Every guy wants to be his own boss. But guess what? You’re already the CEO of You, Inc. The problem is that the peons who work for you just show up, do their jobs, and clock out—oblivious to the fact you’re trying to launch an initiative to build muscle, burn fat, and have more sex. Who are these brainless laborers? They’re hormones. Chemical messengers that float through your bloodstream to deliver orders to every one of your body’s organs and tissues, hormones always act in, at least what they think is, your best interest. And while they don’t have a clue now, with a little workplace coaching from their CEO, You, Inc., can become the model of physiological efficiency. Get to know your employees:
Ghrelin and Leptin: The Hunger-Regulators
Constantly at odds with each other, these two hormones determine how much food you put away every day. The walls of your stomach produce ghrelin in waves throughout the day to encourage regular meal times, your fat cells spew leptin in an attempt to fend off hunger and prevent any more fat from globing onto your frame, says Ofer Reizes, Ph.D., a cellular and molecular medicine scientist at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute. Once released into your blood stream, they flow toward your brain’s hypothalamus and, in healthy guys, whichever hormone shows up in larger numbers wins out. In guys who are overweight, though, the body is constantly bombarded with fat-fueled leptin, and eventually just starts ignoring the feel-full hormone altogether, he says. The result: A large pizza for one
Get Your Butt to Bed Keeping irregular, typically too-short, sleep schedules is the most common way men disrupt their ghrelin and leptin levels, Reizes says. Getting less than six hours of sleep a night significantly increases ghrelin levels while decreasing leptin levels to make you stuff your face, according to a 2012 review published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. And since ghrelin is largely set by your circadian rhythms, having a wonky sleep schedule can throw off your internal clock, he says. Fight the urge to try to “catch up” on sleep over the weekends.
Thyroid Hormones: The Metabolism-Revvers
Your thyroid, a bat-shaped gland in your neck, churns out the hormones T3 and T4. In your body, much of the T4 slowly converts to T3, the stronger of the two hormones. Both act on most, if not every, cell in your body to determine how much energy each produces and expends. That effectively sets your basal metabolic rate—how many calories you burn just sitting on your butt, explains Steven Lamm, M.D., medical director of NYU Langone’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men’s Health. Most of the time, any big problems with men’s thyroid hormone levels come down to either autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s disease, or a tumor, but even small dips in your thyroid function can cause your metabolism to stall and the pounds to pile up. Your doctor can test your thyroid with a few simple blood tests.
Eat More Iodine If you’re cutting back on table salt, most Americans’ main source of iodine, you need to make sure you score the nutrient elsewhere. It’s required for your thyroid to produce T3 and T4, but your body can’t produce it on its own, Lamm says. Docs don’t screen for iodine deficiency, so make sure you get enough by reaching for saltwater seafood, dairy products, and eggs. Adults need to get 150 micrograms of iodine per day. A three-ounce serving of cod, cup of low-fat yogurt, and single egg contains 99, 75, and 24 mcg, respectively. If you’re following a super low-sodium diet, talk to your doc about taking an iodine-containing multivitamin.
Human Growth Hormone and IGF-1: The Body-Builders
To build more muscle, recover better, and drop fat. Released from cells in your brain’s anterior pituitary gland, human growth hormone (aka somatotropin) signals your liver and other tissues in your body to produce insulin-like growth factor 1 to do its bidding. Namely, to build muscle tissue, strengthen ligaments and tendons, and break down fat for fuel, explains Jacob Wilson, Ph.D., CSCS*D, associate editor of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. Around age 30, though, virtually all guys enter into “somatopause,” with levels of HGH declining about 15 percent per decade after their 20th birthday. If delayed-onset muscle soreness lasts longer than it used to, or if your workout recovery sucks, talk to your doctor about getting a GH and IGF-1 blood panel.
Turn Up the Volume High-volume strength workouts—with minimal rest between sets—are ideal for turning up levels of HGH, says Wilson. “If you feel a ‘burn’ in your muscles, you’re doing it right. That means your body is becoming slightly acidic, which ups production of HGH.” Try this workout setup: Pick three exercises, each working a different body part. Perform three to four sets of eight to 12 reps of each exercise, resting for 30 to 60 seconds between sets.
Melatonin: The Sleep-Supporter
Designed to help you snooze at night and keep you from nodding off during the day, melatonin should spike around 2 to 4 am and hit its lowest at midday, says MH sleep advisor W. Christopher Winter, M.D. Your pineal gland produces more or less of the drowse-inducing hormone depending on how much blue light, short wavelengths that are highly visible, from the sun hits your retinas. But that’s the same color of light that come from computer, tablet, and smartphone screens, he says.
Hit the Lights Nix the gadgets, or at least turn down their blue light levels, at night. Apps like Unblue ($1.99 for iOs) and Eyefilter (free for Android) control the levels of blue light your mobile devices emit, so that after the sun sets, the blue lights really go out. You can also try an alarm clock like Philips HF3520 Wake-Up Light, which hits you with a healthy dose of blue light to help dial down your melatonin levels first thing in the morning. Taking a melatonin supplement before bed is also an option, but don’t take them more than three to four times a week. They can potentially decrease the amount of melatonin that your body produces, Winter says
Insulin: The Energizer
Although chronically too-high levels contribute to excess fat storage, insulin resistance, and Type 2 diabetes, spiking your levels at the right times is vital to keeping your energy levels up and helping you hit your fitness goals, says James Betts, Ph.D., a nutrition and metabolism researcher with the University of Bath in the UK. Every time you eat carbs, acids in your stomach convert them into simple sugars, and, in response, your pancreas releases insulin. The hormone then instructs cells in your liver, muscle, and fat tissues to take up the sugar and store it for later. Sugar sent to your liver and muscles, called glycogen, is in charge of keeping your blood sugar levels steady between meals and serving as your body’s primary fuel source during high-intensity exercise. “The more glycogen you have stored away, the more energy you have in the tank at the start line,” he says. Plus, after your workouts, your body depends on insulin to effectively get protein to and repair your muscles, according to one Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition review.
Fill Your Tank Spike your insulin levels immediately after high-intensity workouts lasting more than an hour. That’s when your glycogen levels will be depleted, and your body will be most apt to store carbs as glycogen and not as fat. After your workout (it doesn’t have to be immediately!), eat simple, quick-to-digest carbs like fruit and white bread. Add in whole protein sources like whey, meat, eggs, dairy, and soy. All contain phenylalanine, leucine, and tyrosine, three amino acids that trigger your pancreas to release even more insulin, Betts says. The extra insulin boost will help protein get to your muscles to help them recover and grow back stronger
Testosterone: The Libido-Booster
Apart from helping you build muscle, testosterone helps you put them to good use in the bedroom. Released from your testicles, the male sex hormone increases libido, sexual pleasure, sperm count, and even ejaculatory volume, says Darius Paduch, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of reproductive medicine and urology at Weill Cornell Medical College. But contrary to what late-night infomercials would lead you to believe, testosterone levels aren’t destined to drop as you age. “Testosterone is linked with aging because we tend to become more sedentary, less fit, and more overweight over time,” he says. And the fatter you get, the more diluted your body’s concentration of T will be. In 2014, when researchers combed through data on the European Male Ageing Study, they found that three out of four men with low T, and every single 40-something guy with low T, were overweight.
Order the Steak Without healthy levels of cholesterol in your diet, your body can’t produce testosterone, says Paduch, who recommends his low-libidoed patients swap out refined carbs for proteins like red meat and eggs. According to a review published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the move will help you drop weight, which, if you’ve got some pounds to lose, could boost your testosterone levels. While there’s such a thing as too much dietary cholesterol, mounting research is proving that, no, dietary cholesterol isn’t awful for your heart.
Irisin: The Fat-Fighter
This up-and-comer was just proved in Cell Metabolism to exist in humans, but it’s already poised to help you hit your fat-loss goals. Irisin, released from skeletal muscles when you work them in the gym, may be to thank for the health benefits of exercise, says Christiane Wrann, Ph.D., D.V.M., instructor in Cell Biology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and part of the team to ID the hormone. Irisin switches on genes that turn nasty white fat into health-promoting brown fat, she says. Rich in babies and hibernating animals to help keep them warm, just 50 grams of brown fat burns about 300 calories each day. The same amount of white fat stores about 300 calories.
Move Your Muscles While there’s still a lot we don’t know about the hormone yet, it’s clear that muscle contraction—whether it’s from exercise or shivering in a cold room—increases irisin levels. Research out of the National Institutes of Health shows that 10 to 15 minutes of shivering increases irisin as well as an hour of moderate exercise. As far as the best workouts go, though, Wrann recommends performing endurance and aerobic interval workouts. Try running, biking, and other cardio workouts that put your body’s largest muscles (your glutes, quads, and hammies) to work. Only the muscles you work actually produce irisin. Levels increase during and immediately after exercise, for up to six hours, before going back down again.
Adrenaline: The Good Hormone That’s Actually Bad for You
Released from your (you guessed it) adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys, adrenaline increases your blood sugar levels, blood pressure, and heart rate to help you escape or fight off lions in the savannah. You think it’s good because you associate it with a rush. And that’s okay. But most of the time, but in today’s fast-paced (read: overworked) world, you’re probably being hit with a steady drip of the stuff. And its damaging your DNA, per a landmark 2011 Nature study, and may contribute to heart disease.
Get Control In a 2014 Journal of the American College of Cardiology study of healthy men, guys who ate flavonoid-rich dark chocolate before undergoing a mock interview came out on top with lower levels of adrenaline. And in one Texas A&M University, the fittest guys had lower levels of adrenaline than the least fit guys.
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