Derek (More Plates More Dates)

in the testicles themselves it will also impact sleep dramatically which has the vicious backhand effect of you know inhibited uh output of signaling hormones which indirectly will also impact body composition which you know the whole downstream cascade of that um smoking obviously not helpful um how much alcohol is it is it like

I think like obviously the safe answer for me is to say no drinking.

I think it would be more like a dose dependent toxicity effect.

And what is your capacity to handle it?

Because ultimately the testes are very high.

affected by oxidative stress and if you're not capable of handling that adequately like it will reflect in your inadequate output of hormones locally so i would love to give like hard and fast numbers but there are a lot of people who will be able to get away with like murder and probably be okay there are some guys who like you might be low normal uh function to begin with and like that you know couple drinks a week like you know throws off your sleep a bit and kind of pushes you over the edge like it all depends

um it is very much a spectrum so like going from like optimal to like blatantly hypogonadal from a symptom perspective it's not like it's just on verse off like your way there is a you know it's a transition of you know shittiness as you arrive to that like worst case scenario um so uh other things i could point to um if you have a totally fat deficient diet i think that's

you know, of a macro distribution that would be reflective of something that's almost certainly going to hinder your capacity to produce hormones.

Also, if you have a void of carbohydrate intake diet, it would also be something that would inhibit freely circulating hormones from liberating themselves.

And lack of protein, like you would not be able to produce, you know, get as robust of a response recovering from workouts and be able to build muscle, which indirectly is going to improve body composition and improve your hormones as well.

So it's all kind of like balanced diet.

Don't eat bad.

Micronutrient intake.

I could definitely point to if you're deficient in protein.

Not every mineral or vitamin is going to be, you know, game changing, dramatic impact on your test levels.

But things like zinc, magnesium, vitamin D, like these all have a marked impact on your testosterone, either response to it or capacity to produce it.

Or even like you mentioned in our podcast, a conversion of vitamin D into active vitamin D. You might think you have adequate vitamin D status via your dose you're taking that's super high, but you're not actually utilizing it.

But you think you are, and that's impacting your testosterone production and your response to it at the androgen receptor itself as well.

So I think from a minerals and vitamins standpoint, the low-hanging fruits are typically going to be like...

B vitamins, but in particular, like, from a mineral side, you know, you have, you know, magnesium, zinc, and the vitamin D3 are going to be three things that...