Anyone using testosterone boosting supplements? What kind?

deca

try a shot of rice bran oil ...

its pretty much what is in gamma labs test. booster

Originally Posted by VicDorfman

If you haven't optimized already, lots of good ways to boost T through diet. Check out Tim Ferriss' "4 Hour Body", there's a chapter in there about doubling testosterone and tripling sperm count.

Oooh shit, I was on amazon, just about ready to order this book, and then I saw this review:

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3,634 of 3,967 people found the following review helpful

4 Hour Baloney, save your money February 22, 2011
By N. Watson
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Most of the 5-star reviews for 4HB came up on the first day. Given that Tim Ferriss has previously endorsed outsourcing in his Four Hour Workweek, I wonder how many of those 5-star reviews were from his personal assistants abroad.

Let me start with my bona fides: I am a currently practicing and licensed physician in the state of California. I graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine. I am a black belt and a lifelong athlete, and I have been weight training for over 20 years-- and unlike Mr. Ferriss, without injuring myself in any way, ever. I have no financial interest in his book or any other product discussed here.

Regarding the depth of my review of The 4-Hour Body, I spent over [...] on the equipment, supplements, and ultrasound machine recommended in the book. I bought the BodyMetrix Professional ultrasound and software he recommends by Intelametrix ([...] after discount for mentioning 4HB book), and completed the 1-on-1 online training despite the fact I am previously certified in performing ultrasound. I engaged my friends and colleagues in a "Fat off" competition with obsessive and objective weight and body fat measurements and followed the routine for 5 weeks as perfectly as I was able. I also experimented (like Mr. Ferriss) using continuous glucose measurement (CGM) to assess minute-to-minute glucose responses to food and exercise using both the DexCom system he recommends as well as the MiniMed Guardian system. I plan to upload a photo of the nutritional supplements I bought, which nearly cover my kitchen table. I downloaded apps to my phone for recording each workout obsessively, and more importantly to help with the very slow rep time he recommends.

My basic finding is that after trying the diet, supplements, exercise routines and lifestyle changes recommended in the 4-Hour Body that I found no change, whatsoever, in body weight or competition. Nor did any of my other friends trying the book.

Why doesn't the 4HB work?

(1) It takes more than 4 hours a month in the gym to have a great body. I'm sorry, it just does. Mr. Ferriss recommends performing 2-3 SETS, for a total of less than 30 reps, per WEEK, to get a great body. Ask any athlete, bodybuilder, trainer... not enough. Not even close. It's hogwash. I actually could feel my body dwindling despite eating as much protein as I could stomach.

(2) Almost all the supplements recommended in 4HB have never been scientifically proven to do what Mr. Ferriss claims they do. Take cissus quadrangularis (page 110), costs about $30 for 120 capsules. He discusses that he took CQ in China while eating a high volume rice diet with sweets and states "CQ preserved my abs". Really? If that's the level of evidence that you're comfortable with, great. But with simultaneous exercise, multiple other ongoing supplements, lifestyle changes, etc., who can tell whether it was CQ or just dietary changes from his being in rural China?

(3) The diet is just a mishmash of other diet routines, basically Atkins plus paleo with a dash of South Beach Diet. There are important flaws in the diet that should be pointed out. He recommends carbohydrates from beans instead of "white carbohydrates", hence the "slow-carb" diet. This relies on a bunch of old data regarding glycemic index. The reality about carbohydrate digestion is very different. Carbohydrate digestion is so important that it begins IN THE MOUTH with salivary amylase. Whether you eat a slice of Wonder Bread or a handful of garbanzo beans, the breakdown of these sugars into the body's currency of glucose is extremely rapid and effective regardless of which form you ingest it in. I have tried this myself using continuous glucose monitoring as recommended in the book. The only way I have found to blunt the sugar rise is simultaneous ingestion of a good quantity of fat. Also, can a diet really be paleo without milk or dairy? And did early Homo sapiens farm for beans and lentils?

(4) The blood sugar response data in the book is flawed by a misunderstanding of how continuous blood glucose monitoring (CGM) works. He notes "it turned out foods and liquids took much, much longer to get to my bloodstream than one would expect." But the DexCom SEVEN implant he was using has a 20-30 minute delay between the blood sugar reading you get on a finger stick, and the blood sugar reading on the machine sensor. That is, there is a BUILT IN DELAY (check some online diabetic forums for more info on this) because capillary blood from fingersticks shows changes much faster and more accurately than the interstitial fluid surrounding the implant. So, as noted in (3), sugar responses are actually very fast. Drink that protein shake right before or after the workout, not 1 hour prior like he says.

(5) Measuring body fat before and after interventions is much less easy than implied in the book. Body scans using DEXA are really great, but it's hard to convince all your friends to do it with you given inconvenience and expense. I have used the ultrasound unit he recommends and even with training it is very difficult for me to get reliable, repeatable data. This is true even when I have switched it to expert "M" mode and done my own curve fitting of the actual ultrasound output. It is also very dependent on the body type you select for yourself when you calibrate the machine.

(6) The sex improvement section seems out of place in this book, and is not terribly original to boot.

Here's what you can learn from 4HB without buying the book:
---Measure your body fat (!) before and after any change you make in your diet.
---If a book makes unrealistic claims, don't believe it.
---Have your friends join you in challenges and short contests.
---Exercise consistently over years...and be more careful with your body than Mr. Ferriss is.

Not trying to shoot your idea down, just sayin...

Thanks for posting that review Kurzy, very interesting!

Hey no problem Vic.
I read a few more reviews and there was a general concensus that the author was actually farming out his book reviews to people, in order to rack up a bunch of good reviews in a short amount of time. Also, anytime anyone entered a negative review, they were attacked by a bunch of that reviewers who had already posted "great" reviews.

It all seems pretty suspicious to me. LOL. I like the sounds of it, and I would love to burn off my last 8 pounds for a washboard stomach and gain some muscle mass without having to pump iron, but I don't think this book is going to help me do it after reading some of the input from people who have read it.


I'm glad you weren't all upset that I posted the review actually. In my opinion, everything should undergo some scrutiny.

I have to dispute that review, and I probably would be tempted to if I saw it on amazon and then would be thought of as one of those guys Tim Ferriss paid off according to that.... The info in that book is super legit, very well researched, and agreed with by professionals nearly universally in the fields of athletics, health, medicine, etc.. You can lose those extra 8 lbs just by reading tim's blog posts :P

I took a borderline illegal synthetic test called "dragon". Put on about 10 lbs of muscle in a month. I've been using the p6 as a natural booster after coming off and I like it. Seems to do the job. Expensive as fuck though.

I also use the C4 pre-workout, nothing too special but it gets the job done. For the money you're better off going w/ NO-explode

Thanks for all the input guys. I'm not looking at this supplement as a short cut. I eat well, I train hard, I lift hard, I'm doing all the right things. I still find myself sore, and broken down after several days of intense training as I'm sure everyone else does. I'm looking for something extra to increase recovery, muscle growth, strength. The recovery supplements I've tried recently had no tangible effect that I noticed, so I've been researching what else is available. I'm not trying to take steroids, or HGH, or anything that is banned or illegal. This question was asked to find out if there is something I can take that will benefit my performance and is not going to be harmful in the long run. I don't see anything wrong with that. If it's legal I don't take issue with using it.

I've decided to just keep using the preworkout stuff I've been using, and I'm jumping on the Dolce Diet to try to really optimize my diet, and get as much nutrition, and calories as I require. We'll see where that leads, and I'll approach this subject again in the future if I feel inclined to do so.

I take this stuff.

http://www.wholeworldbotanicals.com/super_royal

I dont risk taking anything supplemental. All from eating the normal stuff we all eat.
But for the ju-jitsu you practice with your woman at night... Pineapple. It doubles the sperm count. Giggity.