How Helpful Is Testosterone In Weight Loss?
A lot of people today are health-conscious and wants to look a certain way. However, due to poor lifestyle and dietary choices, a big chunk of population today is, obese or overweight; especially in the western countries. To shed weight and achieve ideal body image, many people today look for different ways to reduce their weight. But did you know that testosterone can also help in weight loss.
According to a new research, testosterone can boost metabolism and help you shed extra weight. The goal of this article is to investigate if testosterone helps in losing weight; and of yes, how?
Physiopathology of weight gain:
Before we dig any deeper, you should know that metabolic issues like obesity, weight gain or weight reduction cannot happen overnight. There are many factors which may play a role in the weight reduction or weight gain; these are:
- Your daily calorie intake
- Meal spacing
- Genetic or hereditary factors
- Your physical and/or hormonal health
- Any disease or metabolic disorder that may impact weight etc.
In order to reduce weight, people usually adopt calorie restriction or modification along with adopting ways to burn the body fat by exercising, swimming or other dynamic activities. If you burn more calories than you consume than your body uses its reserve for proper functioning; thereby losing weight in the process.
So, without any doubt weight loss is only obtained if you burn more calories than you consume. In order to further refine this notion, Professor Mark Haub, performed an experiment in which he consumed big portions of junk food, Oreos, protein shakes etc. for two months but maintained a calorie deficit of 800 kcal/ day. The result were amazing as he lost almost 27 pounds along with decrease in body fat from 33.4% to 24.9%.
So, this experiment indicates that you will lose weight by burning more calories than you consume.
Testosterone impact on weight loss:
It is believed that testosterone levels trigger metabolism that results in weight loss. However, if you stick to the simple role of burning more calories and consume lesser calories the weight will reduce irrespective of the testosterone levels.
The ways through which testosterone reduce weight:
- The obesity and weight gain in human is subject to the amount of body fat especially adipose tissue and not the amount of body weight. The adipose tissue is loose connective tissue that store energy in the form of fat. Optimal testosterone levels help in reducing this fat rather than muscle mass.
- Testosterone boost metabolism and increase basal expenditure of energy
- It also inhibits the configuration of new fat cells.
Experiment and observation:
In order to determine testosterone impact on body weight, an experiment was conducted on normal healthy males with testosterone levels between 250 and 1200 ng/dl. As part of the study, the serum testosterone level of these individuals was decreased from 600 to 300 ng/dl by GnRH drug (gonadotropin releasing hormone) – a medicine that is used to suppress testosterone levels. The results showed that fat mass in these individuals increased by up to 36 percent. The research team concluded that:
- On low calorie diets, higher fat mass was proportional to gain of muscle mass
- On high calorie diets, gain of muscle mass was associated with lesser gain of fat mass
- Reducing extra pounds results in returning of testosterone to normal level with no treatment.
Conclusion:
There is minimal impact of testosterone if you are already burning more calories than what you are consuming. However, increasing basal levels of testosterone naturally can assist in losing weight faster by intensifying the mechanism of lipolysis and reducing configuration of new fat cells.