A Guide to the Perfect High Testosterone Diet

For men in general and bodybuilders in particular, high testosterone is something of a Holy Grail. With high T your body will build muscle more quickly and efficiently while burning more fat. At the same time you’ll recover from injury more rapidly, feel more confident and enjoy better sex; there’s really no drawback!

The only problem is that not all of us are fortunate to be blessed with high levels of testosterone naturally. Even those of us who do have a naturally high level of testosterone will often find we want more – we just can’t get enough of the stuff!

In these cases there are a number of options open to us to naturally and safely boost levels of the hormone. One of the easiest is to turn to diet and there are luckily many different foods that will help to increase testosterone. Read on and we’ll look at some of the best foods to consume and a few that you should make sure to avoid.

The Best Foods for Testosterone

Eggs

Eggs should already be one of the favourite foods of any bodybuilder worth their salt seeing as they’re one of the only foods with a complete amino acid profile. What you perhaps didn’t know though, is that they’re also ideal for boosting testosterone.

The reason for this is that eggs contain a lot of cholesterol – something which you probably thought was a bad thing. Eggs actually contain roughly 200-250 mg of cholesterol per serving, but studies have shown that this doesn’t actually boost cholesterol in the body as much as you might think. Most cholesterol is manufactured in the body and diet it turns out is only a small contributory factor.

What dietary cholesterol does do however, is to provide your body with the raw materials it needs to create sex hormones, which of course include testosterone. Eat a batch of eggs before bed and you will have a testosterone-boosting sleep that night.

Beef

Although it’s not as lean as chicken, beef should still be a favourite staple of any bodybuidler’s diet for a number of reasons. Not only is beef high in iron, phosphorous, vitamin B12 and riboflavin, but it is also one of the best ways to get more testosterone in your diet. This is why steak is often considered a great dinner on Valentine’s day!

Meat

While beef is good in particular, all meat will help to boost your testosterone levels because it’s protein. That said though, you do need to be careful not to get too much of a good thing as studies show that consuming more protein than carbs can actually lower your testosterone. Likewise you want to aim for animal sources of protein as vegetarian diets have been shown to correlate with lower testosterone levels.

Calories

As well as eating certain specific foods, it’s also important that you just… eat. A lot. When you eat a large number of calories it signals your brain to release something called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (also known as GnRH) which stimulates lutenizing hormone that in turn manages the conversion of cholesterol into testosterone (by activating enzymes in the testes). If you’re not taking in enough calories, you won’t produce as much GnRH and that will result in less testosterone.

Foods to Avoid

While there are plenty of foods that help to increase testosterone levels and that deserve a place in any bodybuilder’s diet, there are also a number of foods that can have the opposite effect and reduce your levels of the male sex hormone.

One of the biggest culprits here is alcohol which is well known to reduce testosterone levels. It’s also really high in calories so it’s generally to be avoided if you’re serious about your lifting.

Excessive fibre can also reduce testosterone though it’s important to ensure you still get adequate amounts. Likewise consuming too much sugar is bad for your T as it increases insulin levels.

Finally, if you’re serious you might want to consider drinking filtered or bottled water. Studies have shown that our tap water now contains large amounts of oestrogen due largely to ‘female products’ being flushed down the toilet!

So there you have it: plenty of tips to help you increase testosterone through your diet. Experiment and see what works for you but make sure you at least follow these simple rules and you’ll start noticing even more benefits from your training.

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