What's up, guys and gals? Let's talk about confidence.
Normally, when people talk about boosting confidence, they talk about two things.
The first is getting comfortable outside your comfort zone basically pushing
yourself to do uncomfortable things until that feeling becomes normal to you.
And the second is in a specific area that you want to be confident just getting reps
in that area doing it over and over until you lose the nervousness —
both great, both true.
Today, I want to talk about something different and that is a hormone in your brain
that leads to more energy, more decisiveness, more assertiveness
and, as a bonus, more muscle, less fat and better sex drive.
It's highly correlated with confidence. Some scientists say that it causes confidence;
some people say it's a secondary effect of the increased energy, decisiveness, assertiveness, muscle...
Whatever it is, it seems like it's a hormone that is worth optimizing
especially if you're already doing these other things from a charisma perspective, you might as well handle what's going on in your brain.
That hormone is testosterone and depending on your lifestyle decisions,
you could be doing a lot to skyrocket it or make it plummet.
And whether you're a man or a woman, I've seen increasing testosterone have a great impact on people's happiness and psyche.
Now that said, I'm not a doctor, I don't play one on TV, I'm not a nutritionist,
I have no degrees in this... What I've done is a lot of self-experimentation.
So I went and got my blood work tested and it was ugly.
It turns out that I had, at age 25, the testosterone of a 74-year old man.
If you had taken 10 random 25-year-olds from a sample most likely eight of them
would have higher testosterone than me and only one would be at my level or lower.
So because I'm an optimizer, I started to study this a lot and I ended up doing these five things trying to boost my testosterone .
I went back two months later — just two months later — and I was
back to normal range to a healthy functional 25-year old which is amazing.
So we're gonna go through two things that are gonna help you
take your testosterone up, two common deficiencies that I was suffering from
and I think a lot of people who suffer from it don't realize that you can really bring your testosterone down,
and then the most common testosterone killers that will wreak havoc on your hormones and your body in general.
What is cool is not only will these lifestyle changes boost your testosterone,
they're going to make you healthier, they're going to make you live longer,
they're gonna make you look better... There's a lot of positive benefits that
are going to go on if you take these changes and you just put them into your life.
The first thing that I did to start boosting my testosterone was experiment with intermittent fasting.
What does that mean? Basically, we eat too much.
And I don't just mean we eat too much quantity of food but that we eat too often.
We eat as soon as we wake up and we don't stop eating until we go to sleep.
And research is starting to show that is not the best thing for our longevity or our hormones.
Now, it's early days on this but I think that the early morning breakfast of cereal
or bagels — those simple carbs — is going to fall to the wayside the same way that the old school food pyramid did.
What does internment fasting actually look like? You basically skip breakfast.
You try to put 14 to 16 hours between when you stop eating at night and when you
start eating the next day so basically, you create an eight-hour eating window of
noon to 8 p.m. and you just don't eat when it's not noon to 8 p.m.
It sounds hard at first but it's actually really easy because your body
creates the hunger chemicals based on your food schedule.
So if you do this for 2 or 3 weeks, you'll just stop getting hungry in the morning.
Now, anecdotes are just anecdotes; the fact that I do this doesn't mean it will automatically work for you.
The fact that Tim Ferriss, Hugh Jackman, Terry Crews, and John Romanello also all do this and love it doesn't mean it will automatically work for you but
I think it is worth experimenting with, try it for a couple of months, get your testosterone tested...
Now, start doing this, get it tested in four months and see if it makes a positive difference.
If you want to learn more about intermittent fasting, I think it's a fascinating topic, check out Dr. Rhonda Patrick.
She's been on the Tim Ferriss show, the Joe Rogan experience, she has her own YouTube channel called Found My Fitness...
She's fantastic for getting deep into the science of intermittent fasting.
Also, I will link to a video by the guy, John Romanello, that started me in studying
this and he will explain a little bit more about the basics of intermittent fasting.
I could talk about this for hours but I will keep it short; I will link to that video
and I'll move on to the second thing that science has shown to boost testosterone.
That is lifting weights the right way.
And not everyone lifts the right way especially for testosterone-boosting.
What you want to do basically is lift heavy, lift hard, use proper form, and make yourself work.
The more muscles that you can engage, the better so what I recommend is heavy compound lifts.
In terms of the exact rep ranges and weights to use, I'm going to link to an Elliot Hulse video in the description.
If you want morevideos from me on fitness, let me know in the comments.
I'm happy to make them but I don't want to turn this into a workout video
so I will link to that Elliott Hulse video; it will teach you everything about rep ranges
and how to lift for strength, power, looking good, and endurance.
A fun bonus of the fact that you are now doing heavy compound lifts and intermittent fasting is that you are going to burn fat off your body
and replace it with muscle which, science shows, creates more testosterone so
there's now this virtuous cycle of positive effects to your psyche and to your body.
The third thing that I experimnted with that science shows boost your testosterone
is giving your body the nutrition that it needs.
For a lot of people with low testosterone, it's caused by a deficiency in some vitamin
or mineral that the body needs in order to function properly.
Because our diet doesn't give us that vitamin or mineral, all of a sudden,
the things that produce testosterone can't function as well as they should.
So if you can afford it, go get blood work.
InsideTracker, it's a company that I've heard, is really great about this — there's a lot of others, I'm sure.
Figure out exactly what you are deficient in and then start to supplement in that.
What I do is I take Athletic Greens. I'm actually stoked that Athletic Greens is the
sponsor for this video — it's the first sponsor I've ever chased down proactively
because I'm a huge fan of theirs. I've been taking him for about five years.
I first heard about them in Tim Ferriss' book, The 4-Hour Body.
Tim Ferriss is a guy I look up to and admire; he's actually who got me to quit my job
and start this business and he says, "If he can only take one supplement, it would be Athletic Greens."
So I take Athletic Greens every day.
Another supplement that's super helpful is fish oil. Fish oil is great for your heart
and it is great for testosterone, it's full of omega-3 fats that help counteract
a lot of the omega-6 heavy diets that we have especially in America.
In general, any good fats that you can get are going to generally be good
for your testosterone so that could be avocados, walnuts, olive oil.. things like that.
The third common deficiency that can really kill your testosterone is a vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D is actual not a vitamin. It's a hormone and it comes from the sun
and a lot of us are trapped inside; we don't get the 20 to 30 minutes a day of sunlight that your body needs to produce vitamin D.
Some people like a friend of mine — their body doesn't even produce vitamin D when they get sunlight — for whatever reason he was dealt a bad hand.
So supplementing with vitamin D especially on the days where you are stuck inside
can have a huge impact on your mood and on your health and on your testosterone
and I have actually seen people who are vitamin-D deficient, go on vitamin D
and within two weeks, it's like they're totally different person — more energy less-fatigued happier people.
I'm excited to say that Athletic Greens has agreed to bundle their Athletic Greens
or their fish oil with vitamin D for free for Charisma on Comand fans.
So if you go to athleticgreens.com/charisma, you'll get that offer.
That's actually better than the deal I get when I buy it; I just get the Greens powder
The last supplement that I take is ZMA. It's zinc and magnesium and those are two
minerals that we tend to be deficient in; it also just helps you sleep through the night
instead of waking up to go to the bathroom or waking up when there's a noise.
That brings me to the fourth thing that can kill your testosterone if you don't get enough of it which is sleep.
Now, sleep is hugely important. I know that it's tough to get the amount of sleep that you need sometimes.
I was an investment banker. I've never slept less in my whole life; I was working 36-hour days.
But that said, to the extent that you can, try to get as much sleep as your body
needs even if that means not watching a sports game or not watching television —
save that stuff when you're in the office and watch it on your computer instead.
I only half-kid.
And the other thing is if you can't increase the amount of hours you sleep,
you can increase at least the quality of your sleep with something like a ZMA
or a sleep mask to block the light or a white noise machine that can block out
cars honking or birds chirping depending on where you live.
It's really important to get as good a quality sleep as you possibly can because
when you're asleep is when your body produces testosterone, it's when your body recovers from the workouts and repairs the muscles,
and it's also so impactful on your cognitive function; if you're sleep-deprived, your testosterone plummets,
your body's gonna start to get worse, your energy level gets worse, and your ability to function mentally and problem-solve is going to go down.
So the fourth thing that I started experimenting with even though I was in private equity at the time
was really prioritizing the amount of sleep I got and the quality of sleep I got.
Now, the last thing that you can do that science shows really helps with your testosterone is to eliminate these four testosterone killers.
I put this point last because truthfully, giving up something you love is a very hard
thing for most people and I expect the first four things to be much easier for you.
I put this last but it is worth mentioning because this will really help you live longer,
feel healthy, feel happy, boost your testosterone...
So what are the four testosterone killers? Number one — sugar.
Sugar causes cancer, it causes inflammation, it hurts your testosterone,
it's going to make you live less long, it's gonna make you look worse and feel worse
so I implore you to please give up sugar as much as you can.
The second thing is trans fats; not the trans fats in animal meat but the trans fats that are man-made
that come in processed foods and baked goods like donuts or cookies.
It's actually so bad that FDA is banning man-made trans fats starting in mid 2018
so look on the nutrition information of your food; if there's a lot of trans fat, skip it.
The third thing — this is the one that I know is gonna be the hardest for some people — beer.
All alcohol tends to be bad for your testosterone but beer is the worst and
this is coming from a guy that used to drink way too much beer in college — an embarrassing amount —
but to the extent possible, cut down on how much you drink to just one or two drinks a night and replace that beer with red wine or hard alcohol.
It's gonna save you money, it's gonna make you feel better the next day,
it's gonna make you look better, and when you're not killing your testosterone
by chugging beer after beer after beer, it's gonna do all the things we talked about
in the beginning — with your decisiveness, your assertiveness, how you look, and how you feel.
So fix what you can; cut down on beer. I know that's gonna be tough for some people.
And the fourth thing — cut down on stress.
Now, there's a lot of ways to do this — working out is a great one,
meditating is a great one; I could do an entire video on how to cut down stress
so if you want that let me know. Also for some of you, honestly, quit your job.
Get a job that you actually like or you don't hate or start a business.
I'm happy to do a video on how to start your business so if you want to know more about how we started Charisma on Command, let me know in the comments.
This one is tough; I could literally talk about it for 10 minutes but
figure out what stresses you out the most in life and try to remove it —
try to replace it with something fun because stress is going to kill you and it's killing your testosterone.
Okay, so to recap really quickly — experiment with intermittent fasting,
lift heavy with compound movements that recruit a lot of muscles,
get your nutrition right and make sure you don't have any deficiencies for vitamins or minerals that your body needs
get high quality high quantity sleep, and kill the testosterone killers.
Thank you so much for watching. If you want to check out the Athletic Greens
special offer that I got for you guys, go to athleticgreens.com/charisma
It'll be in the description. Like I said, this is the only sponsor I've ever proactively hunted down because I really like their product.
I bought my first bag five years ago, I have two bags in my fridge right now,
and I just think that it's fantastic — it's got multivitamin multi-mineral prebiotic-probiotic digestive enzymes...
I agree with Tim Ferriss; I think it's the best supplement on the market
and if you want to check that out, just go to the link in the description.
Thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next video.