Naked Lunch Anyone?

I just caught today's Globe article entitled "Naked Lunch," after a friend called to alert me to the piece. I find it curious, our fascination and repulsion around nudity. I think it's dangerous and, much like our conditioned preference towards packaged meat products, we'll soon find ourselves totally removed from a physical connection with our humanity. So fickle is our trained aesthetic that we can only tolerate to look at naked babies and 'perfect' youths. Not only are we the only species who drinks another species milk; we are also the only species who holds shame about our physical appearance.

To paraphrase Dan Savage from a column a while ago, (in which a reader complained about the mess and smell of anal sex), "sex smells." Add to that people smell and our bodies are hysterical works of physical art in which their beauty truly lies in the eyes of the beholder. And speaking of our eyes - they are so enslaved to our egos that they merely observe and report rather than distinguish what they see. It is our egos which place us above, below or against another person - it is our egos which see another body as attractive, repulsive, out of context, offensive, or alluring. It is our egos which project their jumbled, fragmented stories outward and make us see another naked individual as a moral confrontation.

If you want to understand the human body, yours, for what it truly is - spend some time naked in front of others of your gender. Nakedness is the great evener - in nakedness we are truly equal - which is why we come into this world naked and some of us exit our world naked.

Testing Testing Testing

Recently, I've become aware that there's a disease spreading through the male population. A disease which if not treated could lead me to be lethargic, ambivalent to sex, or even worse erectionally challenged. I'm told this disease could also soften my muscle tone and make me edgy.

It's called Low T, or Low Testosterone, sometimes it's called Andropause or Hypogonadism. I'm also told that four to five million men in the U.S., and four to five hundred thousand men in Canada are affected by this disease. According to the research, when men approach their mid-thirties they begin to lose about 10% of their total testosterone for every decade they age.

My GuyTalk in-house urology expert Sid Radomski, came on the show last Sunday and enlightened me on what he sees in his practise and certainly from his perspective the numbers above may be slightly exaggerated. The week before on GuyTalk, I asked Cherilee Garofano, a talented and respected, nutritionist and personal trainer to talk about some natural ways to boost testosterone. The result of that conversation is that I'm involved in a 12 week program of exercise and nutrition to see if I can boost my "T," levels.

It all begins with a blood test to see what my total testosterone and my bioavail testosterone are - I'll post the results of that test here and post updates of my challenge here as well.

There are men who genuinely suffer from "Low T," and for them the medical treatments available offer them a chance at a more normal, virile life. For the vast majority of men however who believe they may have the symptoms of Low Testosterone , the answer may lie in getting more engaged in life. As Sid Radomski espouses, "some people make a career out of a disease."

Here's the 12 week program as Cherilee presented it to me:

Higher T program is as follows:

1. Get blood work done to test T levels as well as blood pressure, total cholesterol and triglyceride levels to establish a base line.

2. Get 7-8 hours of quality sleep a night focusing on REM sleep. Keep a journal at your bedside to track dreams upon waking and keep track of frequency of dreams.

3. Resistance train at least 2 days a week and do 2 days of intense cardiovascular training such as running in the 65-85% of maximum heart heart (determined by formula 220 - age x %)

4. Eat foods high in zinc 1-2 times a day such as whole eggs, fish, legumes (lentils, peas, beans), oysters, nuts ad seeds especially pumpkin and sunflower seeds.

5. Consume only naturally raised, organic meats and dairy (hormone and antibiotic free)

6. Take the following supplements - zinc 50mg day, panax ginseng, fish oil (Nutra Sea liquid 2000 mg/day)