Welcome to the Get Fit Guys quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

In last week's episode called Hormonal Imbalances and Weight Gain, you learned how hormonal

imbalances and specifically something called estrogen dominance in women may make it

impossible to lose weight no matter how much you exercise. Well, in that episode, I mentioned that I

often notice a different reason for resistance to weight gain or a propensity to gain weight in men.

And today, you're going to learn about a common hormone deficit in men that may hold you back from being

able to achieve your ideal body. From about age 30 on, men's testosterone levels naturally decline

with age, while the hormone that can bind testosterone in the bloodstream, called sex hormone

binding globulin, tends to increase. This one-two whammy can become even

more pronounced when combined with exposure to some of the environmental estrogens that I talked

about last week and also in my episode, How to Get Rid of Man Boobes. Now, when testosterone levels

drop below what would be considered normal laboratory values, the medical term hypogonadism is used to describe this condition.

However, andropause, or occasionally manopause, is a more popular term used to describe this menopause-like experience in men.

Now, unlike women, we don't actually experience a complete shutdown of our reproductive

system, but when testosterone levels fall, we can experience, among other unpleasant symptoms,

a loss of lean muscle mass, a decreased metabolism, and lower ability to push during a workout,

all of which can decrease the ability to lose weight no matter how much exercise

that you do.

The accompanying loss of libido can also affect our actual motivation to exercise, since

I know that many men will admit that one major reason for working out is to look good for the opposite sex.

Ultimately, if you're over age 30 and you're experiencing a drop in energy,

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