Hans Ambachtsheer

72 – Hans Ambachtsheer

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[00:00:00] Tony Winyard: Habits & Health episode 72.

[00:00:15] Tony Winyard: Habits & Health my guest today. Hans Ambachtsheer or as Hans just told me, just say, Hans Armoto . Is that what many people call you instead?

[00:00:24] Hans Ambachtsheer: just my pen name. It makes it so much easier.

[00:00:28] Tony Winyard: And you are in South Africa?

[00:00:31] Hans Ambachtsheer: Yes. The Eastern Cape,

[00:00:33] Tony Winyard: Cool. Have you always been there?

[00:00:35] Hans Ambachtsheer: I was actually born in. The middle loss of Africa, more to the upper part. And then we moved down to the lower part, the Western Cape, and yeah, we just liked the coastal area. So we moved here to the Eastern Cape.

[00:00:47] Tony Winyard: And as far as I can remember, I think this is the first time I’ve had a guest from South Africa. I’ve had guests from many places around north America and Europe and Australia, but I don’t think I’ve had anyone from South Africa. So yeah, this might be the first,

[00:01:01] Hans Ambachtsheer: I’m happy to be the first.

[00:01:03] Tony Winyard: You are into sort of fitness and health and, but testosterone seems to be, especially something that’s quite important to you.

[00:01:11] Hans Ambachtsheer: I remember the first time I started reading about it and it was just something that resonated with me, maybe because I was young at the time. And it was just like, I’m a young man. I want high testosterone, all of these effects that testosterone can give you. I want more of that. And then I dove really into that.

And as my journey progressed, I dove more, into exercise because I was also a fan of exercising and also longevity became a really important aspect to me. Like I want to make sure that everything is longevity based as well. So how can incorporate high testosterone, lifting health and longevity all in one, but I’m just nicheing down.

And I feel like that’s my niche. I really enjoy being in that niche of testosterone and incorporating everything else into that.

[00:01:54] Tony Winyard: In this journey of discovering more about testosterone and all the things that are connected to it. And so on. Is there anything you would say that has been most surprising as you’ve learned more and more about testosterone?

[00:02:08] Hans Ambachtsheer: Surprising I don’t think so. Maybe initially when you start out you’re obsessed with testosterone. I wanna get more testosterone and then you research everything how to get more testosterone, but then you also end up realizing that low testosterone is oftentimes a symptom. So it’s not the primary cause, but it can be a secondary cause of something else. So oftentimes just fixing something else can then lead to higher levels of testosterone. So that’s always something to keep in mind. Don’t be too narrowly focused on optimizing one aspect. So don’t miss the forest for the trees.

[00:02:44] Tony Winyard: And typically what kind of people is it that you’re working with? Are you working with people also on a coaching basis?

[00:02:51] Hans Ambachtsheer: Yeah. So I start out coaching. I’m still doing coaching. I want to transition to doing only courses and products online because I feel like then you can reach a much more people and then. If you’re giving your time to work with someone you’re only able to help one person, which is great. I love changing lives, but you are only limited to that one coaching experience with someone.

So I, I want to transition out, but I have my website, so I’m helping people via that. And then my YouTube channel and all of those kind of stuff as well.

[00:03:19] Tony Winyard: Is there a particular type of person that you are working with or is it a wide range?

[00:03:24] Hans Ambachtsheer: I do, obviously, because I work with testosterone it’s men, only they tend to be between 25, 35, but I’ve worked all the way up with men into their seventies. So it’s not specific to age. So all men that’s interested. And I guess if a man feels like, okay, I have these symptoms of low testosterones okay, how can I fix that?

And then they come to me and it’s okay, this guy seems to know what he’s talking about. Let me do some coaching with him.

[00:03:45] Tony Winyard: You mentioned about someone might have low symptoms. So what kind of symptoms would they be?

[00:03:51] Hans Ambachtsheer: The most common symptoms is that you lose that enjoyment for life. So you do something rewarding. And it doesn’t feel rewarding anymore. So people that have low levels of testosterone tend to be more depressed than other people that have higher levels of testosterone. Then you also get the energy aspect.

So you don’t have as much energy. You’re feeling more old. So testosterone, declines with age in some men it declines faster than other. You struggle to both muscle. The accumulation of fat tissue is quite common. You start to suffer from insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome in general.

So when people go on T R T they lean down, they gain more muscle. Their lipid profile, improve everything improve. Also, they tend to have a brain fog. They’re probably not as confident and assertive as they could have been with higher levels of testosterone. They might start to gain more body hair. That’s actually something that people are not familiar with.

They always associate lots of hair with androgens, but that’s actually not the case because that’s more related to the adrenal steroids that tend to go up. When your testicular steroids go down. So low energy, you don’t wanna do things. You don’t wanna have fun. So you just mentioned to me that you’re still playing football.

That’s awesome. So people with lower levels of testosterone, they don’t necessarily want to put in the effort to do something that they enjoy because they don’t necessarily enjoy that anymore. So sleep starts to suffer. Just quality of life starts to decline.

[00:05:15] Tony Winyard: What are the dangers of too much testosterone?

[00:05:19] Hans Ambachtsheer: Whew. That’s more in the case of obviously if you’re increasing it with injection or going to the doctor use, are you specifically referring to a body builder?

[00:05:27] Tony Winyard: Is it possible to have too much testosterone naturally? Or is it only if it’s like some kind of injections or whatever?

[00:05:34] Hans Ambachtsheer: Only exogenous, then it can be a problem, but then you’re using such high doses that anything in super physiological amounts can cause problems. But testosterone is one of the safest things to abuse, so to speak, but because Testo shown can convert into other things like estrogen too much estrogen in men can be a problem.

And then issues in itself then stimulates the release of serotonin cortisone, prolactin, all of which could also have a negative effect in males, in excess. If you abuse testosterone with the injection. It’s pure. It’s very unlikely to cause problems. If you only stick to that, body builders tend to abuse steroids.

So it’s not just testosterone, it’s other synthetic steroids that can then start to mess with your lipids and your liver. Especially if it’s methylated and modify synthetic steroids. That’s kinda like the only problem with it. So if someone wants to go the TRT route, Obviously work with the doctor, check your levels, keep an eye on your Testone and DHD and estrogen.

See what’s happening there. If you need to modify anything, because some people let’s say they have too much inflammation, it can convert too much testosterone into estrogen, make their symptoms worse, not actually better.

[00:06:40] Tony Winyard: If someone does have low testosterone. Is it very difficult? I guess it obviously depends on the person, but how easy is it to raise their levels , to optimal?

[00:06:50] Hans Ambachtsheer: I would say it’s quite easy. I think most people in most people it’s very easy to do it because they are missing out on the low hanging fruit. So it’s really that you don’t have to go out of your way to do things, to increase your testosterone. So most people are probably not sleeping enough, so that’s the most low hanging fruit.

They’re probably not walking enough after a meal. I think most people can do something about their insulin sensitivity. So being a little bit more active, getting more sunlight, better portion control is very easy to low hanging fruit, optimize testosterone, and then the kinds of food that you eat. So typically when I work with men and then they start to get side effects, low energy, and they perhaps get negative effects from testosterone.

It’s okay, let’s see. What does your diet look like? I don’t really focus on my diet cause so how much red meat do you eat? Red meat about twice a week. Okay. So red meat is very high in zinc, saturated, fat, and other minerals. That is great for increasing your testosterone. So if you can just eat red meat, like beef, like a clean source of beef on a daily basis, you’re immediately gonna notice a beneficial effect, but it is a flip side.

So some people are underweight. Some people are overweight. Studies have shown that those people that are overweight when they start to lean down and lose fat, the testosterone goes up if you are already on a good, healthy body fat percentage, and you’re not eating enough, your testosterone might go on the low side because you’re not actually giving your body enough calories, enough energy to signal.

Hey, I should make testosterone. So there is this phenomenon in athletes where they tend to have lower levels of testosterone, but they don’t have hypogonadal symptoms. And there’s a few theories about this that might be more sensitive to the androgens, but the reason why they have lower levels of testosterone is because they are using all of their energy for exercise and recovering from exercise.

So there’s not that much energy to create testosterone. So if you actually look at the studies I’ve done is looking at like the indigenous African tribes that’s still eating as they always did. And then you have the Western people. They actually have higher levels of testosterone because they’re sedentary.

They have more energy for the production of testosterone, but obviously the African tribes, they tend to feel better in general because they have more, better insulin sensitivity, more nutrient consumption, lower stress lots of things like that. So I would say if you just go to the low hanging fruit, You can notice a significant difference.

So if you’re already eating good, you’re already active, but sleep is a problem. You can notice a massive difference just by modulating one lever like pulling one lever, like sleep, for example.

[00:09:22] Tony Winyard: What about, so you talked about red meat there. So do you ever have vegans come to you for help? And if so, how do you help?

[00:09:29] Hans Ambachtsheer: Very infrequently, but the way I try to help them is you don’t necessarily have to red meat to get that increase in. Testone like, it depends on how they want to compromise, so to speak. You can have oysters, you can have eggs, you can have dairy. So I think there’s, the lack of vegetarians of the pescatarian vegetarians, they are more keen to eating those kind of foods.

And I think once you have told someone convince someone about the ethical aspect of meat, they have no problem eating meat. If you can find a source where they really care for their animals, But someone wants to be vegetarian for the ethical reason. And someone wants to be vegetarian for the health benefits. So it’s much easier to convince someone to eat meat when it comes to health benefits, because they have been indoctrinated that meat is bad.

So all of those studies have already been debunked and there’s no a negative association when it comes to meat and health in general. So it’s okay, when I realize that, now I can start eating meat, but you don’t have to eat a lot of meat. You could eat oysters because you’re still getting those minerals like zinc copper, selenium, the B vitamins the healthy peptides as anti-inflammatory that helps to increase your insulin sensitivity.

Start with something small because you can eat like a can of oysters is small and get a host of those minerals. That’s gonna help to increase your testosterone levels.

[00:10:42] Tony Winyard: And what about, a family they’re trying to get pregnant and for whatever reason they’re having problems with pregnancy and is sometimes that can be down to, low testosterone can’t it?.

[00:10:54] Hans Ambachtsheer: Yeah, for sure. So again, there can be multiple reasons when it comes to fertility. Some of the, like the main reason for infertility could be Varial and that’s when one of the veins in the test that swells up blood begun to pool there’s more oxidative stress inflammation, and that is damaging the CTO cells, reducing your fertility.

So that’s an aspect have that. The other aspect could be, and there’s some speculation about this. You’re having your phone in your pocket all the time. The radiation is nuking your testes, and that can reduce sperm count. The other one is your underwear is too tight. You’re wearing a tidy whites. So your testes can’t cool down.

And that causes to the testers. Another aspect would be that just you are metabolically. Inflexible, you’re more insulin resistant. That is again, also creating inflammation, which is the damaging, the taste, the certainly cells and your sperm and everything. So if someone I would say the lowest hanging fruit is just to improve your insulin sensitivity.

If you can do that, fertility and testosterone and everything sleep. Your energy will go up significantly. And then once you have more energy, you can pull on other levers to improve your testosterone. Infertility. You can obviously mesh more down. It’s okay, this person has persistent infertility, what is wrong with them?

So it could be that they have heavy metals in their taste as that’s accumulating. That’s also quite a common cause it could be that they are hyper exposed to chemicals like xenoestrogens. So plastics and whatnot products that’re using on themselves. I actually had this one client that has really persistent infertility. So you have to dive through so many reasons why does this person have this unique condition? But I would say like the lowest hanging fruit would be improving insulin sensitivity and lowering inflammation.

[00:12:37] Tony Winyard: I was listening recently were talking about heat shock proteins and things like usage of sauna and so on. And apparently. Guys who are trying to start a family, who have saunas a lot that can lower the sperm count in some way.

[00:12:55] Hans Ambachtsheer: So heat exposure, like sauna isn’t necessarily negatively correlated with infertility, but if someone is already prone to infertility, then it might be best for them not to continually expose themselves to excessive amounts of heat. So even like warm baths for a prolonged period of time can be detrimental sauna that can heat it up too much.

A cold on the other aspect on the other hand is perhaps not as detrimental as heat, but too much cold can also be a problem. But generally when people expose themselves to cold is for a much shorter duration compared to heat. So yeah, I would say that if you want to improve your fertility and you’re doing sauna and access, like more than two to three times a week for more than 15 or 20 minutes, Perhaps cut back on that.

If it’s not really helping, maybe it’s moving you in the right direction. Maybe cut back even more like Azel, definitely worsens that. So if you have Kozel and you do too much sauna, that’s connect the synergistic combo for lowering fertility.

[00:13:49] Tony Winyard: It makes me wonder about the sauna studies because in somewhere like Finland and I lived in Finland for a while. And in Finland, everyone has saunas like all the time. It was unbelievable how often people were having saunas there. As far as I’m aware, their population rate is pretty high.

I mean, They don’t seem to be, having a lot less children in any other country.

[00:14:10] Hans Ambachtsheer: Yeah, I wouldn’t say that Sinai. That detrimental on its own. I’m not exactly sure how long they do it. And then how frequently let’s say they sauna every single day. Do you perhaps know how long they sauna at a time?

[00:14:22] Tony Winyard: When I was living in Finland, I was actually DJing in clubs. And what really surprised me was so the clubs opened really early at 6:00 PM and around about 8:30 PM the club got really quiet and it turns out the club had a sauna inside the club. And half of the people went to the sauna around about 8.30.

And then they came back around about nine and then the other half went to the sauna. So almost every night in the club, most of the people in the club who had just come for a night out, went for a sauna halfway through. It was bizarre. Never seen anything like it.

[00:14:58] Hans Ambachtsheer: That’s very interesting. I definitely think there needs to be more studies on it, but I think the overall beneficial effect of a sauna could negate the direct, detrimental effect of heat on the testers.

[00:15:11] Tony Winyard: For guys who are maybe, we’ve touched upon before about bodybuilders, weight, lifters, whatever. So they typically stereotypically people think that they need huge amounts of testosterone. Is that the case?

[00:15:25] Hans Ambachtsheer: From I have never used steroids or anything like that. So I don’t really follow the steroids advice online because they don’t really study it. Due to ethical reasons, but what I’ve heard experienced lifters and users say is that everyone that wants to start out should start low. If you go on TRT, it’s about a hundred to hundred and 50 milligrams per week, depending on the individual.

So if you want to build muscle, go on 200 milligrams per week and then go up, you don’t wanna start out with 400 or 600 milligrams, but rather 200 milligrams. And then you can build up from there. Now, the elite, the Olympians, they obviously are using massive amounts, like one gram or more.

I really don’t know on their dosages.

[00:16:36] Tony Winyard: This podcast is all about Habits as well as health. What Habits would you say have really helped you not only improving your testosterone, but general health as well.

[00:16:47] Hans Ambachtsheer: the biggest one for me, I would say is sunlight has been the most effective. So I’m originally from Holland or at least my dad is, and my mother was here from South Africa. So my mix, so I always thought to myself, like I prefer to be indoor. I prefer like the cloudy days and the colder days. And I don’t perhaps don’t need that much.

I use it as an excuse. And then I just decided, with so much overwhelming research, that sunlight is so beneficial for you in a variety of different ways. For example, in the summer, people tend to have higher levels of testosterone than in the winter. You get more sunlight exposure. Sunlight helps you increase dopamine, make you feel amazing.

Beta endorphins as well, promote blood flow. It’s associated with so many different kind of health benefits. So I was like, okay, you know what? I’m gonna just put my discomfort. To the side and I’m gonna get sunlight and I’m gonna start at spring. So I’m gonna build up. I’m not gonna dive right into sunlight in the summer and burn like a tomato.

So you have to be smart about this. You build up your sunlight callous, as they say. And that’s what I did. I just started tanning about 20 minutes per day, worked up to 30 minutes and I felt there’s no more benefit coming more than that. So generally if you use, if you go for about 30 minutes, you’re creating about 30,000 IU of vitamin on a daily.

Now, obviously, if you get sunlight’s very good at regulating the amount of vitamin D that you create. So you are very unlikely to create vitamin D overload. So I would say like 30 minutes is enough. And then I started, okay, I’m doing sunlight in the middle of the day or around the middle of the day. I can always do sunlight in the morning because that’s fantastic for regulating circadian rhythm, releasing dopamine, getting you started for the day, sunlight in the middle of the day, getting more vitamin D and then sunlight later in the day, that helps to wind you down.

So you finish working and everything. You’re shutting off. You watch the sunset. Set you up again for sleeping much better and just getting more sunlight, like my energy, my mood, everything, but the biggest difference that I’ve noticed. Okay. The two biggest differences I’ve noticed is my food sensitivities have significantly decreased.

So in the past I used to have dandruff and no matter what elimination diet I used. dandruff didn’t really go away. Some foods made it worse. Some foods made it better. But getting more sunlight has been phenomenal at just eliminating dandruff. I had it for almost 10 years, almost a decade, and nothing really helped getting sunlight fixed it because it’s not just the vitamin D but also the UV light on the skin.

There’s a skin microbiome, a connection positively modulates the immune system and everything calms down that reaction that creates problems in the body. So sunlight has been phenomenal. The other one was just to be a little bit more active. So again I’m pretty lazy. So when I help men to optimize their testosterone, I obviously try to go for the route of least resistance.

What’s the small things that we can tweak to help to increase your testosterone, because I’m like that, like if you’re busy or not, I don’t know if you’re lazy or not. I am. So I wanna do the smallest things that’s gonna have the biggest difference. So moving more has also been helpful a lot. So walking, doing something fun, I like to prioritize something that’s fun.

So that would be, for example, rollerblading with the dogs, or you are going walking or you’re going on the Pogo stick or you’re just driving out somewhere and then you go run on the rocks at the beach. That’s very nice for eye food coordination, the nervous. I really try to prioritize fun things, because then you are consistent with that.

But if you do something that’s boring and you find that it’s an exercise that I have to do, you’re much less likely to actually stick to that. So I always try to find like, why do people enjoy, let’s stick with that? And I would say that’s the biggest things. If I think of more Habits, I probably have been implementing them, but those were the ones that weren’t doing then implemented them. That had a really big difference on my health and testosterone.

[00:20:34] Tony Winyard: So does that mean that you try to get out in a sun morning, afternoon and in evening every day?

[00:20:41] Hans Ambachtsheer: Every day, I try to do that. So on cloudy days, I only go out in the morning target, get that about 10 minutes. To get the sunlight because those light beams are still coming to the clouds. So it still helps to regulate the circadian rhythm. So if I’m going out, I’m still gonna do some rock running or rollerblading.

I’m still out in the sun, but I’m not having a dedicated tan time. So depending on the weather in the summer, most of the time I have a tan period. Sometimes I don’t feel like I want to 10 because that might get boring. So I just go and walk and take your shirt off. That’s a great way to get sunlight. Yeah, so I guess it’s variable, but I would say 70% of the time I’m getting 45 to 60 minutes of sunlight on a daily basis.

[00:21:19] Tony Winyard: In the UK, we don’t have anywhere near that much sun as you guys do.

[00:21:23] Hans Ambachtsheer: Yeah.

[00:21:24] Tony Winyard: Would be more difficult for us to get

[00:21:25] Hans Ambachtsheer: yeah. When I work with UK clients, it’s almost let’s get more sunlight but we don’t have sunlight. I know, but you still have to go and walk and get out. That’s still gonna help you.

[00:21:34] Tony Winyard: Yeah. So you just mentioned about some UK clients. Can you think of a story where you’ve been working with a client and they’ve had some really unexpected benefits, wins from working with you, maybe, which they weren’t expecting. Is that, does anything come to mind?

[00:21:54] Hans Ambachtsheer: I would say that, yes, but also it’s difficult for people to notice benefits when they don’t pay attention to it. so maybe like a couple weeks, months later, it’s oh wow. This aspect of my life had actually improved so much and I wasn’t even thinking about it.

So this is in my case as well. If I use a supplement than I expect this, I don’t necessarily pay attention to this. And then later on you might realize you know what, my depression is gone. I have so much more energy than I thought I would have, like this walking, the sunlight. Has made me addicted.

And I think one of the things that happened, like when you go out, even if it’s not sunny, you start to feel better, but then you get used to it and then you stop because you feel like you’re not improving. And a few months later it’s oh, I feel so depressed. I have so low energy. And then I ask them, so how do you feel when you actually go and walk outside?

Even if it’s like cloudy like, always feel better. It’s there’s your answer? Get back in the habit that you were doing.

[00:22:47] Tony Winyard: And it that reemphasizes the importance of journaling, because if you are able and it’s not easy to do, and I struggle to do it, but if you can journal regularly, if you do make notes of how you feel today, what changes there have been in your mood or your health and so on, you’ve then got a better chance of some awareness around, a couple of months ago I was feeling good all the time and I was going for a walk every day then, but I guess most people don’t journal.

So then they’re not going to maybe have that awareness.

[00:23:22] Hans Ambachtsheer: I try to do the same with a diet log. So when I do radical changes to my diet, I try to write it down. And then, because you take photos and you feel a certain way, but as you mentioned, you don’t journal it. So you don’t have reference for why you looked that way or why you felt that way. So two of the biggest things that influence the way you look and feel is the lifestyle and the diet.

So for example, I was having a lot of collagen tissue. Like a few months ago you feel amazing, you feel more supple and more energetic, and then you feel like, you know what, maybe this isn’t doing anything. And then I just eliminated. And then a couple months later, it’s. I think I was feeling a lot better, but you didn’t journal.

So you actually didn’t know. So I am consciously paying attention to how I feel and what I’m eating. Now. You just imagine people that don’t do that. They don’t necessarily get a correlation between why they feel a certain way. Oh, I had some burritos and two days later I’m pretty depressed.

Oh, maybe the burritos is making my depression worse because it’s just irritating my stomach.

[00:24:22] Tony Winyard: So do you try to encourage your clients to, to use some kind of a journal?

[00:24:28] Hans Ambachtsheer: Actually not you gave me a good idea that I perhaps should do that

[00:24:33] Tony Winyard: It’s gonna help with their awareness. Isn’t it’s only, it can only help. So before we started recording, you were telling me about your putting together a book. How did this all come about? What was the reason why you thought writing a book would be a good idea?

[00:24:47] Hans Ambachtsheer: With my client. Yeah. So I would just say it’s not a massive book.

[00:24:50] Tony Winyard: right.

[00:24:50] Hans Ambachtsheer: I’m always doing content. I’m writing articles, I’m doing YouTube videos, but it feels like I’m only addressing one topic at a time. So it’s still scattered. So if you follow me for a while, you’re gonna get up to date with everything, but let’s say someone new comes to me.

He wants to know okay, what does a high testosterone lifestyle looks like? High DYS lifestyle. And. My featured video on my YouTube channel is exactly that it displays my life as what I do to maintain high levels of testosterone. So there is one reference okay. What can I reference back to that’s in a written form because sometimes, you wanna skip through a video.

You don’t wanna listen to 30 minutes again, this is this book that’s gonna give you all of the most important things that you could implement. That’s gonna lead to higher levels of Deion. How much fat should I eat again? Oh yeah, let’s go back to the book. It should be between this range. So you just give people like landmarks to aim for, and it depends on their education level.

But coming back to the question, asked me my typical client. They tend to be a little bit more informed. So very few tend to not know about calories or not know about that an egg has both protein and fat, for example. So they tend to be a little bit more educated. So when they come to me, it’s okay, I know if I want to modulate my fat, this is what I should do.

[00:26:02] Tony Winyard: The audience of this show, they, I would say on the whole, they tend to be older. Not we have quite a wide range of listeners, but I think the majority are probably 40 plus. Is there anything that men that age should be taking more, have more awareness of, maybe things they need to do? For things like their testosterone and general.

[00:26:28] Hans Ambachtsheer: I would say three things. The one is that you should become aware of what you eat and then you will start to realize that, okay, perhaps I’m eating too much junk food and perhaps I’m eating things that causes gut irritation. That’s stimulating the immune system in a negative way. So you don’t have to have celiac disease or XMR psoriasis, which is visible symptoms of a stimulation of the immune system, but you can actually be asymptomatic.

So certain foods like lectins and oxalates and gluten, they can still stimulate the immune system. So you have this small amount of inflammation. and that small amount of inflammation can detriment can be detrimental to the testes and lead slowly over time, lead to lower and lower levels of testosterone.

So be aware that, okay, what am I eating? Because people are so not aware of what they are eating. So just become aware of that is for example, if you wanna lose weight, Just start weighing yourself so that you have an idea where you are and then which direction you are going when you start to modulate your diet.

So become of what you eat, become aware, and then become aware of what specific foods are perhaps not making you feel very well. So I always recommend people that. If you really feel bad, perhaps go on a slight elimination diet to improve your baseline. So if this is a scale of one to 10, and one is feeling awful, 10 is feeling amazing and you are on a, on five, you are used to five.

Life is okay. I feel okay. I don’t really have to change anything because you’re used to that five. So now you change your baseline. You eliminate food that causes inflammation. You start to walk a little bit more, improve your insulin SENSIT. You go up on that scale. Now you start to feel like an eight.

It’s okay. I feel great, but maybe I crave a burrito. Okay. Eat a burrito. Okay. Now you’re back to five. It’s oh my gosh, is that what a five feels like? I feel terrible. So this is the burrito makes me feel like, imagine what other foods make me feel like. So from a elimination diet, It’s very easy to see.

Okay. I do good in this food. I don’t do good in this food because you’ve changed your baseline. You became aware of how I can feel when I actually feel good. So anyone can do this. This is very simple. It just required to be a little bit more what’s right for not consistent. It’s Disciplined to continue with this.

So you can actually see and feel beneficial results very quickly. So even in a week or two of such a diet three days, even you can start to notice a difference. So it’s not and I think this is the problem I try to talk to my audience about is that. When you go on a diet, a lot of people feel like this is for a lifetime.

And then when they feel there’s a slight hiccup, they just fall off the bandwagon completely because their expectations was wrong. So maybe set up expectations where you stick to this healthy diet for three days, then you have a cheat meal and then you stick on it for three days. So over time you’re gonna change your baseline.

And then when you eat foods that you don’t tolerate very well. It’s gonna make you feel bad and then you’re gonna associate pain with that food. And then even if you really like that food, you’d be more likely to say, you know what, I’m gonna skip on that food because I know how it makes me feel. So that’s just one aspect.

The other aspect is to incorporate more testosterone boosting food. So I have a course, the alpha energy male course where I have a testosterone food pyramid, and you have to eat the nutrient dense foods. That’s gonna provide the vitamins and minerals to help with the production of testosterone.

This is where people have been fear mongered to avoiding those foods. So that is animal based foods. It’s like eggs, milk, oysters, and bread meat. That’s kinda like the foundation of it all because they provide the most micronutrients in the most bioavailable form. And these foods also tend to be tolerated very well.

Depending on the individual, maybe they have a lactose intolerance. Maybe they have an egg white intolerance. So depending on the individual, so they get their micronutrients like zinc, selenium, and iron and copper, much more, better, and higher levels, higher amounts than plant foods and more zinc, more magnesium, more of these minerals leads to higher levels of testosterone.

So just add these beneficial foods, remove some of the inflammatory foods and. There you go. If I have to say something very simple, it’s have about a can of oysters three times a week. Maybe it’s not gonna have a massive difference, but it’s gonna have a difference because if you’re not removing the inflammatory foods, you’re not really changing that baseline because you can’t really feel great when they’re still inflammation, but adding in the right foods that’s high in zinc and selenium, they provide.

They boost the NA the body’s natural antioxidant defense enzymes, like cat superoxide gluon. So that can actually help to fight against inflammation. So that’s just the long term game. Add in something that’s low calories with lots of nutrients, like oysters. You don’t have to add in organ meat, although that’s also pretty good.

You have dairy that you tolerate well, and you eliminate maybe like gluten. So going on a healthy diet can actually be very delicious. You don’t have to vegetables. I always say like the vegetables on the top of the food pyramid is really irrelevant. If you want to eat vegetables, by all means, eat vegetables.

I have nothing against them, but if you have a sensitivity to gluten or lectins, it’s best to eliminate that from your diet for now. Maybe you can actually improve your immune system and later on tolerate them, who knows. So that’s the two things eliminate what’s bad incorporate. What’s good. And then when it comes to the lifestyle, Just do small things.

That’s gonna take you in the right direction. So maybe get sunlight first thing in the morning, that’s gonna help you sleep better. And once you sleep better, Your testosterone’s gonna go up and because you’re little bit more active, your insulin sensitivity is gonna improve. Your inflammation is gonna go down.

Testosterone’s gonna go up. And there’s also a positive correlation between the amounts of steps that you take on a daily basis. So people that walk 4k steps have slightly higher testosterone and the people that don’t walk. People that walk 8k steps have slightly higher than 4k 12 K. So this tends to be a dose dependent response.

The more you are active and it could be because you’re just improving your insulin sensitivity, lowering inflammation. But interestingly quick side note is that. It’s not only your taste test that can produce androgens, but actually your muscles as well and your brain and your skin. So when you come in contact with the sun actually stimulates steroid Regenesis in the skin.

And the same thing with the muscles. If you exercise your muscles, actually create androgens. So I think that’s something that people don’t know about. So sunlight, especially if you can exercise in the sun, that’s gonna be a double whammy to increase like skin, muscle and taste testes. The

[00:32:57] Tony Winyard: So if people want to find out more about you Hans, like your website, your social media, so on, where

[00:33:05] Hans Ambachtsheer: place where I tend to be most active is my website men-elite.com it’s just where I post these articles to help men become at a more elite level. And then I’m on my YouTube at HansAmato, where I post videos about every second day or related to testosterone, what you eat, what supplements, lifestyle, those kind stuff.

And then Instagram more or less just, every now and again, posting photos of videos of having fun, emphasizing, having fun, maybe eating this, maybe doing that. But I would say if someone is they want to come forward information, my website and YouTube is gonna be the place.

[00:33:41] Tony Winyard: A question I ask all of my guests is can you recall a book that has really moved you in any way?

[00:33:49] Hans Ambachtsheer: So I would say there’s a few books that move me in different ways. So one book that has moved me in a desirable way I would say is the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss, just because he really hit on that pain point of, independence and freedom. And the more, because that is so important for me to have that freedom, because once, if you feel captive, not in a jail captive, but we tend to be captive in our routine captive in our job captive why finances and everyth.

Once we are free, our stress hormones drop significantly, and that improves our testosterone to cortisol ratio, making us feel so much better. So that freedom aspect is exactly what I always want. That you, I don’t think anyone wants to work on a job they don’t like. So it’s about Shifting things in a way that is more suited to you so that you can live a better life.

So it’s not about working as little as possible. It’s working as in a way that is most convenient for you. That’s gonna have the best healthy effect for you? I would say another book that was also great for the cognition, I would say just is awareness. I would say the title describes it all awareness by Anthony De Mello

just becoming aware of yourself and other people, why you do what you do, why other peoples do what they do. And I would just say Tim Ferris has been a great guy in this all helping you to think of questions to ask yourself. He actually recommended the awareness. That’s why I read it in the first place.

And always ask yourself these questions of what do I really want in life and then why? Just go down? Why all the way until you actually get an because when we’re young, especially we tend to get lost in. I want this, but actually you don’t want this. So with the Ferris’s book, we think we want a million, but why do we want a million?

Why do we want to be a millionaire? Because you want freedom. Okay. So we actually want freedom and you can actually have freedom without being a millionaire. And most millionaires actually don’t have the freedom. So always ask yourself, why do I want it? What do I really want? And pursue that, even if it doesn’t make sense at the moment.

So don’t compromise your current wellbeing for something that you think you might want long term, but you don’t actually want, because it’s not the destination. That is something that we must aim for. It’s the journey there. Like now you’re retired. Oh, I think this, I thought this would be great. Honestly, I think this sucks because I should have focused on the journey getting there.

So I always made time for my family, having fun, playing football, doing this and that along the journey when you are young and are able to do it because now you’re old, you’re retired, you have the money, but now you’re too old to do any of those kind of stuff. So always ask yourself, what do I really want?

Why? And stick with that. That’s really important. And I would say the third book, just on personal development. There’s so many books on personal development that’s really helpful. But one that I like, because I guess, because I look up to the author is awaken the giant within, by Tony Robbins, just because he’s such a manly man.

I don’t wanna sound like I am admiring, but I am admiring. He’s very manly, man. And he’s just setting a good example of how to, I think if you can just find mentors like that and you can mimic them in a way, like you absorb their teachings. That’s gonna put you forward so much further in life.

So I would say that is the three books.

[00:37:13] Tony Winyard: And finally can you think of a quotation that resonates with you for any reason?

[00:37:19] Hans Ambachtsheer: I don’t, I’m not that strong on quotes, but I would say I just have this philosophy mainly on I don’t know if you’re familiar with Jocko Willink? Basically, what he’s saying is that this is definitely something to aspire to. Is this extreme responsibility. It’s you get in what you put out and you see so frequently people having a victim mentality about, oh, the world is so mean to me.

And I really strive not to be like that. I don’t wanna be the victim. Okay. So this happened to me. Why did it happen to me? How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again because that’s gonna make you a stronger person. So I always want to find an opportunity to grow, even if it really sucks in that moment. Grow because you’re gonna be a stronger and better person and you yourself can become a mentor in life, which ultimately is a pretty good goal.

[00:38:02] Tony Winyard: Hans it’s been an absolute pleasure. So thank you for sharing all your knowledge and experience, and I’m sure it’s gonna be very beneficial. So thank

[00:38:11] Hans Ambachtsheer: I thanks for having me on, I really enjoy this conversation so far.

[00:38:15] Tony Winyard: you. Thank you.

Next week is episode 73. with Rachel Beanland. And she’s a public health doctor, a coach, yoga and meditation teacher. So it’s quite an interesting combination. She supports women in medicine who are committed to personal development and looking to create a mindful and sustainable change and using evidence-based tools. And she guides them to find balance, and building a career.

So that’s next week. with Rachel Beanland. If you know anyone who would get some value from some of the information that Hans shared with us in this week’s episode. Please do share the episode with them and i hope you have a magnificent week.