Read The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups Online
Authors: Harry Fisch,Karen Moline
Tags: #Self-Help, #Sexual Instruction, #Health & Fitness, #Sexuality
Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Consider, for example, Marion Bartoli, who won the ladies’ single title at the Wimbledon Championships in 2013. She is shorter and stockier than most other female tennis players, but she is fantastically fit and strong. In my opinion, if your weight is within a normal range, ideally it should remain fairly steady throughout life. (Of
course, your physician is the best source of information about appropriate weight for your height and body type.)
I know how hard it is to lose weight. I have men in my office every day who are distraught about their size. If losing weight was easy, no one would be fat. If your partner has a weight problem, my suggestion is that you find a nutritionist who can assess his situation and draw up a realistic eating plan that will fit his lifestyle.
Lose the weight slowly. Cut out the white foods—sugar, rice, potatoes, flour, bread, pasta, baked goods—as much as possible, and add the colorful foods like fruit and veggies and whole grains to your plate. Also, substantial weight loss is nearly impossible unless you add regular exercise to your daily routine.
And have lots more sex—not only does it burn calories, but it is a lot more satisfying than a slab of steak or a bowl of ice cream!
Dear Dr. Fisch: My Belly Fat Won’t Budge
Dear Dr. Fisch,
I’m 30, single, and would like to have a better dating and sex life. My problem is that I’m 5’7” and weigh 190 pounds, and most of those pounds are stuck in my belly. I want to lose at least twenty pounds and firm myself up. I try to exercise and I take vitamins, but nothing seems to be working. What am I doing wrong?
Signed, Not a Belly Dancer
Dear Not a Belly Dancer,
First of all, keep your expectations in check. No
one at age thirty should have a six-pack unless he’s a professional athlete or model. That’s for teenagers. If you’re thirty and you have a six-pack, you’re working out too much. And you’d rather be dating than doing crunches in the gym, right?
You may have a genetic predisposition for packing the pounds onto your abdominal area. Try working with a trainer for a few sessions to get tips on maximizing your workout to best suit your body. A combination of aerobic exercise and weight training will burn fat and add lean muscle that will raise your metabolism.
A good trainer will also show you exercises that can help firm up your core muscles, which will not only help flatten your belly, but also give you better posture and help prevent lower-back injuries. It’s hard to have vigorous sex when your back hurts, right?
Vitamins might be good for your health in general, but they don’t contain calories so they can’t provide any energy, and they can never help anyone lose weight. (The misperceptions about what vitamins can and cannot do are legion.) The only way to lose weight is with diet and exercise. Are you ready to hear my diet? Drumroll, please. No breads, no pizza, no pasta, no cookies, and no cake.
I know. Sounds horrible, boring, and not what life is all about, but the sugar and starches, or simple carbohydrates, are what’s getting to you. They cause your insulin, the hormone that regulates how your body
processes sugar, to spike. When this happens, you get hungrier, but any excess calories you’ll eat will be stored in your body as fat, particularly in the abdominal area. Ditto with any processed foods, as they’re chock-f of—you guessed it—sugars and starches.
Look at food as something to help you live a better life—as medicine, almost. Switch to regular (not instant) oatmeal with nuts and some fruit for breakfast. Eat a large salad with some lean meat for lunch, have a steak or roast chicken with lots of veggies for dinner. Just don’t eat the potato. That’s not so hard, is it? You can have meat and eggs. You can drink milk and eat unsweetened Greek yogurt, and you can eat limitless veggies and more fruit.
If you’re going to eat carbs, make them wholegrain only and try brown rice, quinoa, millet, and other unusual grains. They really taste good and they fill you up. Drink water. Lots of water. You are what you eat, of course. Your body will work better when you eat better—improving not just your heart health, but your sexual health, too.
Can you do that? I know you can. Eating crap is a habit. Just think about what you’ll look like without that belly. Good sexual health depends on good physical health. Women will flock to you. It’s worth it. The food is not.
Yes, a man can eat his way to sexy. High on the list are foods that promote the production of nitric oxide, a necessary gas released in minute amounts to help a penis become erect. Nitric oxide is made from an amino acid called arginine, and to maintain healthy sexual prowess, men should eat foods rich in it, such as:
Beans
Walnuts
Cold-water fish (such as tuna and salmon)
Soy products
Oats
Almonds
Another class of nutrients important for sexual health is bioflavonoids, which are plant compounds that act like antioxidants, those all-important components that scavenge the harmful by-products of the body’s metabolism and exposure to environmental pollutants like the sun’s radiation, smog, cigarette smoke, or pesticides. Think of them as your body’s built-in sanitation department. They increase blood flow to your entire body—and that means your sexual organs, too.
The best sources of bioflavonoids are fruits and vegetables, so everyone should be eating colorful foods every day. Add more color to your food and a lot more spice to your sex life.
Dear Dr. Fisch: I’ve Hit the Weight Wall—How Do I Break through It?
Dear Dr. Fisch,
I’m 38, 6’4” and I used to weigh more than 400 pounds. I was diagnosed with diabetes, which was finally my wake-up call, and I’ve managed to lose more than 100 pounds—I’m down to about 285. I exercise regularly but I’ve hit the wall. No matter how much I work out and what I eat, I can’t lose any more weight. It’s making me really depressed, and I’m afraid this is going to send me right back to my rotten, old eating habits. What can I do to get back on track?
Signed, Tired of Hitting the Wall
Dear Tired of Hitting the Wall,
Holy smokes! First of all, congratulations on losing those 115 pounds. That’s an outstanding accomplishment. What you should do now is see a doctor and get your testosterone checked. Your depression may be related, in part, to low testosterone. Same with your weight-loss plateau. There’s no biological reason you can’t lose more weight—but you won’t be able to do that if you’re feeling tired and depressed. If you do have low testosterone, a short-term course of testosterone therapy might kick-start you in a helpful way and give you back your confidence and optimism.
But regardless of your testosterone level, it’s important to eat the best food you possibly can and
stay away from junk food if that’s something you like to indulge in. Ban excess salt and ban sugar. Don’t eat anything that’s fried. Don’t walk into McDonald’s if you can help it, or if you do, eat a burger without the bun. Protein is much better for you now than crappy carbs like white bread, pasta, cookies, and other sweets.
And don’t think I’m crazy for suggesting this, but a good way for someone who’s been dieting for a while and hit the wall to get losing again is to try a vegan diet. This can give you a lot of great, new eating habits and shift the way you think about what you need to put on your plate. Vegan means plants only—fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, and vegetables.
Think of it as a new hobby and start off with one day a week vegan only, then work up to two or three (or more). Do it with your wife and kids, and you’ll be shocked at how good you’ll feel and how much weight you can lose. And remember—the key to eating lots of salads and veggies is to make a really scrumptious (not sugary or salty) dressing. Even kids who’d rather eat a worm than broccoli will scarf it down if the sauce is outstanding! If you do all these things, you’ll be shedding the pounds again in no time. Good luck!
Some women and men can eat and eat and eat and never seem to gain any weight. Most of us probably sigh and think, Wouldn’t that be a nice problem to have? But it’s not, especially not for your sex life.
Gaining much-needed pounds can be as tough for some as losing is for others, especially if they’re exercising regularly. But bear in mind that not every man is destined to be two hundred pounds of muscle.
Men who have problems gaining weight may need help from a competent nutritionist, but they should
not
take protein powder to gain muscle mass. Eating lean protein from plant or animal sources is better, because protein powder can cause stomach problems and weight
loss
, the opposite of the desired result. Ideally, you want to be at a normal weight for your height. This makes you less likely to be at risk for weight-related conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and strokes. And a healthy body is a body that is capable of having satisfying sex on a regular basis.
A man’s protein needs will vary with how much he works out. If he works out four to five times a week for an hour or longer, he’ll need 55 grams of protein per pound. For a 180-pound man, that translates to about 95 grams of protein per day.
Here’s how to gain weight by putting on muscle:
Eat more! But be sure you’re making healthy food choices.
Eat lean animal- or plant-based protein before and after a workout.
Stay hydrated by drinking lots of water.
Eat eggs for their concentrated protein.
Eat unsweetened yogurt, adding a bit of honey if you need to. Yogurt has an ideal combination of protein and carbs. Greek yogurt has twice the protein of regular yogurt, and is filling and satisfying.
Drink kefir. This is fermented liquid yogurt that’s loaded
with probiotics to help keep the good digestive bacteria in your gut flourishing.
Eat beef. It’s loaded with creatine, which helps muscle growth.
Eat salmon. This fish is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids, which decrease muscle-protein breakdown.
Use olive oil, which also decreases muscle breakdown.
Get enough sleep. All adults need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. LeBron James sleeps about twelve hours a night, and the average athlete sleeps nine to ten hours each night. I have a feeling that’s a lot more than you sleep! These athletes know that all of your tissues are replenished at night. Remember, a man’s body makes testosterone when he sleeps, so without enough rest, he won’t have enough testosterone to give him the energy for a proper workout—especially the kind of workout involving weight training, which demands stamina and power to build muscles. And, of course, the kind of workout he’ll want to be having in bed with his partner—namely, you!
Buried Penis Syndrome
When men put on weight, it usually goes to the belly first. I’ve seen patients who looked fairly normal-sized from the back, but when they turned around, holy cow, their guts practically had lives of their own.
A man whose belly is so large that it obscures his sexual organs has what’s called buried penis syndrome. This can make his penis look tiny even if it’s of normal
size. He might be heartened to know that as soon as he loses the weight, his penis will emerge unscathed and look much larger. That’s the best incentive to stop snacking on crap!
Everyone needs exercise. A human body is built to move. It is not meant to be sitting at a desk all day—or it will make its displeasure known, and sooner or later (mostly sooner), it’s gonna start to ache. It’s going to slow down. Muscles will lose their tone and get flabby; internal organs won’t function at maximum efficiency because blood flow can become sluggish. Your brain will not get the stimulation and endorphins it craves from regular movement; your energy will lag; and you’ll be too pooped to care much about sex.
After all, sex is an athletic event, right? If you or your partner is out of shape, you won’t have the stamina for a luscious, long evening of lovemaking. As much as I could inhale the cheesecake I love every day, I’d much rather have great sex than a lot of dessert.
The weight problem is different for men than for women. Men can eat more than women without gaining weight—around 400 calories more each day, basically for three reasons:
Testosterone. It revs people up, giving them more fatburning energy. Men have way more of it than you. Not fair, ladies, I know!
Relative muscle level. Men typically have greater muscle mass per pound than women. Muscle tissue naturally weighs
more than fat tissue, and the more a man has, the more he’ll raise his metabolism because muscle cells burn calories faster than other types of cells. This is one of the reasons why women need to do weight training—not only does it strengthen your muscles, but by adding muscle mass, you will also increase your metabolism.
His genes and your genes. Just as a man has no control over how tall he’s going to be, or how soon he’s going to lose all the hair he desperately wants to keep, he has no control over whether he can eat like a pig and stay slim, due to genetic factors making his stomach a furnace, or be like most of the rest of us who have to watch what we eat and work out all the time. Walk down any busy street, and you’ll certainly see as many overweight men as overweight women.
Let’s get back to testosterone levels. A man who is in good shape due to regular aerobic and weight-training exercise is a lot more likely to have a higher libido than a man who sits at his desk all day and doesn’t find the time to work out. A man’s body must have adequate testosterone levels to build muscle mass, so someone who is fit and muscled is likely to have normal or high levels of testosterone. (As you already know, low testosterone can make it difficult for a man to have or maintain his erections.) However, an adult man who struggles to gain weight or put on muscle despite regular workouts must get his testosterone checked, pronto.