Managing Testosterone

I use peptides in my workouts, they increase testosterone and act as an aphrodisiac. Search the internet, you can find many.

I’m 33. I honestly I have never felt a decreased desire for sex. Also, I have worked out 5 days a week and maintained a great diet since I was in my teenage years.

At this point I think my T levels are in the muscle memory section of my body.

That said, I do maintain routine to try and keep my T levels as high as possible without using synthetics.

From my research and lifestyle,

1. Exercise: 3 days of heavy lifting strength training exercise (Squat, bench, press). I do an ultimate Kettlebell work out twice a week. I swim three times a week. I also do some HIIT on the treadmill for 30 minutes 3 times a week. Yeah, I work out a lot.

2. Diet: High protein, high fruits and veggies, low fat. Low carbs. No fried foods, processed foods, or sugar (except honey). I drink a “man” shake everyday which is 4 eggs, spinach, beets, blueberries, steel cut oats, wheat germ, and a scoop of whey vanilla. I allow a cheat meal once a week (within my boundaries) and a fuck it meal once a month (chinese food, ice cream).

3. Sleep. I have a sleep schedule. In bed by 8pm. Up by 4:00am

4. Mental Health: Counseling, journaling, therapy, self help literature, affirmations. And most important MEDITATION. 2x a day. I recognize my triggers and try to avoid them. I enter conflicts with a clear. I assert my desires and if my needs are not respect I go elsewhere to meet them. I practice forgiveness, self acceptance, confidence, and a positive mindset (well I strive to.. Work in progress).

5. Supplements: I take Men’s one a day, omega 3, d3, collagen pills, biotin, and ZMA.

With all of the above I usually have no issue with energy or sex drive. I never got my T levels checked though so I am interested in seeing where I am act exactly.

Always open to more suggestions!

I have been wondering if I should consider TRT. I’m 55. I’m in very good shape (a Jiu Jitsu Black Belt). My testosterone actually increased by 100 points from the last bloods, to the most current. I scored a 530. I am now getting morning wood much stronger due to what I think is hanging. Crazy!? My question is did TRT increase your libido/daily erections (not the morning wood)?

Way to go - I am in my mid-50s and no one believes it, ever. My approach has been along the lines above. I haven’t measured my T levels, but based on how everything works they must be just fine and I’d rather not mess with the current state of affairs.

I have done weights since my teens (I was into competitive sports) and never stopped. Working out 5-7 times a week is just part of my routine. I listen to my body a lot, it tells me when I am getting overboard. As above, I mix high weights and cardio - but weights are the core of well-being, I am convinced to the core about that.

As I turned into my 50s, I had to watch my nutrition more. I have become a bit of a healthy to semi-healthy gourmet cook. These days I make sure to include far more greens into my diet than I did before. Luckily I love broccoli, cauliflower, lentils and split peas.

And supplements. Again, ever since I was a teenager I took multi-vitamins, and now consume an admittedly somewhat excessive stack of stuff, but hey, it seems to work. On the possible T related front, I take tribulus terrestris and fenugreek. I also do Ginseng and Gingko B. I also take a bunch of stuff for brain heath, which is very, very important to me.

And mental health - yeay to the previous poster, that part I only learned in my very late 40s by painful necessity. After my divorce, I fell into a deep depression (even though to everybody else it didn’t look like it, because I was partying and sexing hard, but I was a complete mess inside). The layers of inner misery we can carry inside for our entire lives, and which drive us to a type of self-destruction we sometimes regard as simply a part of who we are… trust me on this one: if you’re caught up in a rut of not feeling great, if at my age you can’t wake up every morning thanking the world for every sacred breath you take… get yourself a good therapist you connect with. It saved my life, literally. I got to the point where, despite everything I have, despite always having beautiful women around me… I would lie in bed at night, break into a sweat and wonder why on earth I was alive and bothering to go on. And BTW, my regular doctor just went and prescribed anti-depressants, which made it far worse, that’s when I lived in hell for a year. It’s half a miracle I didn’t simply swim out into the ocean and drown myself (I actually did swim out into the ocean at 2am in the morning, that was the night that changed it for me, but it should never go that far).

BTW ice cold water is support to be good for T production as well. I do shower as cold as it goes. Not the best thing for penile size fresh out of the shower, but hey. :-)

My urologist (a young-ish guy) said exactly what you said; "why mess with your chemistry if everything is within normal levels?"

Now…there’s be many Dr.s that believe this - "why not get you to the highest # that is considered "safe" for your age?"
There are clinical studies that support both ideas, so it’s tough to know what to do!

There’s a guy on YouTube called Zander Holt (Zander Holt - YouTube) that has a channel called "Rock Hard for Life." He doesn’t use TRT and believes you can push your T count up via nutrition (and infrared light - which there are clinical studies that support such). It’s worth checking out.

Nice. Glad that you are walking a similar path. And I agree: Mental Health is serious. I didn’t take it seriously until, like you, I went through a devastating depression during covid (one of those states of saddness that only comes from climbing a mountain in pain only to realize you have been climbing the wrong way the whole time).

8 months of covid gave birth to revelation of sorts. I was reminded by a fortune cookie that when it is dark you finally get to see the stars. Good shit. Get therapy friends. It works!

“tribulus terrestris and fenugreek. I also do Ginseng and Gingko B.”

Sounds like something I want to look into. Also, the cold showers as well. Makes me wish when the pool was cold at the YMCA.

If you’re at 530, congrats, and don’t mess with it. TRT is annoying and sucks on many levels. I’m in really good shape with levels in the 200s, so whereas exercising and getting in shape can help to a certain extent, if you’re already in shape and low, that’s when I’d look at supplementing. It’s really tough to say if it helped with my libido. I started because I was coming off an 18 year marriage and having sex with someone else, other than my wife, for the first time. At age 40, I had a really hot 33 year old going down on me and trying to ride the crap out of me and I had nothing. It was really embarrassing. She wasn’t necessarily the type to be too understanding and patient either. So, I went with the shotgun approach…TRT as well as sildenafil. By the time I met my current wife, 3 months after that ordeal, I had everything up to par. I had noticed with my ex wife that my erections at the end of the relationship weren’t as good as 20 years before, but I never really had a problem. We had sex 1-2x/week (right up to the end), but our sessions never lasted more than 10-15 minutes because she was a willing recipient, but never much of a participant. However, going back out on the market, 30-40 year old women really wanted to be railed, and that’s really not how I’d ever functioned (and still don’t). Even after being with my current wife for 5 years, I still have erectile issues. I always want to have sex with her, but the equipment doesn’t always cooperate. Some is physical (age, mildly enlarged prostate). but some is still mental…even after all this time. My ex and I were each others firsts…so no comparisons, no real nerves. My current wife had been with 17-20 other guys, some really big, and I have enough confirmed evidence regarding those encounters to justify my nerves at my size (6.25” BPEL, 5” girth) and abilities. I went off of it for about 3 months a few years ago, and we had some serious relationship issues. Now, she states that it was just coincidental, and we had only been married for a year so problems arise with newly blended families, but I went back on it and have no plans of going back off, unless I have to because of medical reasons.

I am not a doctor or therapist, so take it with a grain of sand - but to me from your narrative and tone it sounds like a lot of it is mental? It was fine with your wife until the end, but then some insecurities and stress crept in? And you also throw in the dick size thing, which is complete nonsense if a woman has chosen to be with you and no one else. If you love a woman that doesn’t have the biggest tits you’ve ever been around or the tightest pussy… would the thought of other big-titted or tight women always stay in your mind? Get that stuff out of you mind, bro.

You are definitely correct…there is a fair amount of a mental component at play here, and I’m well aware of it. I actually am a doctor, and have sought out therapy for myself. However, there are definitely some physical things at play too, because even when masturbating, I can’t stay as hard for as long of a time as I used to be able to. And you’re right…she’s with me for a reason and claims to have had more orgasms with me than anyone else. That being said, when you find out that even after being exclusive for 6-8 months at the beginning of our relationship, that she was still occasionally texting a 10” dick that she only had a sexual relationship with, you start to question whether you’re enough. They never met up again after I was in the picture, but there were enough edgy texts for those first 6-8 months, and then even after a year or two (even after we’d been married), that it puts plenty of doubts in one’s mind. Now, the tonality of those texts turned more into bragging about how happy she was after those first 6-8 months, but still, if she wasn’t still thinking about him, those texts wouldn’t have continued. Now, she’s seen the “error of her ways”, and claims it was just insecurity (some truth to that). She says that she had been in so many bad relationships that when she first met me, she thought I was too good to be true, so she didn’t fully sever any ties. Still, this was the only guy I found that she had specifically referred to the size of his dick with her friends, and know that he was just a side piece for in between relationships with others…so it was purely sexual. It would be easy to ignore if all communications ceased when I came into the picture, or if she hadn’t specifically referred to his size with her friends, or maybe if she actually had a meaningful relationship with him…however, that’s not the case, so I sit here almost every day trying to repress it all, because no amount of therapy can make certain truths disappear. :(

”.. no amount of therapy can make certain truths disappear ..”

The key is that is is a *past* truth. Sometimes things take a while to be over. And attractive people will get annoying messages here and there - my GF certainly does. She is a flirtatious piece and that hasn’t gone away, she is conditioned to use it to her advantage. But she is honest with me. We give each other a lot of room, but the key is honesty.

I am surprised at how many guys here have conversations about previous lovers’ dick size with their SOs. It’s something I don’t have the least interest in, all I want is for a woman to openly communicate what she enjoys so I can please her. And the past - stays in the past, I certainly have some things in my past that I am not proud of, but I learned from them and those are mistakes I wouldn’t go for again. And if I am not judged by my past, most certainly I can’t obsess about others’… The key is to focus on the here and now.

The little nagging inner voice that tries to keep us in an unhappy place in our lives… we need to learn to chill and ignore its negativity and tell it to stfu. :-)

Stay away from sugar. It really nerfs your T levels.

Totally agree Smooth99!

Sugar is a major bitch in several ways.

Somewhat aging thread, and maybe I missed it, but I have a few thoughts and experience with it. What time of day you take the blood test matters a lot on the score. 9am is about peak from what I understand - after that it goes down. So, if you’re like me at 55 years old, bordering on Low T at 9am, then most of the day you’re low. I’ve also read that free test is the true measure, so I focused on that.

Someone earlier in the thread said that it’s like Oil in the car, keep it between the lines - more is not always better - that matches with what I’ve read - and I’ve read a lot - although I’m no Dr.

For me, in 6 months on it the timeline went like this

Increased positive outlook and Increased libido almost immediately.
Increased strength came about 3 months in - I hit PR’s that I’d been trying for a couple years to get - but it wasn’t like 0 to 60 - before no muscle ups, now can do (could do as much as 25 pull ups in a set though, so maybe technique. Increased Deadlift from 365 to 405. Back to personal best bench at 255, up about 20lbs.
Reduced body fat from ~15% to 12% after four months without counting calories or macros - I used to log everything and follow the strictest diet but couldn’t get the last 2-3% I wanted off.
Over the course of the first 5 months I went from 180lbs to 190lbs while losing that body fat.

The most important part for me is the sleep, feeling good and libido - the rest is nice, but I could take it or leave it.

On the supplements - before I got tested I tried High Protein diet, endless veggies (mostly broc) Vitamin D, Multivitamin, ZMA, Creatine, DHEA, and probably ten other things over a long period of time with no real benefits to T that I could tell. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke.

I was doing all that and lifting heavy 5x per week when I got my blood test. So, I can honestly say that I exhausted all other options.

Anyway - I feel great on Testim 1% - it’s been a life changer.

Last summer in June I saw my GP, he’s a really nice guy and has been straight with me for 17 years or so. He’s in his 60s now, I’m gonna be 45 this summer. I just simply asked him during my physical “so, what’s up with T loss? What are the symptoms and signs beyond what I know of: tiredness, lack of drive and energy, weaker libido, weaker erections, etc.?”

He said it just like this to me: “Do you get erections?” I said yes, no problem. “Can you maintain an erection for pleasure and orgasm? Does everything function down there as normal?” I said yes, it does. He said, “I’m (can’t remember what age he said, I think 62) and I don’t have problems with my erections; I eat healthy and exercise regularly, just like you do. Keep your cholesterol levels where they need to be, keep active and don’t worry about it. If anything changes then we can figure it out.”

I then asked “what about T tests, when do I need to think about getting one? Should I think about it?” He replied, “Only if there’s a change and you notice major differences. Don’t think or worry about it and maintain your normal life; if there’s a change, come back in.”

I know there’s a lot more to T levels and health than just “do you get a boner?” question from your doctor. But to him, its a good indicator of a lot: blood flow, diet, cardiovascular health, T, stuff like that. He’s a big “eat healthy and exercise and you will be healthy” kind of doctor, not fast to prescribe any meds. God I’ve been in for major low back pulls in the past and the most he ever gave me was some muscle relaxers, just like 8 of them small dose, to help me stand and sit for a few days after a bad pull in 2017. I couldn’t even lean over to turn the faucet on for a shower it hurt so bad. I took those pills for 2 days and tossed the rest.

Reading this thread is inspirational and makes me want to keep at it with my workouts, keep up my Vit D and other vitamin/supplements (recently added magnesium, wow I can feel the difference!!) and kick the sugar and eat more fresh food more often!! Thanks to everyone sharing their stories and struggles :)