At one point, I had fairly low testosterone, at the very low end of the normal range (right around 300 ng/dL).
At that time, I was experiencing pretty extreme anxiety and insomnia so that probably contributed the most. I probably had a crappy diet at that time too.
My BMI was probably in the high 20s, and I was sedentary most of the time.
Fast forward a couple years later, and my testosterone is over 1000, which is on the high end of normal and probably above my baseline.
I have a few educated guesses on what caused my levels to triple:
- I got my sleep back under control at that point (thanks to Xanax and the pandemic allowing us to wfh really lowered stress levels)
- Because my sleep was better, I was able to start lifting weights and being active again (also more time due to working remotely)
- Lowered my BMI to around 15%. This is mainly dieting, watching my calories, keeping my protein high, etc.
- Dutasteride. I had started using topical dutasteride to slow my hair loss and because it suppresses the conversion of testosterone to dht, I think this also caused a spike (and my doctor thought so too). This alone wouldn’t explain my test level tripling, but it is definitely a big factor.
Note: I’m not recommending getting on dutasteride (or any other dht blocker) just for the sake of increasing test. I honestly don’t know if suppressing dht has some negative health consequences. I only use it to slow my hair loss.
- Semen retention. I honestly believe that this is another huge factor. I believe I was on a schedule where I would only ejaculate every 2 weeks. This is why professional fighters abstain from sex for several weeks before they fight.
The thing is, I really wasn’t focused on increasing my testosterone and I’m pretty sure there are probably even more effective methods that I haven’t tried. But this is what worked for me.
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