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Testosterone has become a taboo topic in sports.
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And honestly, that makes sense because in professional motorsports, the World Association or the World Anti-Doping Association regulations matter.
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For drivers and over-the-wall crew athletes, crossing the line into performance-enhancing drugs is not the conversation.
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But here's the real question: what if balancing healthy hormone levels naturally is actually part of high performance physiology?
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Because low testosterone doesn't just affect muscle, it affects recovery, it affects focus, drive, mood, cardiovascular health, body composition, libido, fertility, long-term vitality, and so much more.
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And what research demonstrates, and what we often see in clinical practice, is that many drivers and crew athletes over the age of 35 are operating with declining hormone function without even realizing it.
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Nothing dramatic, just enough to lose the edge.
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So let's break that down.
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As a certified high performance health coach and consulting hypnotist, I've coached elite entrepreneurs and athletes to higher energy, sharper focus, and greater resilience.
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Naturally, safely, and backed by science.
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And right now, I'm bringing that same engineered approach to the best in motorsports.
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Here you'll find no wasted time, just a unique blend of integrative health, mental conditioning, and proven recovery strategies delivered in plain language that you can use right away.
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Imagine a season without burnout, brain fog, or the costly crash of your health.
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Because the truth is, the real race starts within.
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I'm grateful you're here.
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And if you enjoy these conversations around performance, longevity, recovery, and physiology, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
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Because today's topic is one that will honestly a lot of people avoid talking about, and that is testosterone.
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And just to be clear, this episode is not about steroid doping.
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This is about healthy physiology, natural optimization, staying compliant, and extending performance longevity.
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You see, most people believe declining testosterone is, well, just aging.
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And yes, hormone production naturally changes with age.
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Men and women both experience gradual shifts after about age 45 to 50.
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But if low testosterone were only aging, then every athlete over 35 would decline the same way.
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And they don't.
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Some stay sharp, driven, lean, focused, and others recover slower, gain body fat, lose ambition, feel mentally flat, which raises the better question.
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What's suppressing healthy hormone production?
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And this is one that actually became personal for me.
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Back in 2022, my own testosterone levels dropped below 50, and that's 50 picograms per milliliter.
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And now, just to put that into perspective, that would be more synonymous with a man in his 90s.
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Except I wasn't even 50 years old yet.
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And honestly, that explained a lot at the time.
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Lower energy, slower recovery, brain fog, feeling flat, not feeling myself physiologically.
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Now, in my case, there uh this was connected to a significant viral load from long COVID.
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And what's interesting is most people would have simply accepted that as getting older, but I knew something deeper was happening.
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So instead of forcing hormones artificially, I worked the exact naturally fueled high-performance health strategies we use today in clinical practice.
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Things like reducing inflammation, supporting sleep, balancing stress physiology, restoring deficiencies, improving metabolic function, and reducing toxic load.
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And over time, my testosterone levels naturally climbed back into a healthy range and eventually exceeded over 100 uh PGs per milliliter.
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So when I talk about this topic, I'm not just speaking from theory alone, I lived it.
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And thankfully, I didn't have to resort to humanly unnatural shots or move into the woods and start wrestling grizzly bears while shirtless to get my testosterone back.
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Although apparently social media thinks that's the official protocol these days.
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And just to be clear, not giving any medical advice here on the podcast, and this uh podcast or information, it's not intended to diagnose or treat any disease.
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Hormonal concern should always be evaluated with a qualified practitioner.
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And what research demonstrates, and what we see in our clinical practice, is that testosterone production is highly responsive to stress, inflammation, nutrient status, sleep quality, total toxic load, metabolic health, and more.
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And so much of that list right there comes into play for any motorsports professional.
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A simple way to understand this is the body prioritizes survival before reproduction.
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Load full transcript
So when the system perceives stress, testosterone production downshifts because stress production upshifts.
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So basically, it's a um a metabolic seesaw between cortisol, which is the stress hormone, and uh androgens, which are your sex hormones, such as testosterone, uh progesterone, estrogen, DHEA, things like that.
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And in motorsports, the stress stacks.
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If you've been live following along with the podcast, this is really the underlying theme of our podcast: is the stacking stress, the travel, the sleep disruption, the heat exposure, the adrenaline, the environmental toxicities.
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And over time, cortisol, the stress hormone raises, recovery declines, and hormone signaling weakens.
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Now you might be wondering what testosterone actually does.
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Healthy testosterone supports drive and ambition, muscle maintenance, uh, cardiovascular function, cognitive sharpness, libido, uh fertility, recovery capacity.
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And yes, this applies to women too.
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Healthy testosterone is important for women as well.
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This is not just a male hormone.
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Now, there are special cases.
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There's one notable exception to naturally elevated testosterone, and this is specifically just for women with PCOS.
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So that's uh polycystic ovarian syndrome.
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Otherwise, the body generally does not produce more testosterone than it needs naturally.
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And of course, you're probably interested in why we use saliva testing.
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One of the biggest misconceptions in hormones is that blood serum testing tells the whole story.
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But hormones in blood are different, they are bound to proteins, meaning they are not bioavailable, they're not readily usable by the body.
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Whereas saliva testing measures free hormones, the hormones the body can actually use, and that includes testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, and DHEA.
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And yes, this can all be done at home, even during race season, because apparently mailing saliva is now more advanced than some people's healthcare strategy.
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So today I want to go over the three main causes of low testosterone.
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Number one, health factors, talking about uh disease or dysfunctions.
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So things like autoimmune inflammation or metabolic dysfunction, uh, obesity, blood sugar dysregulation is a big one that affects hormone imbalances, and then liver, kidney, heart, or lung dysfunction.
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And a major one is the uh, well, I should say all of these affect what's called the HPG access dysfunction.
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Uh so in integrative health, integrative medicine, functional medicine, there's what we call the HPA access.
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This is the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal access.
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Well, there's also the HPG access.
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And this is something that not a lot of practitioners are talking about.
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So the HPG access, this is the communication system between the brain, which is the hypothalamus, that's where the hypothalamus is, and the pituitary gland, which is also in um in that area.
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These signal the reproductive organs.
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So the G stands for gonatal, and there can be a disruption in this access or this communication system where there's a miscommunication between the brain and the reproductive organs.
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So you can think of it like race control, sending signals to the car.
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And if communication gets disrupted by stress or inflammation, hormone output drops.
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All right, number two, medications and alcohol.
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Certainly, medications may suppress hormone production.
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Things like corticosteroids, um, chemotherapy for somebody that's going through cancer treatment, and opioids uh for somebody that is has been prescribed pain medication.
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Um, and a major overlooked factor here is the alcohol.
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I'm not going to go too deep into this, but alcohol affects liver function, blood sugar, cortisol balance, inflammation, all things that can lower testosterone production uh naturally, which is unfortunate news for anyone whose recovery strategy currently includes those, you know, those victory beers.
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Now, I'm not against alcohol, but the chronic use or the regular use is certainly going to affect hormone production.
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All right, number three, and this is kind of a big one.
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This is really the biggest category in motorsports, lifestyle factors.
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Talking about sleep disruption.
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So we want to make sure we're getting the proper amounts of deep sleep.
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We want to make sure we're getting the proper amounts of REM sleep.
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These are critical for hormone production.
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And the target is about one and a half hours of REM, two and a half hours of deep.
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You can track that with an aura ring, probably the best device for tracking.
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Um, Apple Watch, whoopstrap, things like that.
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Not as good as the Aura Ring, but um, you know, enough to
get your somewhat in the ballpark there.
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Uh, next is for lifestyle is lack of sunlight exposure.
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And of course, drivers and crew they spend weekends outside at the racetrack, but they're covered in fire suits or helmets.
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So they're really not getting that sun exposure.
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And we can prove this through a uh at-home vitamin D3 test.
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They're just simply not getting enough vitamin D3 from the sun.
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And vitamin D3 is critical for hormone production.
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Um, next in lifestyle category is nutritional gaps, talking about processed food, airport food, track food.
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It may be delicious, but it may lead to deficiencies in things like zinc, vitamin C, uh, B vitamins, which are all super important, what we call cofactors for hormone production, as well as a micronutrient uh that's really not talked about very often, but it's called boron, and that plays a huge role in specifically testosterone production.
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These are all important cofactors for producing testosterone naturally.
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Uh, the next big one for lifestyle is environmental toxicity.
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Talking about, as I do almost every week, it seems, uh, to nauseam here, uh, exhaust fumes, tire compounds, track chemicals, shop chemicals, uh, solvents, things like that, these can create an internal stress load.
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And we can run an environmental toxicity test to see your total toxic load in some of these, um, some of these categories here.
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Now, another big one for environmental toxins and lifestyle, plastics and BPA, bisphenol A.
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These act as what we call xenoestrogens.
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These are chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body.
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And no microwaving gas station burritos in plastic probably isn't helping hormone optimization either.
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All right, now what do we do here?
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The safe and proven way to support testosterone naturally, this is totally compliant here.
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We want to reduce body fat and inflammation, especially visceral fat around the waist.
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This is very, very important for proper hormone production.
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We want, and I'm not going to give you uh, you know, a detailed protocol for each one of these uh checkboxes here, uh, but reduce body fat and inflammation.
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We'll leave that one there.
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Reduce or eliminate alcohol.
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You know, I'm I'm not here to uh be the alcohol police whatsoever.
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You know, enjoy responsibly, but just know that every uh consumption of alcohol is directly affecting hormone production.
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We want to prioritize sleep.
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Uh so use the 321 formula.
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Eat three hours, uh no more than three hours before bedtime.
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Uh no uh what's the two is uh two hours before bedtime, um which is uh once screen time, and then um yeah.
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The uh three two the three two one formula.
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Don't eat three hours before bed, don't drink two hours before bed, meaning any liquids so you don't get up and urinate.
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And the uh one hour before bed is uh no screen time, one hour before bed.
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There.
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Now we got that.
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Um, and then of course, prioritize sleep.
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90 minutes of deep sleep, two hours of REM sleep.
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Uh, very important to optimize that as well.
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We want to buffer stress.
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This is external stress and internal stress.
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Uh today's episode 175.
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Last week on 174, I gave you the