As it’s Movember again, it is the best time for us to promote the charity and all of the good work they do for raising the awareness of men’s health programmes that combat prostate and testicular cancer and mental health challenges. These programmes, directed by the Movember Foundation, are focused on awareness and education, living with and beyond cancer, staying mentally healthy, living with and beyond mental illness and research to achieve their vision of an everlasting impact on the face of men’s health.
Our guest blogger, Matt Whitmore, thought it seemed appropriate to write about some common modern day male habits, and to put a focus on how to optimise the male hormones and building some muscle.
Here are his five tips to ensure you become the most awesome, healthiest and testosterone dense man you can.
Sleep is the mac daddy when it comes to health, fat loss and increasing your body’s testosterone and growth hormone levels. The addition of more good quality sleep can have a huge impact on your health. Growth hormone is secreted mostly when you sleep, and more to the point before midnight so the sooner before midnight you get to sleep the better. Another thing to remember is that you should try not to eat too close to bed time. Ideally leave a good 2-3 hours between dinner and bed.
There are two main reasons for this:
- Eating too close to bed means your body will be busy pumping blood to the gut to digest food, so your body will not allow you to go into a deep sleep. Your body needs to be rested and ready for sleep and recovery, not worrying about food digestion.
- When you eat your insulin levels go up (blood sugar) and when insulin is raised it inhibits growth hormone secretion which of course you do not want.
We recommend at least 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Please save the excuses as to why you can't do this, structure your days better and get some quality sleep, your body will thank you for it and you will feel so much better. Here are some things that aid a good night’s sleep:
Thought you might like this one. Quality fat consumption is essential for testosterone production and male health. Fats such as grass fed meat, avocados, grass fed butter and un pasteurised cheeses, nuts, olive oil, coconut oil etc are all great for health, energy and they taste pretty awesome too. We suggest having good fats with every meal to ensure we get enough. If you want to lose fat you need to eat fat, simple.
Cooking in coconut oil is great as it has a high heat point so maintains its nutrient density under heat, whereas oils like olive oil can go rancid when heated. Steaming your greens and then topping with some olive oil or some butter is a great way to get the most out of them. Butter and other good quality dairy is packed with vitamins A, D, E and K, but be sure to play around with this and see how your body responds to dairy.
You probably guessed this one was going to come up, but it’s really important that we as men stay strong. I am not saying you need to be built like Arnie but it’s important you build some lean body mass. You will look better, feel better, have a faster metabolism, have healthy tendons and be more attractive to the opposite sex or other men for that matter.
Focusing on the larger muscle groups such as chest, back, legs and glutes is always a good idea - so introducing the more compound lifts such as deadlifts, squats, bench press and pull ups and rows are a good option. You will stimulate more muscle fibres for growth and strength and therefore burn more calories and raise your metabolism.
Sprints are also awesome, and I know you will do your fair share of them in a BMF class, so keep those up too.
Stress is a testosterone killer, and in testing times it’s no wonder the testosterone levels of mankind is on the line. A tiny bit of stress is good, it’s your get up and go, but elevated stress (cortizol) is going to completely screw you over. Your testosterone will plummet, your body will start to store body fat and you will be in a catabolic state, this is when your body is breaking tissue down and will inhibit your gains in the gym or at BMF classes.
Training raises cortizol and is catabolic, your body is breaking down muscle fibres and depleting its muscles of energy (glycogen) and whilst you need this to happen in order to replenish, repair, recover and grow, if you are kicking your arse training and raising your cortizol levels and then going off and continuing to stress yourself out you will be one big catabolic mess. It's so important you take some time out, remove stresses and take a few breaths. Here are some tips on how to chill a little:
It goes without saying that eating a clean diet is key when it comes to health, fat loss, performance and longevity, but here are some things to remember:
Avoid processed foods such as sugar, breads, pasta, cakes, chocolate bars and fast food as much as you can. Sounds obvious right? But it is still far too common. Focus on eating nutrient dense meals such as meat, poultry, oily fish, seasonal vegetables, sweet potatoes, potatoes, starchy veg such as carrots, parsnips, butter nut squash and pimp up your salad making skills too.
The whole reason we wrote our book, Fitter Food - A Lifelong Recipe For Health & Fat Loss, is because we wanted to prove you can eat healthy, nutrient dense meals, that taste amazing and are really easy is to make.
Oily fish is a great addition to any meal, as its anti inflammatory and high in omega 3, it’s something we could all do with eating a bit more of to balance all the omega 6 fats we consume. Remember the word SMASH = Salmon, Mackerel, Anchovies, Sardines and Herring.
It’s important to highlight here the importance of food quality. If you think you can buy the cheapest cuts of meat or poultry and be healthy, you need to think again. Go for grass fed meat, free range and pasture fed chickens where possible and be sure to check the clean fifteen and dirty dozen lists to see what fruit and veg need to be organic and what don't.
So in a nut shell, move every day, get plenty of sleep, chill out, enjoy life and feed your body the nutrients it deserves.
Be sure to check out our book for some fantastic nutritional information, and over 100 great tasting and nutritious recipes based on nothing but natural ingredients.
We have plenty more recipes here too.
Here's to health, strength and happiness - and a few beers here and there.
Matt Whitmore