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Would losing the weight increase your testosterone? If you were obese

scns 5y ago
Working out would raise your testosterone levels. Losing weight would happen in the kitchen though. Weight is a bad metric though, since muscles is heavier than fat.
- bayesian_horse 5y ago
  1 kg of muscles is not heavier than 1 kg of fat. By the way, professional body builders who go to the gym a couple times per week, increase their diet, optimize their diet, etc. are happy to gain 2,5kg of muscle a year. So no, muscle gain has nothing to do with weight gain/loss. Successful diets are a lot faster, and most exercise based programs fail in studies.
  - lottin 5y ago
    An untrained individual who starts training with weights will gain much more than 2.5kg of muscle per year. As the individual accumulates muscle mass the rate of muscle gain will decrease gradually.
    - bayesian_horse 5y ago
      Any concrete numbers or sources? I pretty much doubt that it is much more. Or even any more at all. No matter if you are trained or untrained, the number of muscle cells doesn't change. Only the amount of muscle fibers inside the cells changes.
      - lottin 5y ago
        Check this out: "The rate of strength increase differs considerably between untrained and trained individuals (148), as trained individuals have shown much slower rates of improvement (83,107,111,221). A review of the literature reveals that muscular strength increases approximately 40% in “untrained,” 20% in “moderately trained,” 16% in “trained,” 10% in “advanced,” and 2% in “elite” over periods ranging from 4 wk to 2 yr. [...] The difficulty in continuing gains in strength appears to occur even after several months of training. It is well documented that changes in muscular strength are most prevalent early in training (92,185). (Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002;34(2):364-380.)
        bayesian_horse 5y ago
        That only talks about strength, not muscle mass. Also there is a difference in what kinds of muscle fibers are added, and which are removed or replaced by others. Some are better for endurance, others more for peak strength. My main point is that it is impossible to gain muscle mass faster than you can loose body fat with a proper diet. A proper weight loss in my opinion starts at one kg a week. Extremely obese people should, with medical consultation, aim much higher, though. There is no way you can gain 52kg of muscle mass in a year. Also for shorter periods it doesn't add up.
  - Smithalicious 5y ago
    I don't think this is a fair comparison. Body builders are at the very limit of how much muscle they can gain, someone who's out of shape can gain muscle a lot faster. That's not to say that you're going to gain muscle as fast as you lose fat, but the 2.5kg number is misleading.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    >> professional body builders who go to the gym a couple times per week I've never heard of a professional body builder, or any other athlete, who only went to the gym a couple times every week. The handful of semi-pro body builders I have known are more likely to be at the gym a couple times per day.
    - xdfgh1112 5y ago
      And juicing most likely, so the 2.5kg figure doesn't really apply
hack-news 5y ago
Absolutely, changing your body composition definitely will. With consistency and the right approach you really can feel a sort of compounding effect on your body's hormonal output. It's important to have some intuition around nutrition, human physiology, and the necessity of rest also. The more muscle mass you have the easier it is to get lean quickly because your body just has more capacity to expend energy. Do not listen to the lies on this website that movement and exercise are not an important part of the equation, but keep in mind that getting injured will derail you the most and should be avoided at all cost. Nutrition is easy if you consume a variety of natural foods (nothing out of a package or can) and get enough protein, which is possible also for vegetarians and vegans and I'd suggest it. If you are fairly obese I would suggest by starting with regular short walks, as many as you can manage in a day, while eating as much as you need, as long as the ratio of calories from protein compared to those from carbs and fat is reasonable.
oaktrout 5y ago
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned here is that adipose tissue (fat) contains aromatase, an enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen. Thus it seems likely that weight loss would increase testosterone levels, or at the least lower estrogen levels which counteract much of the effects of testosterone.

scns 5y ago

Working out would raise your testosterone levels. Losing weight would happen in the kitchen though. Weight is a bad metric though, since muscles is heavier than fat.

bayesian_horse 5y ago
1 kg of muscles is not heavier than 1 kg of fat. By the way, professional body builders who go to the gym a couple times per week, increase their diet, optimize their diet, etc. are happy to gain 2,5kg of muscle a year. So no, muscle gain has nothing to do with weight gain/loss. Successful diets are a lot faster, and most exercise based programs fail in studies.
- lottin 5y ago
  An untrained individual who starts training with weights will gain much more than 2.5kg of muscle per year. As the individual accumulates muscle mass the rate of muscle gain will decrease gradually.
  - bayesian_horse 5y ago
    Any concrete numbers or sources? I pretty much doubt that it is much more. Or even any more at all. No matter if you are trained or untrained, the number of muscle cells doesn't change. Only the amount of muscle fibers inside the cells changes.
    - lottin 5y ago
      Check this out: "The rate of strength increase differs considerably between untrained and trained individuals (148), as trained individuals have shown much slower rates of improvement (83,107,111,221). A review of the literature reveals that muscular strength increases approximately 40% in “untrained,” 20% in “moderately trained,” 16% in “trained,” 10% in “advanced,” and 2% in “elite” over periods ranging from 4 wk to 2 yr. [...] The difficulty in continuing gains in strength appears to occur even after several months of training. It is well documented that changes in muscular strength are most prevalent early in training (92,185). (Progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2002;34(2):364-380.)
      - bayesian_horse 5y ago
        That only talks about strength, not muscle mass. Also there is a difference in what kinds of muscle fibers are added, and which are removed or replaced by others. Some are better for endurance, others more for peak strength. My main point is that it is impossible to gain muscle mass faster than you can loose body fat with a proper diet. A proper weight loss in my opinion starts at one kg a week. Extremely obese people should, with medical consultation, aim much higher, though. There is no way you can gain 52kg of muscle mass in a year. Also for shorter periods it doesn't add up.
- Smithalicious 5y ago
  I don't think this is a fair comparison. Body builders are at the very limit of how much muscle they can gain, someone who's out of shape can gain muscle a lot faster. That's not to say that you're going to gain muscle as fast as you lose fat, but the 2.5kg number is misleading.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  >> professional body builders who go to the gym a couple times per week I've never heard of a professional body builder, or any other athlete, who only went to the gym a couple times every week. The handful of semi-pro body builders I have known are more likely to be at the gym a couple times per day.
  - xdfgh1112 5y ago
    And juicing most likely, so the 2.5kg figure doesn't really apply

hack-news 5y ago

Absolutely, changing your body composition definitely will. With consistency and the right approach you really can feel a sort of compounding effect on your body's hormonal output. It's important to have some intuition around nutrition, human physiology, and the necessity of rest also. The more muscle mass you have the easier it is to get lean quickly because your body just has more capacity to expend energy. Do not listen to the lies on this website that movement and exercise are not an important part of the equation, but keep in mind that getting injured will derail you the most and should be avoided at all cost. Nutrition is easy if you consume a variety of natural foods (nothing out of a package or can) and get enough protein, which is possible also for vegetarians and vegans and I'd suggest it. If you are fairly obese I would suggest by starting with regular short walks, as many as you can manage in a day, while eating as much as you need, as long as the ratio of calories from protein compared to those from carbs and fat is reasonable.

oaktrout 5y ago

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned here is that adipose tissue (fat) contains aromatase, an enzyme that converts testosterone to estrogen. Thus it seems likely that weight loss would increase testosterone levels, or at the least lower estrogen levels which counteract much of the effects of testosterone.