6 Ways to Destroy your Testosterone Production Naturally
By Ali Kuoppala | Last reviewed Tue 25 September 2018
Medical Review by Dr. Stefano Pizzo, MD
I have written A LOT about increasing natural testosterone production, but I have never actually made any posts about lowering testosterone levels. I mean there are probably people out there who want to lower their T and feel like shit.
You know? The guys who are scared that they’ll become too manly or too aggressive or some other bullshit explanation for as to why high T would be a bad thing.
So what I have got you for today, is a list of 6 simple steps that will completely destroy your testosterone production. If you want to get low testosterone levels, please follow the steps in this list, and if you want to do the exact opposite – which I highly suggest – then consider this as a “how-not-to list”.
Let’s begin:
1. Sleep Less than 4 Hours per Night
Lack of sleep is very important if you want to continuously suppress your natural testosterone production.
And it’s a quick way to do so too. You’ll see results in just days and your testosterone will plummet HARD, that’s a guarantee.
Don’t believe me?
Just take a look at the science…
a) In this study Gov et al. had 531 healthy men as test subjects to see how sleep affects T production. They found out that the group of men who slept 4 hours per night, had 60% less testosterone in their serum than the fellows who slept for 8 hours per night.
b) In this study from Penev et al. the researchers saw that the men who slept for roughly 4 hours a night had 200-300 ng/dl T in their serum, as opposed to the men who slept for 8 hours who had 500-700 ng/dl.
So as you can see, just by sleeping less than 4 hours a night, you can easily halve your testosterone levels, and as an added bonus, you’ll feel like a zombie everyday! That’s just awesome, and hey, at least you don’t become too “aggressive” or masculine 😉
2. Eat Like a Fitness Enthusiast
This is probably one of the best ways to destroy your natural testosterone production.
Hire yourself a personal trainer from your local gym, and tell him to craft you a healthy diet.
9 times out of 10 the result will be a “clean” low calorie diet with high protein, low carbs, and low fat.
Seems healthy right? Ain’t this what every health and fitness “guru” preaches about?
a) Being on a calorie deficit is well-known for its ability to lower testosterone levels (even though this is mandatory if you’re a fat-ass looking to lose weight).
b) High-protein diets are detrimental for testosterone production (study, study, study, study).
c) Low-carb diets are known to be very bad for testosterone production (study, study, study, study).
d) Low-fat diets are the worst offender. Without fat, you’re lacking the essential building blocks of the big T (study, study, study, study).
If you want to say goodbye to the natural production of the most anabolic hormone of the human body, start eating like a fitness enthusiast. Listen to every little piece of info they have to tell you on bodybuilding forums, and by all means never look at the real science for answers.
3. Hit the Gym on a Daily Basis
Exercising is a good thing for testosterone production, especially if you follow a strength training routine that activates large amounts of muscle volume at the same time.
But exercise can also be your tool in lowering testosterone.
To suppress your testosterone with training, you have to do lots of it. So much that your stress hormone (cortisol) levels rise a lot.
Once your cortisol goes up, testosterone goes down. Simply because High T and chronically high cortisol can’t co-exist.
Hit the gym hard everyday and you will skyrocket your cortisol, which again, destroys your testosterone.
Oh, and in case you’re not that much into gyms, you can also start training for marathon runs. Hours of endurance training every day will sap off your testosterone production too. Maybe do them both? While also eating like a fitness enthusiast. I can guarantee that you won’t have any testosterone molecules in your serum to even measure soon.
4. Become an Alcoholic
Alcohol and the endocrine system is not exactly a match made in heaven.
It has been demonstrated countless times in science that the more alcohol (ethanol) you drink, the lower your testosterone, and the higher your estrogen levels will be (study, study, study, study, study).
But there’s one kind of alcohol that I would say is the worst offender, or if you want to destroy your testosterone levels: “your best pal”.
Beer.
It’s main ingredient is hops, and hops contain two very potent testosterone lowering compounds…
…The first one is 8-Prenylnaringenin, an extremely potent phytoestrogen. 8-PN is so estrogenic in fact, that the women who pick it up by hand, experience menstrual problems…
…The second offender is a compound called xanthohumol, which directly blocks testosterone production inside the testes.
NOTE: Low amounts of alcohol, such as glass or two of wine or liquor, won’t damage your testosterone production. In fact small doses of liquor taken post-workout can actually increase free-testosterone levels.
So if you want to suppress your testosterone production, hit the bar.
5. Become a Vegetarian
Let’s say that you want to start protecting animals and at the same time would also like to suppress your testosterone levels.
What would be the best thing to do?
Become a vegetarian obviously.
Study after study, has confirmed that grass-eating men have significantly lower testosterone levels than meat-eaters (study, study, study, study, study).
This is caused by a mix of several factors: vegetarians don’t eat enough saturated fat, they eat too much polyunsaturated fat, they don’t eat enough cholesterol, and animal protein is superior to plant-based proteins when it comes to testosterone production.
And that’s why vegetarians/vegans have almost always low testosterone levels, or in some cases “normal” total testosterone levels, but extremely low levels of bio-available free testosterone (because of high SHBG).
6. Get Fat
Think of Muhammad Ali punching you directly into the ballsack. Multiple times. Everyday.
That’s what being fat does to your testosterone production.
Being fat is like a testicular nuclear bomb. It saps away the life from your gonads. And it also neutralizes the testosterone that eventually reaches your bloodstream.
And it gets better. The fatter you are, the more aromatase enzyme your body produces, and the more aromatase enzyme you have, the more of your testosterone molecules will be converted to estrogen.
As if that wasn’t enough, belly fat also neutralizes the conversion from testosterone to DHT (more potent male hormone).
Remember, it’s not the weight on the scale that matters, it’s the fat. Adipose tissue. Lard, or whatever you may call it. If you want to have low T, simply increase your fat percentage.
Conclusion
I’m sure most of you guys already understood that this is a post of things to avoid.
In no way, shape, or form should you do any of these thing if you want to remain healthy, active, and awesome.
Like I said earlier, consider this as a how-not-to post.
However, if you truly want to lower your testosterone levels, go ahead and follow these 6 tricks.
Ali Kuoppala
