Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

they can stay high up into your sixties if you exercise the right way, eat the right foods, avoid smoking, and limit how much fat is on your body.
    You’ll find plenty of tips to increase testosterone in this book, but here’s your cheat sheet to higher T.
    • Lift heavy weights.
    • Do intervals.
    • Practice sprints and work your lower body.
    • Supplement with Vitamin D (at least 300 IU/day).
    • Don’t smoke.
    • Supplement with zinc.
    • Sleep more than six hours per night.
    • Eat more protein.
    • Do squats and deadlifts.
    • Use shorter rest periods in the gym.
    • Take fish oil.
    • Don’t overtrain (just follow our program).
    • Include fat from animals and dairy in your diet.
    • Eat eggs.

    GROWTH HORMONE
    If testosterone is the Batman of masculinity, then you could say GH is your Robin. This powerful yet understated hormone is oftentimes considered the fountain of youth, as doctors and antiaging clinics prescribe it readily to help combat old age. GH and testosterone work best together, meaning that each is very potent individually, but when present together, the impact is decidedly more prominent and beneficial.
    GH has been shown to have the greatest physical impact on burning fat and increasing longevity. But what’s even more useful is what GH does to help your body function more efficiently and effectively.
    When you have more GH circulating in your system, you’re able to make better use of protein and build more muscle. You’re also able to improve the quality of your sleep and speed healing and recovery. Like the name would imply, GH improves the growth of your cells—it helps grow muscle mass, strengthen your bones, reduce the pressure on your liver, and maybe most understated, protect your immune system. Increasing your GH is one of the best ways to fight off disease and stay healthy.
    You’ll learn many ways to improve your GH, the most impactful mechanism being the new style of eating called intermittent fasting that we’ll teach you in part 3. In the meantime, here are some easy ways to boost your GH:
    • Sleep more.
    • Fast during the morning.
    • Improve sleep quality.
    • Lift heavier weights.
    • Supplement with BCAAs.
    • Eat big before bed.
    • Perform sprints (10–30 seconds are best).
    • Do high-intensity metabolic resistance training (30–40 minutes max).
    • Don’t eat fat before a workout.
    • Don’t eat too many calories before exercise.

    LEPTIN
    We’ve all seen a friend drop twenty pounds with ease and then have trouble losing the next five, right? Perhaps it’s even happened to you. It’s frustrating to experience, and like most weight-loss phenomena, its roots are linked to your hormones; specifically, a hormone called leptin.
    Named for the Greek word leptos, meaning “thin,” leptin is produced in your fat cells—which means that the more fat you have, the higher your baseline levels of leptin will be. Here’s why this is important: one of the master hormones, leptin influences the production and secretion of other hormones that regulate metabolism, such as thyroid hormones T3 and T4. When leptin levels are high, your production of T3 and T4 will also be relatively high, allowing you to burn fat faster; when leptin levels drop, these other hormones go too.
    The fact that leptin is produced in fat cells is an important reason why it’s easier to drop weight when you have more excess weight to lose. However, leptin levels also share a direct relationship with caloric intake—when you eat fewer calories, your leptin levels drop considerably. This, in turn, lowers your other fat-burning hormones, bringing your fat loss to a crawl.
    For this reason, leptin is often called the anti-starvation hormone—your body is slowing your metabolism to keep you alive when food is scarce. This means that leptin decreases your hunger. That’s great for survival, but it creates a pretty clear fat-loss catch-22: you need to eat less to burn fat, but eating less compromises your body’s ability to produce leptin. And the less leptin you produce, the hungrier you become and the more likely you are to eat more than you need.
    All of this means that if you want to keep making progress, you need to keep leptin levels elevated while you’re in a caloric deficit—and we’ll show you how to do exactly that in chapter 7. For now, keep these leptin-boosting tactics in mind:
    • Fast at least sixteen hours a day.
    • Include strategic cheat meals