Some things I have experienced...

I'm now 50, overweight (not nearly as much as I used to be), and if you search for my posts, you'll find I've been through a lot of bad decisions, bad behavior, bad emotional states.. You name it, it was wrong, or I did it wrong. However, I have found some things that have altered my personal trajectory, and I'd like to just share some of them. First, a year after I was diagnosed with sleep apnea - which was a few months after I was diagnosed with high blood pressure - I was also diagnosed as a diabetic. You know, all the ugly middle age crap when you don't take care of yourself much, including a 48 inch waist. First, I've found that lower testosterone ( not such that the doctor will think anything's wrong) is a massive contributing factor. It makes you tired, have lots of aches and pains, weakened muscles, and is associated with "metabolic syndrome", which is high blood sugar with high insulin resistance, belly fat and others. Further, it really screws with your mind. A lack of testosterone tends to make you stress much more than you should. Lowering testosterone removes your sex drive, is often associated with a lack of confidence and agression of any kind. Being fat... creates estrogen in your body. Your fat cells convert testosterone to estrogen. And estrogen makes your muscles atrophy, makes your prostate enlarge. Stress produces cortisol, which WORSENS every bad effect I listed above. You do not "just get better" once you're in this state. It requires active intervention on your part. Eat less, exercise more, lift weights, lose weight, eat lots of vegetables and some fruit and lots of green stuff. Get out in the sun. Take good multivitamins. I've been through periods of depression and other bad mental states several times. The last one was so bad I was becoming mentally unstable. Dull, forgetting everything, having no energy and being angry and irritable all the time, and all the classic signs of male depression. Two weeks of taking some herbal supplements, getting a little tan... and it's absolutely amazing how my sex drive returned, emotional state improved, depression receded, and I'm MUCH happier and no longer living in dread of everything from phone calls to going out of the house. And longer mentally dull as the backside of a butter knife. I learned a lot from Testosterone and Men's Health Blog and other sites that deal with whole person therapy. I simply cannot emphasize enough how important it is to your mental, physical, emotional, and marital health to get your hormones back in shape. I can't possibly "teach" anything here, I"m not qualified, nor do I have the time. But, for those of you find yourself not doing so well, even your emotional state can screw up your hormones... and you need to get them fixed to feel better. One of the most helpful things you can do, is to learn what natural products will work for boosting your testosterone a little, and then start changing your diet, exercise, and lifestyle, and you'll just be amazed how much better you can be.

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