Testosterone - Importance in Men's Weight Loss

Is your gut bulging out while you still sit in front of the TV with a bag of chips? Well, congratulations. You are secretly turning yourself into a girl.

It’s time for you to get off the couch and start pumping up you testosterone level.

You might be young and in the prime of your age but are you pumping enough testosterone for the ultimate muscle growth and all-around manliness?

Take a test the next time you are in the shower. Stand up straight and take a look down at your jewels. If you are able to see your jewels, I congratulate you. If your belly is blocking the view of your jewels, it’s likely that your testosterone level is nowhere near its peak.

Yes, that belly fat that you are so ‘proud’ of is a testosterone killer and it’s secretly turning you into a chick.

Excess body fat makes men more curvaceous and more often a lovely pair of unwanted men-breast. Body fat contains an enzyme, aromatase that converts testosterone into estrogens, which is the main sex hormone in women. These estrogens will slow down production of testosterone and increase men’s belly fat and activates more estrogens produced. What a vicious cycle.

So what can we do to stop this vicious cycle?

You can reverse this cycle by losing those body fats that’s choking your testosterone production. Get off the couch, lose the chips and start getting healthy and exercise.

You can kick-start by doing heavy lifting and less running. By doing high intensity exercises, it triggers your body to release a great amount of testosterone that stimulates your body’s production of growth hormone which is vital to build your muscle. Not only that, high intensity exercises also uses up your glycogen reserves faster triggering your body to burn more fat for energy.

During the process of building muscle, your muscle fibres are break down due to the stress imposed on them. To repair itself, the fibres will reinforce and restructure to make your muscles stronger and bigger. This entire repair process depends on the bio-availability of your testosterone.

That’s why, the more testosterone you have in your body, the more lean muscle mass you will build. And the more muscle mass you have in your body the more active your metabolic rate will be burning calories automatically even while you are sleeping.

I would recommend more full-body workouts to be done that demand your overall muscles to work at the same time, increasing more testosterones to be released. Isolated exercises such as biceps curl, hamstring curls and etc. doesn’t stimulate your body to release significant testosterones.

Apart from exercise, you have to take care of your lifestyle:

• Get more sleep of at least 8 hours because lack of sleep will cause your testosterone level to drop.
• Cut down on alcohol. Excessive alcohol speeds the conversion of testosterone to estrogens.
• Increase your sexual activities. The more erections you get, the more testosterone is produced. See, being healthy is fun right? It evens helps you burn calories since sex is one of the best all-body workout.
• Eat healthily and enough calories to aid your body to build testosterone. Healthy saturated fats are also crucial for testosterone production.

The Ugly Truth About Running

Photo from technorati.com

Most people take up running as a form of exercise for weight loss and health purpose. Every morning and evening, we can see people running religiously around the neighbourhood, park or beach. Some people simply loves to run and some runs for the sake of losing the extra weight that they carry.

Some people start running because it’s the most convenient form of exercise. You just need to slip on a pair of running shoes and start pounding the hard surface. So, you might be thinking, is running really the best form of exercise? Many does not evaluate on their fitness level before they start running. Mostly are not physically strong enough to run properly and it’s them more harm than good. 

Slow down motion of running and you can see that it’s more of a jump exercise or plyometric exercise. During the running process, all weight are put on one foot and then pushed off to lift your entire body off the ground, switching legs and land on the other foot. In short, running forces all the weight on one foot at a time repeatedly depending on the distance you run.

All these force being applied to the joint of your legs can cause injuries to your foot, ankle and knees. Our joints are not built to handle such forceful repetitive stress. When you run, our muscles, tendon and ligament requires lots of support and it is stressful for those who are not in good shape to handle such repetitive torture.

At this point you might be thinking, is this for real? I’ve been losing weight and feeling great from running and now you are telling me that it’s bad. The truth is, when you starts running, your body will burn more calories. But come to a certain point of time, your body will starts burning less calories.

Our body has the ability to adapt so that our body does not have to expend as much energy. The more you run, your body adapts and gets more efficient in conserving energy, burning less calories. So, to burn the same amount of calories or more, you will need to either increase the distance you run or increase the speed of your runs.

Apart from the injury to the joints and weight loss reaching a plateau, running especially long distance, causes your body to lose lean muscle mass which is the body’s no 1 calorie burner. 

(Less lean muscle mass = Less calorie burned + Decreased strength)

I’m not stating that running is bad. But it should be done sparingly or until you have gotten strong enough to sustain the kind of force that running generates.

I would rather do short burst of sprints followed by rest and recovery to allow your muscles, tendons and ligaments to recover. This way during the short burst, less pressure is exerted to your joints and followed by rest and recovery. You can repeat this process as many times as you want, but a good 20 minutes should be suffice. These sprints should also be done on softer surface such as grass. Those who just start out should take more time to develop and build up the strength for these sprints.

Another point is performing full-body exercise. It helps to build lean muscle mass that increases your ability to burn more calories. You will find that it is more effective that only running as you get fitter and leaner. Check out my post about Burpee – the monster of allintensity workouts.

Burpee - The Monster High Intensity Workout

Are you one of those that just can't find the time for exercise but badly wants to get in shape? Well, put that excuse aside. Here's a full-body high intensity exercise that you can do it anywhere and all it needs is 15 minutes of your time.


Introducing the Burpee. It’s a full-body exercise that incorporates strength training and aerobic exercise. The burpee exercise has been around for a long time and more often used as a benchmark test of one's fitness level. There's absolutely no gimmicks or equipments needed. It's just you against your body. Do it any-time, anywhere. You can do it on the streets if you don't mind the stares from passers-by.

Read on for more about the burpee.

Let’s start with the basic burpee; 4-steps burpee:

Begin in standing position, legs shoulder-width apart

Step 1: Drop into a squat position and lean forward with your hand on the ground.
Step 2: Quickly throw your feet back in one quick thrust to a plank-like position.
Step 3: Return back to the squat position in a quick motion
Step 4: Return to standing position

Burpee steps

I swear by this exercise as a daily quick fix for those on the go all the time. You can start with 5 sets (each set 30 seconds with 10 seconds interval). Do as many reps as you can during the 30 seconds. After this 3 minutes exercise, I bet you will feel the burn and torture after 2 sets.

It may look like a simple exercise but as I always say; simplicity is the best. This 4-steps exercise works wonders on your body. Let’s get down to the benefits of burpee exercise:-

Burn the Fats – That’s what everyone likes to hear. Since the burpee is such a high-intensity workout, your body burns off more fats than other exercises. Not only that, it increases your metabolism. What do you mean by that? It means, you will burn calories throughout the day. So start doing the burpees and bade farewell to your ‘love’ handles.

Increase of Strength – Since it’s a full body exercise, it works your thigh, buttocks, hamstrings, arms, shoulders, abs and chest.

Improved Conditioning – Not only does it build strength and burns fat. It improves your agility and coordination. The burpee is really THE exercise that can assess one’s fitness level.

Freedom – What more do I need to say? The burpee does not need any equipment. It can be done anytime and anywhere. You’re not tied to any gym membership or dependent on any equipment. You have total freedom with the burpee. So get off your seat and do it now.

Along the way, there are many variants introduced to push our body fitness to the limit. They are the:-

-    Burpee push up: perform a push-up after the plank position
-    Jump up burpee: jumps as high as you can after returning to standing postion
-    Pull up burpee: perform a pull-up instead of a jump.
-    One-legged burpee: perform burpee with one leg
-    And many more variants

You can even combine the push-up and jump-up burpee for a more intense workout. While you jump up, try to curl your legs up to work your abs.

So let’s get started and get fit with the burpee

Surf's up .. Canine Surfing Contest (8 Photos)

Well, you have seen or been to lots of surfing contest. But how about surfing contest for canines? The contest was held in Imperial Beach and the event benefitted the ASPCA. The contest drew 43 four-legged competitors and thousands of spectators who throng the beach to root for the canines braving the 3-4 feet high waves.

The canine surfing contest raised thousands of dollars for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The star pup was Tillman the English Bulldog who rosed to fame when a video of him skateboarding was posted on YouTube. Read on more for more photos of the event.

Creepy: Moving Statue in Glass Case

Creepy. This 10-inch tall statue started to rotate all by itself. This relic is an offering to the Egyptian God Osiris, God of the Dead and is believed to be of a man named Neb-Senu. It was found in the mummy's tomb and has been in the Manchester Museum for 80 years. This incident has left experts baffled and scratching their heads.

It is believed that there is a curse of the pharaohs which strikes anyone who dares to remove relics from the tomb.
In recent weeks, the statue has been facing the wrong way prompting experts to monitor the room on video. They were left astonished to see it rotating by itself without anyone near it. 

Bench Press while doing Wheelie (Video)

Check out this idiot bench pressing while doing a wheelie on his Honda CBR 954RR. He must have had a plate of stupidity for breakfast and decided, "Hey, why don't I bench press while doing a wheelie. What a way to impress them chicks.". This stunt is just too dumb not to be shared. Click on for the video.