Low Testosterone & Obesity – The Vicious Cycle

A low testosterone level makes you fat, and being fat lowers your testosterone level. It’s a vicious cycle.

Lose the belly, control your hormones

As you know, testosterone and estrogen are like your ‘yin and yang’ – people of both sexes have both hormones, and the balance of these two hormones is what makes us have male or female characteristics. Something interesting that you may not know – a high level of body fat in men actually tips the balance of power towards estrogen. Here comes the science:

Body fat contains an enzyme called ‘aromatase’ that takes your testosterone and converts it into ‘estradiol’, which is a primary type of estrogen. This explains in part why overweight men often grow ‘man breasts’ (clinically known as gynecomastia), because the conversion of testosterone to estradiol stimulates breast tissue growth.

So, a great first step in combating low T is to start shedding body fat. As your body fat drops, you have less aromatase, so you get less estradiol, so your hormone levels get some help to get back to where they should be. You can break the cycle.

Losing weight for men is easy – in my experience it’s much easier for men than women. Simply eat less and move around more – salad instead of pizza, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. I have personally seen guys work miracles in a couple of months as soon as they realize that losing weight is just math – take in a little less fuel, burn a little more.

Getting your body fat under control is probably the single most important health step that you can take. Start today – it’s not nearly as big a pain in the ass as you think it might be!