How to Increase Testosterone Production & Thyroid Function:
This will be an as simple, concise, and in-depth guide as possible on how to increase testosterone levels and promote healthy thyroid function.
Together testosterone and thyroid govern most of what we consider to be energy, motivation, ambition, etc
Getting these two right will make everything in life feel almost effortless - and in turn if they are off it can make life seem exponentially harder. If you're a man, having these perform optimally will make you feel like an entirely new person
1) the first thing to note with both testosterone & thyroid production/function is that excess stress (cortisol) and or estrogenic compounds will convert the testosterone you create into estrogen and inhibit the ability for the metabolic pathways to function well - decreasing the full output
The first thing I always recommend for increasing testosterone or improving thyroid function is isolating any chronic stressors / estrogenic compounds and remediating them before adding anything.
- removing low quality fats from diet entirely (Polyunsaturated fatty acids)
- removing any irritants to the gut (wheat / corn / soy in all forms, products fortified with iron, processed foods with additives like guar or xanthan gums, etc)
- removing any potential estrogenic compounds from the home (BPA or Phthalates aka getting rid of using plastic in the home, any kind of nonstick coated pans or plastic cookware, or polyester/synthetic fabrics clothing especially near the testes, removing unnatural cleaning products from the home, synthetic fragrances, pesticides in food)
- getting a good shower filter and drinking water filter (or just getting better drinking water but typically a filter is more economical)
- removing or reducing recreational drug intake (alcohol, marijuana, caffeine, nicotine, etc or anything “harder” than this)
- removing the “unearned” but highly dopaminergic inputs (scrolling social media, video games, tv binges, etc)
- any chronic relationship / familial / work stressors, basically cutting out or reducing any toxic or unhealthy relationships be it romantic, social, professional, familial
By no means do you have to go full schizo, but just taking a good look and bringing awareness to “hey am I chronically cutting into my hormonal and metabolic health with one of these seemingly nonimportant things” can go a long way.
2) Adding the basics
Once you get a handle on removing any potential chronic stressors, now for our thyroid and testosterone we want to make sure we are hitting the 80/20 of the 80/20, the 4% of inputs that will give you 96% of your results, HARD
Sleep - getting as much high quality, deep sleep as possible - dark, quiet, cold sleeping environment - reduced artificial light or light in general an hour or so before bedtime, clearing mind via writing / planning for the next day or recapping the current day, reading a book, stretching, in general choosing to forego various forms of entertainment (see: TV) in lieu of going to bed earlier.
Sunshine - waking and sleeping with the sunrise and sunset, in general getting body aligned to a circadian rhythm, getting natural light in the morning, watching the sunset, and generally getting as much sun exposure as possible. Ideally building up to being able to handle and get an hour of sun during midday (max UV)
Strength - lifting hard, increasing your rep maxes for compound lifts will force your body to produce more testosterone and the muscle mass built will encourage metabolic function
Sex - any kind of porn consumption or in general highly lustful behavior is a symptom of over estrogenic hormonal profiles not to mention the effect it has on your dopamine receptors. Having a more active & healthy sex life will however increase testosterone production. Outside of sex, abstaining from masturbation or anything similar will bring a potent edge to you as you channel sexual energy towards increasing your outputs physically, mentally, creatively
Competition - the more you compete and WIN, the higher your testosterone will rise. Putting yourself in more competitive environments will help greatly. Martial arts gyms are probably the best instance of this, but what you do work wise and setting goals and hitting them will have a similar effect. Really any domain of life where you can have that feedback loop of an “earned win” will increase testosterone.
Movement - getting movement / cardio / a nice sweat in will help increase metabolic activity and improve overall health - should shoot to get 30 min of movement outside of lifting in daily, be it walking, harder cardio, athletics, etc
Food - for both thyroid function and testosterone production your diet is maybe the biggest needle mover
1) Getting 1 gram per lb bodyweight protein every day - including getting a more balanced amino acid profile (adding stuff like gelatin / collagen / bone broth, organ meats)
2) Eating more saturated fats - with cutting out processed food / low quality fats, you want to replace them with saturated fats. Coconut oil, butter/ghee, beef tallow, as the primary cooking oils you use is a good start. Getting these fats from animal foods (beef/steak, bison, other game meats). The cholesterol from these is the building block for hormones in the body.
3) Quality carbs - to round off the diet you want to have sufficient carbohydrate intake - sugar is NOT bad for you, in fact it is one of the most potent anti-stress compounds there is. Fruit should be your first and foremost carb source in my opinion. The increase in Vitamin C from fruit will help your general health greatly. So fruit, 100% fruit juices, and then other quality carb sources like potatoes, white rice, honey, maple syrup, dairy products. if you are gonna opt for grains soaked/sprouted heirloom grains are a better option (Einkorn, Spelt, etc, or at least an heirloom wheat that was made with a sourdough culture starter as it makes the gluten in the wheat easier to digest)
4) Micronutrients
(see chart at the bottom, it isn't letting me put it here)
The idea here is that you get the diet as dialed in as possible to get as much nutrition as you can from whole foods.
Animal proteins & red meat, eggs, seafood as the base.
Fruit, dairy, other quality carb sources to round it out
Vegetables, and other foods to round out enjoyment and make sure you are covering all bases nutritionally
Vitamin A - carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, beef liver, cod liver oil, oysters and other seafood
B-Vitamins - animal and dairy products
Vitamin C - fruits like oranges, strawberries, kiwi, papaya
Vitamin D - animal and dairy products, sun exposure, mushrooms
Vitamin E - sprouted / soaked nuts and seeds
Vitamin K - cooked / creamed (with saturated fats) greens like broccoli / spinach
Making sure you get enough electrolytes (sodium, potassium, etc) will be a good add to your general health.
There’s obviously more micronutrients, copper, zinc, selenium, iodine, calcium, etc list goes on but the general concept here is eating this way will cover your bases. If you feel there’s a problem with your health, doing some research, understanding the basic essence of the biological processes and metabolic pathways that play into it is a good habit to get into anyway. You are your own doctor, always.
Getting the gut to function well helps you get the nutrition you’re looking for too. Can help improve gut function by:
A) adding fermented foods in, the brand Cleveland Kitchen makes awesome sauerkraut/kimchi in a number of different flavors. B) can also get said fermented foods from stuff like kefir, cultured yogurts, etc C) a big piece people miss when they do add “probiotics” is all of the probiotics are of the lactic acid family - which many times isn’t really what the gut needs. Typically it needs more acetic acid to make the gut bacteria you want - so I recommend starting your day with a tablespoon or two of apple cider vinegar in 8-12 oz of water, it’s much better if you squeeze a slice or two of lemon in there as well, can add a quality salt too. Another thing you can take is a tablespoon of fruit pectin. D) Fruit / other fibrous foods provide prebiotics
5) Supplementation
In general, I believe there’s a critical handful of supplements that every man should take.
Magnesium Glycinate
L-Theanine
Zinc Bipicolinate
An active B-vitamin Complex (has a form of folate, not folic acid, methylcobalamin, etc)
These will do a great service to your health.
For testosterone production, if you’re a man older than 35, and levels are low, by all means you can consider running TRT. I would try to remediate everything with training / nutrition / lifestyle first and foremost, but that is always an option. If you’re younger than 35, unless ur gonna blast test to become the best competitive bodybuilder / lifter you can be, I’d probably try to max out your natural potential before you consider taking anything (pretty sure most of the coaches in that lane recommend the same thing in terms of becoming as elite as you can naturally before adding anything - but anabolics are not really my wheelhouse)
Some natural supplements that can help testosterone production are:
- Black Maca Root
- Pine Pollen
- Shilajit
- Boron
For thyroid health, I recommend a few supplementary pieces:
- aspirin
- iodine (must also take selenium / L-tyrosine with it to regulate levels and use the iodine appropriately - I have something coming soon to provide an easy solution here and help with testosterone production as well)