If you can increase your testosterone, you can increase your energy and speed up physical recovery. In a sense, you become superhuman. That’s what I read on the internet. When Dr. Andrew Huberman, the world’s number one health podcaster, talked about these two testosterone supplements, I had to give them a try.
Why? Because I tend to feel tired all the time, I’m not motivated, and I really feel like I need to get things done so I can get this YouTube channel growing. We need to hit 50 to 100K, or else my parents will never be proud of me. So I want to see if taking these supplements will, one, increase my testosterone in my blood work and, two, help me achieve the goals that I want to achieve. I’m really hoping this will do it.
Day One: I wanted to make sure that I got my blood work done and a DEXA scan to measure my body composition before and after. They came over to my house, drew my blood, and gave me these numbers. The most important to me was my testosterone, which was 601 nanograms per deciliter. My free testosterone was nine nanograms per deciliter, and my SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin) was at 33. The next step was to get a DEXA scan.
My lean mass was 159 pounds, and my Z-score, which could be associated with how I lie in terms of bone density compared to other people my age, was at 0.8, which I think is good.
Now, if you’ve been watching this channel, you know that I have a fitness challenge against my roommate Tejas. We’re doing a 90-day competition to see who can gain the most muscle, and I wanted to incorporate this challenge within the first 30 days. For the next 30 days, I’m going to take Tongkat Ali and Fadogia Agrestis.
I should probably know how to pronounce these names, but I’m going to take these two supplements, do another blood test in 30 days, and see how my testosterone has changed so that I can win this fitness challenge against Tejas.
[Tejas] “You’re cheating, bro. You want to take some of this stuff?” [Me] “Yeah, just give me the pills and I’ll take them.” [Tejas] “You’ll just take whatever pills I give you?” [Me] “Yeah. They seem like they do stuff.” [Tejas] “Really, you should probably educate yourself.”
I took the recommended dosage for each one by Dr. Andrew Huberman, and he highly recommends doing one test at a time, but I just did both together: 400 milligrams of Tongkat Ali and 600 milligrams of Fadogia Agrestis.
I do not recommend that you try this, but if you plan to, there are links for Momentous supplements down below.
[Tejas] “You really want to take some. What does it do? It’s supposed to increase your testosterone.” [Me] “Actually, whoo whoo whoo, and you need one of these. This is going to grow your (dolphin clicking). Actually, I do need to measure my (dolphin clicking). So can someone help with that? Does anyone have a measuring tape I can borrow?” [Tejas] “Sure.”
Supposedly, Fadogia Agrestis can lead to an increase in size of your grapes but not your banana. But now you might be asking, what are these supplements? They’re both kind of like herbal supplements. Obviously, any supplement is not really well regulated by the FDA, so you need to be careful where you’re getting it from. But if it’s an herb, it must be safe, right?
I don’t know. Don’t listen to people on the internet. This is the how-to guide. That’s pretty wild! How big do you think they are?
If my squirrel circumference changes throughout 30 days of this supplementation, it’s going to impact my breathing quality. This video is a little out there, but science.
All right. So this is day four or five, I think, of taking the testosterone supplements. Three pills in the morning. Some of the side effects are irritability, insomnia, and trouble falling asleep. Last night I definitely had like an hour where I couldn’t sleep, so maybe this is a side effect of these, and that happened the night before.
Well, we’ve got to do this for 30 days. So, let’s see if it’s because of other reasons or because of these pills.
Now it’s been seven days, and I honestly was not feeling a difference. I really wanted to understand my blood work. Yes, I see these numbers and I know there are certain ranges, and I want to increase X, Y, Z.
But how do I talk to someone who’s knowledgeable? Pete is a fellow YouTuber, and he has a ton of experience in the strength and bodybuilding space. He was super kind to help out. Check out his channel below.
[Me] “What’s a typical range that you’ve seen in terms of testosterone levels?” [Pete] “Well, I would say around 600 or higher is what I would consider optimal. Upwards of 900. I’ve even seen with natural guys, but I’ve never really seen anyone over that 950 mark naturally. That’s where you’d start to get some eyebrows raised. Some people have a really high baseline level and others not so much. And the ones who aren’t quite that high, I’ve seen them bump up about 150 points through natural testosterone boosters like Fadogia Agrestis, Tongkat Ali.”
[Me] “I guess one question is, what are the risks involved in doing a supplement like Tongkat Ali and Fadogia Agrestis?” [Pete] “These are herbal remedies. It’s not anything too out there, but they are relatively new. Like a year or two ago, I’d say two years ago, nobody was talking about either of these. Nobody really knew about them. They’re very new.”
[Me] “This is not the only night I’ve struggled with insomnia, and I wonder if it is the testosterone supplements or not, because that was one of the side effects. Or maybe this is all just in my head, because when someone says these are the side effects, then you start to notice them a lot more.”
So it wasn’t until about two weeks in that I started to feel some sort of change. Not sure if it was placebo, but I kind of had this baseline, like a slight, it wasn’t like coffee where you take coffee, you feel energized, you’re ready to go, you’re ready to take on the day until you crash. But it was like this subtle elevation in terms of my ability to focus, this subtle elevation in terms of my strength. I don’t know, maybe it’s placebo, but I just felt like this little lift, just a tiny, tiny bit. But to be honest with you, that was not enough. I was tired of taking these pills every day.
I’ve got to take two pills of this, one pill of that. Honestly, if I’m not seeing the blood work show an extreme change, I’m not going to keep doing it. So I said, let’s take a little blood test halfway in, and we did. It was March 10th, and my testosterone levels had gone up almost 150 nanograms per deciliter. I was shocked because I had never seen a number that high in my testosterone ever.
And yes, all I really had to do was swallow three pills, but I was like, “Okay, we’re seeing a difference. How far is this going to go?” Thank you, InsideTracker, for providing the blood test. They’ll be linked below with a discount if you want to use them. It’ll help support the channel.
Libido update: Libido hasn’t changed much, honestly, which is interesting because I think some people argue that it could increase. It’s the same, more or less. There’s an overall level of increase in motivation and drive. I just feel like I want to work harder. I feel able to focus longer. There’s something about this that’s making me feel different. I feel stronger. Like, I don’t know, my sets in the gym, I was pushing farther than I ever was. I was gaining strength very fast. Even my trainer was like, “Whoa, what’s going on? Maybe that was all placebo, but it was just fascinating to see such a drastic change. Like it honestly felt ungodly. I know I have genetics that allow me to gain strength relatively fast, but this was out of this world. And no, this is not steroids. I don’t think this is pushing into that territory, but I felt like I was able to consistently keep pushing my weights higher and higher.
Day 25: One of the most drastic things that I noticed was this elevation in mood, elevation in energy, and my ability to jump into a focused state. I’ve always struggled with sitting down and staying at my desk and getting things done. I always have this urge to just get up and move. And for some reason, in this third and fourth week, I was really able to just stay seated and get stuff done. And I don’t know, maybe it was placebo, but I was like, “This is having some kind of effect on my life.”
Day 28: We’re almost there at the results. I was so looking forward to seeing my muscle mass changes in the DEXA scan. I was really looking forward to my blood test results. And then I realized that Fadogia Agrestis hasn’t been tested in humans and that there’s a potential that it could cause testicular toxicity. And considering that I had been measuring my scrotal circumference over the past four weeks and it was growing, like I think I grew by one or two centimeters. So the grapes had changed size, but the bananas stayed the same. Science, bro. Also, if anyone knows about size change, I don’t think I was measuring it properly, but if the size does change, is that good or bad? I have no idea. As I was reading about testicular toxicity, I realized there was other blood work that I probably should have done to make sure I was not reaching into these bounds. So that’s when I went online, found this really sketchy website, and ordered some sketchy blood work. Like I heard one thing about, if you take Fadogia, you want to get your LH levels, because if it’s already high and you take it, you could get into a toxic range. Is that true?”
[Pete] “It’s possible. I mean, most people, I’d say 90% of people, aren’t going to have to worry about that. But I think it would be good before you start these just to get a baseline level to see how much they actually help too.”
[Me] “Everything I’m really seeing with your blood work is right in that range of where you’d want it to be across the board. There’s nothing that so far is glaring or a problem, which is going to be the case for most people who are drug-free and have never used anything. You should be pretty solid all throughout.”
This is the final 30 days. I just got my blood drawn, literally like four vials. I had to do it at home with InsideTracker, and then I had to go to Quest Diagnostics to get my other hormones since InsideTracker doesn’t do all of them. But thank you, InsideTracker. Use my link below; it helps support the channel. So I’m going to take my last two pills in this bottle. That’s it. Last two pills of Tongkat Ali, and we’re going to find out the testosterone results in just a couple of days.
All right, I just got my updated 30-day testosterone results, and I have to look at them right now. I cannot wait. It just feels absolutely unreal. You can see there’s a flat line because that’s normal. That’s kind of what I’m at. And then bam, 30 days later, it skyrockets. My testosterone was 838 nanograms per deciliter. That is a 39.5% increase from the first day. Free testosterone was 12 nanograms per deciliter, a 33% increase. SHBG was 35, so a 6% increase. Ideally, we wanted to see this go down, but it went up. My DEXA scan lean mass was 164.5 pounds, a five-pound increase in lean mass. Z-score was 1.1, so my bone density increased, which is insane in 30 days.
I think from an overall anecdotal experience, I felt more energized, I felt a little bit stronger at the gym, and I felt more motivated to take on the day. Now, are you going to feel the same results? Probably not. Just live vicariously through this video. But one thing Huberman does recommend is cycling on and off, especially with Fadogia Agrestis. So maybe I’ll do like a month or two on and then take a couple of weeks off and switch. It is high effort, it is costly. As long as I do feel enough of a value, I might continue this. So for the most part, I did this experiment, and it’s crazy to see the drastic change in my blood work. But since then, I kind of took two weeks off. I haven’t really taken any more supplements. I don’t know if I really want to mess with my hormones like this, but this was truly a fascinating experiment.
Since you enjoyed this video, go watch my video where I tried Huberman’s fat loss protocol linked right here. And turn on any notifications if you want to see that fitness challenge video against me and Tejas.
