat stores. If you’re largely sedentary and inactive, your liver and muscle stores will be full and your fat stores will be topped up. You then gain weight. If you’ve just worked out, your muscle glycogen stores will be depleted and will need to be replenished. This is when insulin can be useful in helping with muscle repair and growth.

Having said all that, it is quite possible to build muscle in nutritional ketosis. Here’s what I found on BodyBuilding.com on training in ketosis:

CARBOHYDRATES, PROTEIN, AND INSULIN

Carbohydrates create anabolism largely by setting off a cascade of hormone-driven events. (Just so we’re clear, you also get an insulin response from protein as well.) Chief among these events is secretion of a hormone called insulin from the pancreas. Many people realize that insulin regulates blood glucose levels, but insulin is not a one-trick pony.

CARBOHYDRATES AND THE ENSUING INSULIN RESPONSE HAVE A GREAT DEAL TO DO WITH MUSCLE GROWTH.

It is so multifunctional that many experts believe it to be absolutely integral to muscle synthesis—among other things. For example, one of insulin’s many roles is driving amino acid uptake; in other words, it gets amino acids out of your bloodstream and into your muscles.

Thus, carbohydrates and the ensuing insulin response obviously have a great deal to do with muscle growth.

CARBOHYDRATES AND PROTEIN SYNTHESIS

When looking specifically at protein synthesis, carbohydrates are not required. Leucine—found in egg yolks, for example—is an essential amino acid and is the primary driver of protein synthesis. That means protein synthesis can occur in the absence of carbohydrates^1-3.

So back to the pressing questions at hand: Is insulin anabolic? Does it help build muscle?

First off, anabolism is often incorrectly used as a synonym for muscle protein synthesis. I encourage you to take a broader view of anabolism beyond the mere combination of amino acids for building muscular tissue.

Anabolism encompasses the entire physiological process that supports muscle building! In that sense, yes, insulin is most definitely anabolic.

CARBOHYDRATES, INSULIN, AND RECOVERY

Recovery from muscle breakdown is an oft-overlooked cog in this muscle-building machine. After all, the better you can recover from workouts, the more frequently you can train. Training frequency is a major key player for hypertrophy. Carbohydrates enhance recovery and thus your muscle-building capacity.

While the carbohydrate-mediated stimulation of insulin does not lead to protein synthesis per se, it does reduce muscle breakdown⁴. In essence, the anti-catabolic nature of carbohydrates in turn makes them anabolic. Whaaaat?Remember, you’re working to divorce your association of anabolism from protein synthesis.

In that light, carbohydrate indeed is anabolic; it contributes to the whole muscle-building process. The addition of insulin exerts beneficial effects on the dance between protein synthesis and breakdown, called nitrogen balance^5,6.

TO MAKE STRENGTH INCREASES TO EXERCISES LIKE THE DEADLIFT, YOU TYPICALLY NEED TO EAT LIKE A POWERLIFTER, BUT WITH HARD WORK, GAINS ARE POSSIBLE ON A KETOGENIC DIET.

Carbohydrates also enhance the speed of recovery. During intense exercise, the strength of your immune system is temporarily compromised, but carbohydrates reduce the impact of this immunosuppressive effect⁷ and help restore depleted glycogen stores. Whether you should immediately shove a sweet potato down your gullet after training depends on the type of training you’re doing, training frequency, and your overall goals.

If you train only three days per week, cramming carbohydrates into your muscles immediately following a workout isn’t a priority; your regular carbohydrate consumption throughout the day will help with glycogen replenishment. If you’re trying to gain a ton of muscle mass, it probably doesn’t hurt to inhale a couple of bananas post-training, independent of nutrient timing.

CREATINE TRANSPORT

In my opinion, creatine is a must-use supplement. Whether it is due to its well-known ability to increase strength⁹ or its lesser-known ability to potentially improve cognitive function¹⁰ and insulin sensitivity¹¹, I recommend you use it every day.

It’s known that taking creatine along with carbohydrates increases intramuscular creatine levels due to insulin’s effects on creatine transport^12,13 and enhances muscle’s creatine storage capacity¹³.

In addition, insulin can enhance electrolyte build-up in cells which, like over-packing the muscle’s creatine stores, increases cell volume¹⁴. Increased cellular hydration and volume both facilitate the kickstart of anabolism¹⁵.

ANABOLISM WITHOUT CARBOHYDRATES?

After all I’ve discussed here, it’s clear that carbohydrates are anabolic. It’s time to circle back to my original deadlift conquest. Was building strength and muscle possible while on a ketogenic diet? Dowdell’s sigh notwithstanding, I found that the answer is an emphatic yes!

Don’t get me wrong, being ketogenic while training hard was no cakewalk. In three and a half months, I packed 80 pounds into my deadlift and pulled a new PR of 500 pounds on my first attempt.

It turns out that while carbohydrates are anabolic, I am still able to achieve an anabolic feat in the nearly complete absence of carbohydrates. The human body is an amazing machine, possessing the ability to make intelligent adaptations to a variety of situations.

CARBS ARE NOT REQUIRED TO FLIP THE PROTEIN SYNTHESIS SWITCH, BUT PERHAPS THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO MAKE THE OVERALL ANABOLIC PROCESS MORE EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE.

In a chronically low-carb environment, the body doesn’t follow the normal biochemical rules because it has to change. It becomes much more efficient with muscle glycogen, it up-regulates gene expression of certain enzymatic machinery needed for maximum performance, and it adapts as needed to excel in the presence of far fewer carbohydrates and much less insulin.

Quite simply, my adventure in carbohydrate-less anabolism was to prove that you can perform at a high level on minimal carbohydrate—at least in the short term. Carbohydrates are not required to flip the protein synthesis switch, but perhaps there are other ways to make the overall anabolic process more efficient and effective.

Does that mean everyone should adopt a ketogenic diet? I don’t think it is for everyone (and perhaps not for the long-term), but it’s still interesting to see what your body can achieve through thick and thin. Read full article on BodyBuilding.com

All of our bodies are different. I tend to consume more carbs when I lift weights and do high intensity workouts. And when I say more, I mean a banana after my workout with my plant-based protein shake and/or eggs. I’ll rarely eat grains. My go-to carb choice is normally quinoa or sweet potatoes but I rarely feel the need to have these.

Have you ever cut out grains from your diet? What would you find most challenging about doing so?  My latest book, The Vitality Secret, explains how inflammation affects our bodies and how to reverse it. Grains is a culprit for inflammation. Unfortunately, this is a staple food in our Western world. If you’d like to learn more about inflammation, which is behind many common illnesses including eczema, asthma, psoriasis, Crohn’s Disease, IBS and even allergies, you can purchase this book for just $0.99 right now on Amazon during the review phase. It’s currently at position no. 9 in immune systems on the US side. Quick, before the price goes up! Click this link to purchase on Amazon.

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We live in an age of ‘hyper distraction’ and are bombarded left right and centre with messages, phone calls, media, social push notifications, advertising campaigns, if you’re a father or mother your kids are wanting your attention all the time (so I hear) – all while you’re trying to create something in this beautiful world in which we live and trying to get work done. How do we ever get anything done? We’re all the time, being distracted by people trying to get our attention in some form or another and are often holding down jobs in which we’re under immense pressure to reach deadlines. What this leads to is a release of cortisol on a consistent bases. Chronic levels of cortisol work against testosterone production in a big way.  Cortisol breaks down muscle tissue tissue (meaning testosterone levels drop), leads to fat gain and insulin resistance.  Since your heart is a muscle, chronic levels of cortisol can harm your heart function and other vital organs.

We’ve all heard that stress is one of the most harmful emotions we can experience – when we consistently feel it, and this is why. It also creates a very acidic environment in the body – exactly what we don’t want. When an acidic environment is created in the body, this harms everything and leads to the breakdown of bone mass as the calcium from the bones is extracted to neutralise the effects of the acid. The pH of our body needs to be slightly alkaline and chronic levels of cortisol harm that. A great way to create a more alkaline environment is to consume copious amounts of greens. They alkalise the body.

Here’s a quote from Mark’s Daily Apple on Cortisol and Testosterone:

I would be remiss if I failed to mention testosterone’s chief antagonist: cortisol. Cortisol, as you know, is one of the stress, fight-or-flight hormones. It kept us alive and our wits about us under short-term life-or-death situations for much of our evolution. Unfortunately, when cortisol is constantly elevated – as it often is in the sleep-deprived and chronically-stressed – testosterone is muted. Cortisol is catabolic (breaks tissue down), while testosterone is anabolic. Excessive levels of cortisol produce insulin resistance, fat gain, and muscle wasting, while testosterone promotes muscular hypertrophy and lean mass gains. Cortisol contributes to metabolic syndrome, while testosterone helps alleviate it.

Ironically, serum testosterone status seems to predict the cortisol response of people faced with victory or defeat. High T men and women who “lost” released more cortisol, the stress hormone; when they “won,” less cortisol was released. Low T folks’ cortisol changes did not depend on winning or losing. I guess that’s a downside to high T levels, technically, but it’s to be expected. I’m reminded of the Jimmy Cliff classic, “The bigger they come, the harder they fall”.

Read more on Marks Daily Apple

So what are the best ways to release stress? According to Tony Schwartz who wrote The Power Of Full Engagement, aerobic exercise is the no.1 method for emotional renewal. When have you ever worked out and not felt better afterwards? Whenever I feel overwhelmed (I try not to use the word stress, as stress is actually a code word for fear) I go for a run or work out. I feel better within minutes. What’s your mechanism when you feel stressed or overwhelmed? Most highly successful people I know, work out first thing before they start their day – and one reason for this, is that you release the stress that builds up consistently in our lives. It’s also an excellent way to stimulate the mind for productivity, creativity, focus and concentration, stimulates the creation of new brain cells (neurogenesis) and helps us learn and remember (neuroplasticity). Click here to discover lots of other benefits exercise has on your brain.

Yoga and meditation are also brilliant ways to release stress. Sleep is also essential to limit chronic levels of cortisol. In fact, breathing consciously for 2-3 minutes using the bottom of your lungs is a way to instantly change your state. We tend to breathe very shallowly using onto the tops of our lungs when most the most important capillaries are towards the bottom section.

How do you release stress from your life? Click here to Download an ebook I wrote called The Truth About Exercise. Click Here to Download

The post The Effects Of Stress On Testosterone appeared first on Mojo Multiplier: Build Muscle, Burn Fat And Increase Energy.

1. Avoid oestrogen in our food and water supply and plastics, cosmetics, deodorants etc.
2. Get plenty of sleep and go to bed at 10.30 and wake up with the sun around 6.30 (if you’re like me, and you’re a night owl, this may be a challenge)
3. Keep stress low – do meditation, yoga, steady based cardio
4. Detoxify – limit or remove alcohol, drugs and other toxins
5. Make sure digestive system is working correctly – check out your poop!
6. Supplement with Vitamin A & D (egg yolks, butter)
7. Limit stimulants

The post Anabolic & Catabolic Hormones For Max Muscle Building & Fat Burning appeared first on Mojo Multiplier: Build Muscle, Burn Fat And Increase Energy.