Man 2.0 Engineering the Alpha

ability to produce sperm. Without it, those little guys just won’t exist. But when you become too fat, the enzyme aromatase will convert your testosterone into estrogen, and that’s when things start going bad.
    In the next chapter, you’ll learn the immediate strategies you can use to supercharge your testosterone, keep estrogen levels at bay, and keep your body as manly as possible. After you learn those easy-to-apply strategies, we’ll jump immediately into all the eating details that will reshape your body and mind. These will include carbohydrate cycling, strategies to improve your digestive health, the supplements you need to keep testosterone up, the best protein sources, the right types of exercises, and even the types of alcoholic drinks you should be consuming—all of which will keep your estrogen at optimal levels.
    For now, keep your estrogen low with these easy tips:
    • Avoid soy.
    • Limit stress.
    • Stay happy (depression increases estrogen production).
    • Don’t eat too much bran or too many legumes.
    • Watch out for toxins from plastics (translation: avoid eating out of plastic containers).
    • Eat pesticide-free or organic produce.
    • Eat lots of broccoli and cauliflower.
    • Limit alcohol.
    • Eat red meat.

    INSULIN
    “Insulin—that’s the carb hormone, right?” Well, sort of. Insulin is about more than just carbs—it controls everything from how quickly you can lose fat and gain muscle to whether the food you eat gives you energy or makes you crash.
    Produced in the pancreas, insulin is responsible for the uptake of nutrients into cells in your liver, muscles, and stored fat. For this reason, insulin is sometimes known as the gatekeeper hormone. When insulin is working efficiently, your cells are primed for nutrient storage. So if you utilize insulin at the right time, like immediately after a workout, you’ll direct nutrients into your muscle cells. Even if you don’t like exercise, controlling insulin is the key to looking good. That’s because if you raise insulin levels at the wrong time, it’ll be your lipid (fat) cells that uptake the nutrients, regardless of whether you’re training like a champion or perfecting your couch-surfing skills.
    Unfortunately, the timing of insulin mastery isn’t as simple as some people would make it seem. That’s because insulin doesn’t occur in a vacuum. The goal is to make your body more insulin sensitive. When insulin sensitivity is high, you need less insulin to get the same effect. High insulin sensitivity is the easiest way to ensure that you’ll gain muscle, not fat. You can increase your insulin sensitivity by avoiding foods that cause a high spike, such as sugar, and lifting weights to build more muscle. Your muscles are your best friends when it comes to burning the fuel you put into your body—especially carbs.
    But most people have diets that are constantly spiking insulin levels in a way that confuses their bodies. And while many people exercise, they do so in a way that doesn’t improve their insulin sensitivity, which, as you’ll see, is the real secret to better fat loss and muscle gain. If your insulin levels are screwed up—which is a problem that plagues most people without their awareness—then even your post-workout carbs can be detrimental and dangerous.
    The goal then becomes learning how to manage your insulin so you can take advantage of it at the right times. Chronically high insulin levels will result in something called insulin resistance. This means that your body uses insulin less efficiently, so you need to produce more in order to digest and utilize carbohydrates effectively. This is not good. You don’t want more insulin pumping through your body. You only want insulin effectively shuttling the foods you eat in an advantageous way. So because you’re producing more, it just means the foods you eat are more likely to be stored as fat.
    When you are insulin resistant, your blood sugar levels stay higher for longer periods of time because the carbohydrates you eat (which turn into glucose in your body) are slowed down and don’t make it to your muscle cells. This is literally how you become resistant. Your muscles are the engines, and the carbs are the fuel. If carbs become backed up in your transport system, then you become less efficient at storing your food the way your body wants (as muscle). When that happens, your fuel system becomes backed up with carbs, your arteries become