One of the most retarded myths in “sports science” and the backwards “fitness community” is that achieving a very low body fat will tank your hormones, especially testosterone. This misconception stems from the obvious effects of extremely restrictive, mainstreamed and retarded diets used to achieve these levels of leanness, which should be common sense. Heck, I already understood this when I began working in the industry over 35 years ago.
Now, the supplement-pushers and complete imbeciles at T-Nation are once again putting fuel on this fire in their latest article called “The Competition Testosterone Drop.” Let’s see what they might have got right, and where they totally fu**ed up.
“Bodybuilders and physique athletes are lucky they compete in competitions based solely on looks. To paraphrase coach Christian Thibaudeau, by the time you hit the stage, you look the best you ever have while being the unhealthiest you’ve ever been.”
Christian Thibaudeau is likely the only competent and respected writer you ever had at T-Nation. He was one of the first to join my IronMag LLC back in 1996 and was an indispensable part of the editorial staff until we had to close down in 2002 after I became Editor in Chief for Ironman Sweden and Chris went to T-Nation, which at that time actually was a proper bodybuilding magazine and not a supplement store.
And yes, most bodybuilders are the unhealthiest they’ve ever been when they hit the stage. However, it has nothing to do with the very low level of body fat, which is still enough to sustain them for many days, but from idiotic restricted diets, extreme amounts of unnecessary training, especially cardio and from peaking by shedding as much water weight as possible (playing with electrolytes and diuretics.)
Again, that short moment in time when they peak, on the competition day, or the weeks before the show have nothing to do with the misunderstood relationship between body fat levels and testosterone levels. They are unhealthy because of the restrictive diet they followed and the things they do prior to stepping on stage.
“The combination of strict dieting, hard training, and stress wreaks havoc on the body, especially on hormones. Here’s what the studies tell us and how to reduce the damage.”
Yes, exactly. You likely quoted Chris on that without following up. Let’s see if T-Nation stick to this explanation, or if they f**k it up as they usually do.
Hormonal Chaos
“Based on a couple of studies using competitive physique athletes, here’s what happens hormonally during contest prep (or to a person following a very strict diet combined with intense exercise):
- Total Testosterone: T-levels can fall 30-50% in male physique athletes as they reach stage-ready leanness. For example, studies recorded reductions from normal baseline values (500-700 ng/dL) to levels closer to 200-300 ng/dL during peak contest prep.
- Free Testosterone: This is the biologically active form of testosterone. Free testosterone levels can fall by 50% or more, exacerbating the effects of low total T. This drop is linked to an increase in sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), which binds testosterone and reduces its availability.
- Cortisol and SHBG: Cortisol levels can rise significantly due to the combined stress of contest dieting and hard training. Elevated cortisol further suppresses testosterone production, while SHBG levels may rise by 20-40%.”
Yes, not surprising as most of these morons are afraid of life-sustaining animal fat and follow a “diet” composed of toxic carbohydrates from rice and/or potato and some very toxic veggies as well as protein from extremely lean meats such as chicken breasts, turkey, bison, white fish, and also egg whites. Almost no omega-3’s, saturated fats or cholesterol at all, which are the building blocks of testosterone and crucial for all hormone synthesis (and also for tissue repair and detoxification.) Also, all these foods they restrict themselves to are severely lacking in important and essential micronutrients, which are also crucial for hormone production, healing, and detoxification. No wonder that they are at their unhealthiest ever during the end stage of a contest prep.
Among animal-based foods, the leanest meats are also the less nutrient-dense meats, especially “white meats.” So, adding in a little lean white meat during a heavy energy restricted diet will not help, it’s just not enough.
“Usually, hormone levels return to baseline after a competition, but this could take weeks or even months. In females, T3 and testosterone took up to four months to recover. And obviously, many physique competitors do back-to-back shows, which further monkey-wrenches their hormones.”
Yes, when I worked at the top level during 2005 to 2016, coaching in bodybuilding and fitness, a big part of my clientele was women competing in fitness that had screwed up their hormones and metabolism, gaining a ton of fat and water weight while feeling depressed, tired, lethargic, and unmotivated. The common denominator among all of them was that their retarded coaches had put them on very restricted diets yielding no more than 800 to 1,200 of the pseudo-scientific “calories” from only white rice, veggies and very little white lean meat. Their fat intake was usually below 20 grams a day, sometimes less than 10 grams, and almost nothing came from the crucial animal fats. They simply had no building blocks for hormones in their bodies.
Well, once put on an animal-based ketogenic diet, they recovered and bounced back to their usual self in weeks or a few months.
Also, when I achieved around 3.4% body fat, which is almost “stage ready,” (16-site caliper measurement with the Harpenden skinfold caliper) in 2008 for the photos and ad-campaign for my first book, “The Body Transformation Guide,” I kept a leanness level around 3.4 to 3.8 % for 1.5 years and then I fluctuated between 4 and 5 % for a very long time. And yes, I did an animal-based ketogenic diet, although I still had a few veggies back then, my focus was on fatty meat, butter, and egg yolks. And guess what, my testosterone usually was in the range of 600 to 700 ng/dL, but it was at its highest during that time in 2008 and 2009, around 700 to 800 ng/dL at that very, very low body fat. It’s all about your nutritional status and stress levels. Still, I hit the gym 6 times a week for 40 minutes in the morning, but I never did cardio. Actually, I’ve never exceeded 10% body fat since then and I’ve mostly kept it in the range of 6 to 8%. As I’m writing this, I have been fully carnivore since early 2018. I’m now 51-years old and I’m still keeping my body fat around 6 to 7% with natural T-levels around 800 ng/dL.
And not a single one of my competing athletes back in the day had trouble with their hormone levels or experienced any type of weight rebound or lack of motivation after a show. They usually stayed in good shape and continued to improve. And yes, all my meal plans had at least two meals a day with fatty beef and whole eggs — all the way until the peak week before the show.
Why Does This Happen?
“Energy Conservation: Your body sees extreme calorie restriction and very low body fat as an emergency, and it lowers T as a response. Lower energy availability impacts the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis, which regulates testosterone production.”
Energy restriction, sure, as it also means nutrient deficiencies as you eat less and usually only foods that are very low in nutrients. However, you can still thrive and have very high hormone levels on an energy restricted diet as long as you get all the nutrients you need, especially the animal fats.
As for low body fat, this misconception comes from the theory that body fat plays a role in the production and regulation of hormones, including testosterone. However, that body fat affects the production of testosterone has not really been established in real science, as in biochemistry or physiology.
Actually, lower body fat levels is associated with higher testosterone levels and higher body fat is associated with a lower testosterone production, and this is mainly because of the unhealthy crap you consume in order to actually gain that body fat, as in carbohydrates, seed oils, chemicals, etc. — simply a high toxic load. Body fat in itself only slightly increases aromatase, as in converting testosterone into estrogen, which can be bad, but there’s more to that story and this is not the article for it.
So, again, the few observations of a decrease in testosterone in very lean subjects is simply due to a very restrictive and lacking diet, not the low amount of body fat in itself. And again, this makes perfect sense in biology and nature as humans are classified as obligate hyper carnivores and would only seek out animals and animal produce, and if food would get scarce and we began to lose body weight, we would need to step up our game.
“Increased Cortisol and Stress: Add training and psychological stress to a diet and cortisol rises, especially a very low-carb diet. High cortisol lowers testosterone.”
While stress is bad, cortisol simply rises to mobilize more energy and also to aid in tissue repair (for example from exaggerated exercise,) which is natural on a restricted diet — and that is not necessarily a bad thing, not unless it stays elevated throughout the day because your adrenal glands are shut due to stress and nutrient deficiencies and/or extreme toxicity from plant-based and processed garbage. I covered cortisol in my article “Our Natural Non-Carb And High-Animal Fat Diet Will Boost Your Testosterone.”
What To Do About It
“Many researchers think that even the use of anabolic steroids doesn’t completely prevent these hormonal issues. Your body’s survival mechanisms can still override their effects. For example, total T may be high, but free, unbound T is low due to SHBG.”
Yes, but only if you are malnourished, as in having nutrient deficiencies from a restrictive and retarded diet that lacks animal-based fatty foods such as red meat and egg yolks. Also, there are many other functions in the body that need to run efficiently that testosterone will not help with. Only an adequate amount of essential nutrients can make the body work as intended. That is nothing more than common sense.
“Practically, a person could diet down slower and maybe avoid the crazy-strict final few weeks. Training could also be adjusted: lower volume, less intense sessions in the final weeks, where you wouldn’t gain muscle anyway.”
Seriously T-Nation, that is your solution? Just do the same idiotic diet, but slower? Oh, it shows that you have zero experience and knowledge in this field, yet you write retarded articles about it. Shameful.
The only way to reach bodybuilding stage level of leanness without tanking your hormones or sacrificing your health is to follow a real raw carnivore diet and eat to maintain your weight during at least 4 days a week focusing on fatty meats, organ meats and egg yolks. Then you have 1 or 2 days of fasting and 1 to 2 days of eating to about 75% of what you normally do, and these days are before the day of fasting, to extend the fasting window a little bit. When you begin to get really lean, you remove one day of fasting and replace it with a 75% day.
By making sure that you have several days of fully nourishing yourself every week, you can never develop any nutrient deficiencies as the fasting window is very short (only 24 to 32 hours,) yet it’s much more efficient at using body fat for fuel than any restrictive diet.
And as you get really lean and body fat might start to become a limiting factor during fasting, as your body fat can only release so much fatty acids over a specific timeframe (the less you have, the less can be released,) you reduce the fasting window and add in some more food, slowing down the pace a little. Very simple, very logical, and a thousand times more effective than any kind of “bodybuilding” or “fitness” diet. And it will keep you healthy.
After this, the imbeciles at T-Nation tried their best to sell you useless “testosterone boosting” supplements and whatnot. Totally moronic. And while they recognized that excessive exercise and stress will tank your hormones, they still did not understand the simple concept that a restrictive diet will result in nutrient deficiencies and thus a lack of building blocks for hormones. What a complete shambles.
If you need help with any kind of health problems or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
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