The Truth About Testosterone Therapy (That No One is Talking About…)

Should I use testosterone? Should I get on TRT? 56% of people who are on TRT actively today, testosterone replacement therapy, 56% of those people don't actually need to be on it. So you see all of these people on testosterone right now, but they're overweight, they work 18 hours a day, don't sleep well, they use alcohol regularly, they're on five different medications, high blood pressure medication, all of these things are testosterone killers. This video today is really put together together because of a lot of comments that I've been getting and a lot of questions that I've been getting asked is, should I use testosterone, should I get on trt, Should I use hormone replacement therapy, Should I be getting into these areas? And the one that finally sparked it for me, and I've got an opinion on this, by the way, but the one that finally sparked it for me was I started to see 28, 29, 30, 33, 37, 39 year olds, 45 year olds just on TRT for 3, 4, 5, 6 years. In our business alone, in the last year, we've taken over a hundred people off TRT and still saw rises in testosterone. Just because we changed up lifestyle factors, just because we help people start living a life by design, just because we started to help people live intentionally and do the things that naturally produce testosterone, that naturally increase testosterone. And we're going to get into all those today. But the first thing I wanted to dive into and really start to help people when they think about this, because if you're thinking about getting on testosterone, you're thinking about getting on hormone replacement therapy, you're thinking about getting on trt, you've got people around you that are getting on it all over the place. It is one of the fastest growing industries in the health and wellness or regenerative health space. That doesn't need to be growing, that doesn't need to be growing at the pace that it's at.44%,44% staggering.44% of people on TRT actually need it. That means that 56% of people who are on TRT actively today, testosterone replacement therapy, 56% of those people don't actually need to be on it. It means that they've seen a drop. And again, the way that you get on testosterone therapy, you have to go to a doc, you have to have it clinically done. And what ends up happening is you're going to go, you're going to see a low testosterone score. Normal testosterone scores are, they're in a range somewhere between 250 and 1,000 is kind of what we see, is that mark. So, yes, it's a large scale. But as we age, naturally testosterone decreases. That's just what we, that, that's just what happens the way the body has been designed. And so ultimately, when people go to the doc and they're like, hey, I've got low Testosterone on like 350 or 400, I want to get up at 7 or 800, they're going to go to the doc and they're going to say, hey, doc, I'm having erectile dysfunction, I'm having difficulty sleeping, I'm having a lot of trouble with energy. I'm not feeling like I'm, I'm, I'm as strong as I am. I've got aches and pains. And if you have low Testosterone that's below 400 and you have a symptom, they will write you a prescription for trt. You are a candidate. Well, what does this sound like? I've talked a lot about this because I was very heavily involved in the opiate epidemic and I've talked about this. People would go in looking for oxycontin, looking for some other opiate for a painkiller, and they'd say, hey, I've had this injury and I've got pain in my back, I've got pain in my shoulder. And they'd write the script because we were solving for pain. All here we're trying to do is solve for low testosterone, but not actually dealing with the root cause, not actually dealing with why. And so you see all of these people on testosterone right now, but they're overweight, they work 18 hours a day, they don't sleep well, they use alcohol regularly, they're on five different medications. High blood pressure medication, uh, maybe blood thinners, maybe cholesterol medication. All of these things are. And we're going to get into them in a second. Testosterone killers. And so you're telling me you're living a lifestyle that's actually drawing and killing your testosterone, but yet you're going to go after TRT as the solution because of the way that you're living. It drives me up the wall. 28, 30 year olds, 35 year olds, 45 year olds, 50 year olds going on TRT when it's unnecessary. And so I want to dive into, like how testosterone is actually made. We have to get our minds around the fact that testosterone is actually a hormone, a hormone that creates massive changes in our body. So when we think about how testosterone is made, when we Think about where it comes from and what happens. So there's something in our brain called the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus releases something called GnRH, okay? GnRH. And that stimulates the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland, again, lives in our brain. And the pituitary gland stimulates luteinizing hormone, or lh. LH stimulates our gonads or our testicles to release testosterone. Now, that is literally the system that occurs. But what we'll also find is, is that when you add certain micronutrients like vitamin D to your skin, it increases the release of testosterone from the gonads. So when we come back to all of this and we see all of this, there's a multitude of areas and a multitude of things that we want to make sure of. Number one is that we don't have a micronutrient deficiency. Micronutrient deficiency in vitamin, vitamin D, vitamin D3, specifically vitamin C and all the B vitamins. If we have cellular deficiencies in these, it is going to decrease the ability for our body to produce testosterone, decrease the volume. So if you just go and start going on trt, which is a end of the road product, right? So if we think of a pyramid and all of a sudden we go through it, okay, GRNH creates, stimulates pituitary, creates, LH creates, stimulates the gonads, produces testosterone, while all these other vit, vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin D are also producing this. It's an end product. If we're just giving our body this end product, what happens to everything down below? The body goes, oh, we don't need to produce this. We don't need to produce this. At this mass scale, we don't need to produce as much of this. So all of a sudden we become even more deficient and our body stops other processes. Because I'll tell you right now, luteinizing hormone isn't just responsible for testosterone. GRNH isn't just responsible for producing lh. They do so many other things, and so those productions also slow down. So there's a multitude of effects here. If we just keep going and start adding testosterone as an end result, I want to dive into 10 testosterone killers because, okay, people are like, okay, well, I have low testosterone. I want to increase my testosterone. I want to get this up. I have been thinking about TRT because my friends have gone on it. Everybody I know around me is on it. They all say they feel like they have more energy, they feel better. Yes, that's true. That might be the outcome. But what is the side effect down the road outside of all of these other things that we know are actually going on? It's been studied numerous times. There's been increases in prostate cancer, there's been increases in mood swings, there's been increases in different reproductive issues. But yet we don't have the finalized. There needs to be further studies to start to see what the actual causes are because we've seen just a massive rise over the last five years in testosterone use. But what we do know is that 56% of people who are currently using testosterone replacement therapy don't actually need it. And don't give me the argument of the anti aging, don't give me the argument of longevity. Because when you give me that argument and you go and you have five beers and you go and have pizza and you go and sit on your couch and you go and watch Netflix and you go and smoke and you go and watch or go and work 15 hour days and you go and you eat high sugar, high processed foods and you go use and aren't intentional about certain cleansers you're using and certain soaps you're using and all these things which we're going to get into in the killers. Don't tell me that you're focused on longevity just because you want to take a shot of TRT and take the simple way out to increase testosterone while not actually changing your life. Like your lifestyle habits. Your life, your lifestyle habits, behaviors and the other things in around you. Don't tell me that that's a poor argument. A very poor argument. 56% of people don't need to be on TRT, plain and simple. Done. Because it's all an environmental thing and about the habits and behaviors looking at. So let's dive into those 10 killers right now before we can even start thinking about it. Number one is vegetable oils. Massive, massive, massive testosterone killer. When we think about this, it absolutely wrecks testosterone levels. And the reason behind it is the extraction process of vegetable oil often uses chemicals that are bleaching and deodorizing techniques which can potentially minimize the health benefits to us, but also lower testosterone regulating hormone. So meaning that when we're taking in these oils, be it from french fries, be it from chips, be it from even just that we cook on our own all the and every restaurant you have to ask at every restaurant do you use vegetable oils? Because this is something that always happens. So it's recommended to use oils such as olive oil or coconut oil to prevent this Problem. And we should refrain from using vegetable oils. So if you're not actively asking, are you using vegetable oils or not, you probably should not direct. Go for TRT number two, high stress and anxiety levels. So we know when you're under a lot of stress, your body releases high levels of stress hormone called cortisol. Now I do not want this video to be thought to be this, oh, cortisol is the bad hormone. No, we need cortisol. It's the energy hormone. We need cortisol high in the morning, we need cortisol to rise during the day, we need it slightly to drop at night, and then we need to drop really low at night so that melatonin can rise. But excess cortisol blocks the effects of testosterone. So the stress hormone cortisol and testosterone have a negative correlation, which means the stress hormone goes up, testosterone levels fall. So when stress hormone is chronically high, that means testosterone levels become sabotaged. And so to keep that away from happening, we need to create a better rhythm in our life. It's what we talk about all the time at Own It. We talk about building a life by design. How are we regenerating? How are we recovering? What does the stress of everything we are doing ultimately cause us? Are we earning our illness or are we earning our health? And we can make that choice. So figuring out how we can change our environment, how we can change self care, how we can change our mindsets, how we can build a better rhythm between our work and the different stress that we have in our life, and making sure that we are relaxing and regenerating is critical. Number three is excessive alcohol intake. I cannot tell you. And we talk about hrv. And I don't want to go on a tangent of HIV because we're talking about testosterone, but alcohol has a direction impact on several necessary processes for testosterone production. So when you have to be aware of this, like I just want to get really clear, just having one or two drinks does not have a significant impact on testosterone levels. But having one or two drinks a day or greater than five drinks a week has a massive impact. When the male body metabolizes alcohol, a coenzyme called NAD is used in the process. A lot of people go and get NAD shots. So let's think about this concept for a second. You're going to drink excessively or you're going to drink just habitually throughout the week, One or two glasses of wine a night, couple beers as you come home, and then you're like, oh, my testosterone levels are low. Oh, I'M going to go on trt. Oh, I'm going to go into this regenerative place and get an NAD shot once a month. You're just literally combating the lifestyle that you're living. Let's think about that for a second. Let's live a life, die design. Let's live a life on purpose, do things so that we're actually optimizing our body, not living in dysfunction, which what we call normal. So when the male body metabolizes alcohol, a coenzyme called NAD plus uses it in, is used in the process. And so NAD is an essential component of testosterone production. If your body's lacking the essential building block for testosterone, testosterone levels are eventually going to fall. And so we're going, we're getting testosterone shots, we're going, we're getting NAD shots, but yet we're continuing to put all the negative things into our body. We're continuing to live a life that actually suppresses testosterone. And all of these things that produce. It doesn't make any sense. The fourth one is refined carbohydrates and sugar. And I'm sure everyone's like rolling their eyes, but at the end of the day when we think about this, eating foods or eating a diet that's high in glycemic levels, meaning things that are going to spike the blood sugar, it is going to suppress testosterone levels for several hours. Now, if you've ever used a continuous glucose monitor, if you've ever started to measure your blood glucose levels, you can actually start to see that most people are not pre diabetic, are not even diabetics, but they have constant spikes in their blood glucose. And so making sure that you're having. Now don't, don't get me wrong here again, carbohydrates are necessary and essential for testosterone production. It's high glycemic, artificial sugar, artificial sweetener, refined carbohydrates that aren't. And so again, high carbohydrate diet, high sugar has been linked to high testosterone, or, pardon me, a, a drop in testosterone and higher cortisol levels. Thus, it's important to avoid refined variations. Consume more naturally available carbohydrates, making sure, again, diet's higher in protein. That's why people are talking about like the carnivore diet and all these things that like drive testosterone up. It's not because of all the meat you're eating, it's just because they don't eat the refined sugars. And so if we were just to cut out the refined sugars the pastas, the white bread, the white rice, the highly processed food, the highly refined food. If we were just to cut that out, we would see naturally that our testosterone still goes up, that we still have lower cortisol levels. Like that's the thing that we have to understand. It's not the fruits, it's not the vegetables, it's not these things that are giving us issues. It's all the refined garbage. Number five is a dehydrated body. And again, if you start, if you followed me, what I talk about a lot of times about taking ownership of your life and what we teach here at Own it and the eight foundational principles, a lot of these come back to it, right? So making sure that you're hydrated. 80% of our body is made up of water. And if we are not making sure that we're hydrated properly, ultimately testosterone can't, can't be produced as well. So it's important to pay attention to your body's fluid intake. Making sure you're getting half your body weight in ounces of water, making sure you're drinking more water. When you go into a sauna, a sauna is going in at 180 to about 210 degrees for about 120 minutes a week, has also been shown to increase testosterone levels naturally. But in doing so we have to make sure that we're hydrating properly, have to make sure that we're getting that water in number six again. And this is, this is one that is, is earned. It's one that you can't just get by, like just can't push off to the side. It's excess body fat. If you have excess body fat, you are going to have a reduced testosterone. It is a fact the more fat the man has, the more of the testosterone is turned into estrogen. Also, testosterone is a fat soluble hormone, meaning that it gets stored in the fat tissues instead of staying free in the body, in the bloodstream to be able to get used. So when the testosterone gets locked up inside the fat, it decreases the free levels of testosterone. So you're not able to, to have access to it. And so it's literally like locked up in a cage. And so the fact that you have that excess body fat means you're going to have lower testosterone levels. I've seen it all the time. People who are overweight, they're like, well I just have low testosterone levels. Yeah, because you haven't worked out, you're not training well, you're not getting after it which takes us into number seven, which is a lack of exercise. Just like obesity, just like being overweight, just like having excess body fat, a lack of physical activity takes its toll on testosterone levels. An easy way to boost it, liter, a hack, if you will, is just to go start weight training. Exercise triggers the flow of testosterone. It is a fact. There are hundreds of random controlled studies that talk about going and getting exercise and training and show the result that the greater training, the more weight resistance, the more consistent, the higher the testosterone level. Number eight is medications. And I talked about this at the beginning, when you all of a sudden are taking a high blood pressure medication, a medication to try to go to sleep, a medication to alleviate cholesterol, a medication to relieve anxiety. A lot of these commonly prescribed medications, including statin drugs, which are used to lower cholesterol, I just talked about, that indirectly result in lowering testosterone levels. Ultimately, what this means is that what you're taking in these medications can interfere with the body's nutrient absorption. So we talked about vitamin C, vitamin D3, and the B vitamins. So if you can't absorb the body the nutrients, not only nutrient deficient at the cellular level, but now you're also not able to absorb testosterone and use testosterone at the level in which you need. So it's essential to be aware of the medications that you're taking. But ultimately, you're taking the medications because your lifestyle is inappropriate, because your lifestyle isn't appropriate. You're seeing the low test testosterone level, but now you want to, because you have a low testosterone level, you want to take trt. Do you see how this builds this massive issue? And the docs are just writing scripts just like they did with the opioid epidemic. And so all of a sudden, we're going to see the same type of epidemic happen, where people are like, oh, I'm looking after my health. I'm doing something that's healthy for me. I'm getting trt. But in fact, it's taking us the exact opposite direction of where we need to go. Number nine, it's called Triclosan. And triclosan is the main antibacterial agent found in some antibacterial soaps. And so triclosan and triclocarban both have an impact on testosterone levels and can lower them in the body. So when you're buying products, soaps, lotions, different potions, make sure you're avoiding products by all means, with these two elements. They can be found in toothpastes, they can be found in soaps they can be found in detergents, they can be found in surrounding kids toys, surgical cleaning substances, other cleaning products for your home. But look at the back. When buying these products, you want to make sure. And those, I'll say them again. Triclosan and tri. Triclocarban. Triclosan and triclocarban are the two things that you want to make sure are not in any of your soaps, antibacterial detergents, kids toys, cleaning supplies, or other cleaning substances. And then lastly, this is the one, I think all us, all us men, we want to stay looking young, right? But female hormone mimickers, Female hormone mimickers, the xenoestrogens are found in many products for skincare and personal care, cleaning products, outdoor products. And so these female hormone mimickers are actually chemicals that mimic estrogen. And when you put them on your skin, your skin is the largest organ in your body. It absorbs them, which limits, again, it sends a message to limit testosterone production in the body. So be careful, careful when buying such products. Skin care, personal products, underarm deodorants, different outdoor products, different sprays, sunscreens, all these types of things. Be careful when you're buying products and avoid their use. So xenoestrogens, you're going to find them, they're female. Female hormone mimickers. If there's something on the ingredients list of your facial care of your facial products, of all of these things, make sure that, that you look them up and see are they a female hormone mimicker. And if they are, get rid of it, do not use it. My goal with this is to bring awareness to how we as a society and how as a culture, we have just gone and said, hey, I'm just gonna go and default to using trt. I'm just gonna go and be like everybody else. But actually not realizing that we're dysfunctional in how we're living and we've made something normal that actually should not be. We've made something normal that actually is holding us realizing something far greater. And so the actions that I want you to take are, number one, living a life by design. When you live a life by design, when you ultimately are aware of what's happening, and we talk about this at ownit all the time, HRV is the number one thing that we can do to understand how our body's adapting to stress and strain. But I just gave you 10 hormone killers. Pardon me, 10 testosterone killers. And if we're not going and re reanalyzing our life and saying, hey, how are we actually living? Is this something that's impacting me? Is this something that I'm doing? Then we're just like saying, oh yeah, I don't want a high testosterone level. I'm just going to take the easy way out and pay for it and then I'm going to have the consequences that come along with that. So living a life by design. Making sure that you get rid of all the vegetable oils, making sure that you. I want to make sure I get my list here. Make getting rid of all the vegetable oils, make sure you're managing your stress and anxiety, make sure you're mitigating the alcohol consumption, you're keeping your refined sugars low, and making sure that your diet is focused on quality carbohydrates and high levels of protein, making sure you're not dehydrated, hydrated and getting the proper amount of water, making sure you don't have excess body fat, and making sure that you've got an increase in exercise, that you're constantly moving, you've got, you've got weight training, you've got conditioning, you've got sprinting, you've got all these things in your, in your day to day, your week to week. You're aware of the medications that you're taking, you're aware of the triclosan that could potentially be in your soaps and these other things. And you're being aware of the female mimicking hormones that could be in some of these other products that you're using. Be aware of these things and I guarantee you, you get consistent in these and you start doing them over a 2, 3, 4, 5 month span and you get your testosterone measured again. There's going to be a bump, but it takes intention and it takes work. The second thing I would want you to do is do your cellular testing. We talked about it earlier. Vitamin C, vitamin D3 and all your B vitamins increase not only the production of testosterone but also the absorption of testosterone. So if you don't know if you're cellularly deficient in something, and I'm not just talking about a simple blood test, I'm talking about a cellular blood test. I want to know what's not in the blood serum but what's actually in the cell of your blood, like what the body has access to, it only has access to what's in the cell. And so if you notice and you get this test done and you identify that you are low in any of these micronutrients, micronutrient deficiency leads to chronic illness. And it's only because your body doesn't have what it needs, it doesn't have the raw materials. So then we can create again. We do this through own it. This is why we talk about a life of intention, a life by design, living in accordance to what your body is asking for. The moment that we do your micronutrient testing is the moment that we can start to create supplementation, custom supplementation for you, so that we can ultimately reverse these. Because if we now have the micronutrients we need, we are going to be able to produce everything that we need to. Your body is going to be able to function optimally. And we no longer operate from a state of dysfunction that we call normal and are ultimately then looking for different things to feel better, but rather we're living in a way that allows us to do that. And so at the end of the day, TRT is just a shortcut that the world has told us is normal. It's just something that continues to hold us back from where we should be. You've got your 10 testosterone killers, you've got your understanding of different testing that you can do to get to, to create changes in your testosterone without going the TRT route. Because 56% of people currently utilizing testosterone TRT today that are holding up this $1.85 billion industry do not need to be using TRT. And so if you're thinking about it, be aware, change the way you're living, live differently and get a different outcome.