Tale of the Tape IV (Greek Mythology, Modern Science?)
The usual: Total Cholesterol: 114, HDL: 42, LDL 58, Triglycerides: 68, Pulse 42BPM, BP 117/62.
In past "Tales of the Tape", I've manipulated my HDL, LDL, and Iron, Homocysteine.
Now, in my latest "doing weird experiments to my body" I investigate a Greek legend of Olympians eating raw oats religiously for strength and vitality and erm.. other man things.
Warning: Some TMI & abundance of vanity.
:
Timeline.
-2004 Started making raw oat & flax shakes for quick morning energy in order to fuel my 11.1 mile bike ride to work.
- Months later, embarrassingly persistent morning erections occur with great frequency, lasting 20 minutes or more during common morning activities (showering, dressing, brushing teeth, etc..)
- Quit job, go gallivanting around the world for 2 months. Forget about shakes. Weirdo morning wood subsides without much fanfare.
-FF--> 2006. New Job 5:30am Wake up time. Start making Raw Flax & Oat Shakes for Breakfast, Run out door.
- Weirdo Wood returns. Erections last almost 45 minutes, all the way to work. Have to hold breath and flex leg muscles to force erection to dissipate.
-Working at health food company, I read "Grains for Better Health." Book makes historical reference to Oats eaten religiously by Greek Olympians to give them strength /stamina/vitality.
- 2 months later, one of my colleagues is working on puncture vine extract, aka Tribulus. He says; "Everyone knows about phytoestrogens in soy, but there are also phyto-androgens, 'Steroidal saponins' in natural foods. Protodioscin in Tribulus is a "natural Viagra."
-Research Steroidal saponins & oats. Find they too have phytoandrogens called " Avena Coside A & Avena Coside B,(Steroidal component boxed in Red), which has a substructure similar to Testosterone
-Wonder why everyone around me isn't built like professional athletes given the wide spread use of oats in American food production.
-Find this article on Degradation of Avena Cosides under cooking conditions. Determine most of it is destroyed during processing.
-Begin experimentation that lasts about 1.5 years.
Experiment & Results:
3 months no oat products. Take baseline Testosterone Reading; Testosterone 380mg/L (Normal Range 200-800ng/L)
6 Months 60g Raw Oats + 28g Flax Seeds/day. Testosterone 620ng/L
6 months 60g Raw Oats + 28g Flax Seeds + 500mg Tribulus Terresteris to deliver 200mg Protodioscin Testosterone: 540ng/L
Discussion:
From the limited data, it does appear eating oats increases testosterone levels. I am very cautious about over interpreting the results and make no claims concerning exact mechanism, b/c
1). The endocrine systems is a very complex system and quite good at constructing negative feedback loops to maintain equilibrium. Simple "silver bullet" paradigms don't really work well with the body.
2). The test is just total testosterone and not free testosterone. The body produces proteins called "testosterone Binding proteins", which binds to blood testosterone and renders it unavailable to androgen receptors. However, morning wood is a good indicator that a healthy amount of Free testosterone is running around the blood.
3). In addition to all the phytoandrogens I eat, I eat a lot of phytoestrogens from flax, soy, beans, and other plants. It is unknown how all these interact. I only kept the Flax seed in experiment, because my original shakes were flax & oats. Flax seed contains large amounts of the phytoestrogen lignan, more phytoestrogens /g than soy.
Interestingly enough, the addition of Tribulus decreased the levels of testosterone. This seems to agree with a study done on Tribulus alone, in which the 500mg/day dose had the greatest increase in Testosterone levels, while 1000mg/day and 250mg/day had less significant increases. I suspect large amounts of steroidal saponins in the blood trigger an inhibition feedback loop.
Additional indicators of this come from other blood work parameters such as my cholesterol, iron and White Blood Cell count. While on the Tribulus + Oat regime, my cholesterol increased from 106 to 114, my iron increased from 68 to 130 and my white blood cell count dropped from 8.8 to 5, all known secondary side effects of anabolic steroid abuse. Similar mechanisms may be in play with too many phytoandrogens in blood.
All in all, it seems I have empirical data, anecdotal evidence, theory, and cultural legend all pointing the same way, which leads me to believe I'm onto something.
Then there is the obvious: FTMP, The exercise I do is kung fu (3x/week), yoga(1-2x/week) and bicycling(~50miles/week) and some basic body exercises, crunches, pull ups, push up, and dips, not more than 10min/day. I don't do any sort of weight training other than swinging swords and staves around.
The KF & bicycling I've been doing for years.Yoga is new. Still, my lean muscle mass has never been higher and my body has noticeably transformed. And shit, I'm turning 39 in a couple of months.
I invite others to repeat my experiment. My shake recipe is here. I'm not really sure if meat eaters will get the same results. vegan body morphology is completely different from omnivores.
Yep, I'm vegan(6years +5 years vegetarian). No meat, dairy, protein supplements, just me, whole foods, nature and exercise. I'm pretty satisfied with the results of my labours.
jv
In past "Tales of the Tape", I've manipulated my HDL, LDL, and Iron, Homocysteine.
Now, in my latest "doing weird experiments to my body" I investigate a Greek legend of Olympians eating raw oats religiously for strength and vitality and erm.. other man things.
Warning: Some TMI & abundance of vanity.
:
Timeline.
-2004 Started making raw oat & flax shakes for quick morning energy in order to fuel my 11.1 mile bike ride to work.
- Months later, embarrassingly persistent morning erections occur with great frequency, lasting 20 minutes or more during common morning activities (showering, dressing, brushing teeth, etc..)
- Quit job, go gallivanting around the world for 2 months. Forget about shakes. Weirdo morning wood subsides without much fanfare.
-FF--> 2006. New Job 5:30am Wake up time. Start making Raw Flax & Oat Shakes for Breakfast, Run out door.
- Weirdo Wood returns. Erections last almost 45 minutes, all the way to work. Have to hold breath and flex leg muscles to force erection to dissipate.
-Working at health food company, I read "Grains for Better Health." Book makes historical reference to Oats eaten religiously by Greek Olympians to give them strength /stamina/vitality.
- 2 months later, one of my colleagues is working on puncture vine extract, aka Tribulus. He says; "Everyone knows about phytoestrogens in soy, but there are also phyto-androgens, 'Steroidal saponins' in natural foods. Protodioscin in Tribulus is a "natural Viagra."
-Research Steroidal saponins & oats. Find they too have phytoandrogens called " Avena Coside A & Avena Coside B,(Steroidal component boxed in Red), which has a substructure similar to Testosterone
-Wonder why everyone around me isn't built like professional athletes given the wide spread use of oats in American food production.
-Find this article on Degradation of Avena Cosides under cooking conditions. Determine most of it is destroyed during processing.
-Begin experimentation that lasts about 1.5 years.
Experiment & Results:
3 months no oat products. Take baseline Testosterone Reading; Testosterone 380mg/L (Normal Range 200-800ng/L)
6 Months 60g Raw Oats + 28g Flax Seeds/day. Testosterone 620ng/L
6 months 60g Raw Oats + 28g Flax Seeds + 500mg Tribulus Terresteris to deliver 200mg Protodioscin Testosterone: 540ng/L
Discussion:
From the limited data, it does appear eating oats increases testosterone levels. I am very cautious about over interpreting the results and make no claims concerning exact mechanism, b/c
1). The endocrine systems is a very complex system and quite good at constructing negative feedback loops to maintain equilibrium. Simple "silver bullet" paradigms don't really work well with the body.
2). The test is just total testosterone and not free testosterone. The body produces proteins called "testosterone Binding proteins", which binds to blood testosterone and renders it unavailable to androgen receptors. However, morning wood is a good indicator that a healthy amount of Free testosterone is running around the blood.
3). In addition to all the phytoandrogens I eat, I eat a lot of phytoestrogens from flax, soy, beans, and other plants. It is unknown how all these interact. I only kept the Flax seed in experiment, because my original shakes were flax & oats. Flax seed contains large amounts of the phytoestrogen lignan, more phytoestrogens /g than soy.
Interestingly enough, the addition of Tribulus decreased the levels of testosterone. This seems to agree with a study done on Tribulus alone, in which the 500mg/day dose had the greatest increase in Testosterone levels, while 1000mg/day and 250mg/day had less significant increases. I suspect large amounts of steroidal saponins in the blood trigger an inhibition feedback loop.
Additional indicators of this come from other blood work parameters such as my cholesterol, iron and White Blood Cell count. While on the Tribulus + Oat regime, my cholesterol increased from 106 to 114, my iron increased from 68 to 130 and my white blood cell count dropped from 8.8 to 5, all known secondary side effects of anabolic steroid abuse. Similar mechanisms may be in play with too many phytoandrogens in blood.
All in all, it seems I have empirical data, anecdotal evidence, theory, and cultural legend all pointing the same way, which leads me to believe I'm onto something.
Then there is the obvious: FTMP, The exercise I do is kung fu (3x/week), yoga(1-2x/week) and bicycling(~50miles/week) and some basic body exercises, crunches, pull ups, push up, and dips, not more than 10min/day. I don't do any sort of weight training other than swinging swords and staves around.
The KF & bicycling I've been doing for years.Yoga is new. Still, my lean muscle mass has never been higher and my body has noticeably transformed. And shit, I'm turning 39 in a couple of months.
I invite others to repeat my experiment. My shake recipe is here. I'm not really sure if meat eaters will get the same results. vegan body morphology is completely different from omnivores.
Yep, I'm vegan(6years +5 years vegetarian). No meat, dairy, protein supplements, just me, whole foods, nature and exercise. I'm pretty satisfied with the results of my labours.
jv