ANYBODY FIND THEIR LABIDO RISE/INCREASE WITH WEIGHT LOSS?

Hi, has anybody found their drive return or increase with their weight coming off? Thanks! Des

Actually, I thought it was estrogen that was stored in the fat and released during the breakdown of the fat during weight loss (in both sexes), but I  think DXer or the Foobster explained how that also causes the testosterone levels to increase somehow as a side-effect.  As to the first two factors, I would think that may increase acting or the cpportunities for acting on an increase in libido, but would not have any effect on the actual physiological increase in libido level (but then I defer to our medicos on here) 

The bit about "hormones are stored in fat and that's why you're more hysterical than normal" is a (literal) Old Wives' Tale straight from Tuna-Town, and it has no scientific "meaning"; serum levels of sex hormones might be affected by obesity, but they're not "stored in fat" and then "released" to any significant extent when you start losing weight.  (And I don't think that's a reasonable explanation as to why so many of OH's female participants are more hysterical than normal!) First, keep in mind that both sexes have varying amounts of "male" and "female" sex hormones circulating; it's just that in men, androgens predominate, whereas with women, estrogens predominate.  And predominate by a lot, generally speaking.  But that doesn't mean the hormones of the opposite sex aren't important! In men, androgens are primarily formed in the testes; most of the estrogen found in men is derived from those androgens, in a process called "aromatization" from the actions of an enzyme called (naturally) aromatase.  Testosterone is aromatized to estradiol, the primary human female estrogen.  Androstenedione, a metabolite of testosterone, is aromatized to estrone, another estrogen. Aromatase is found in a lot of specialized tissues, where the conversion of androgens to estrogens serves important physiological functions.  For example, too much testosterone causes the hypothalamus to stop producing the hormones to stimulate the testes to produce additional testosterone; this is a prototypical negative-feedback loop.  Bizarrely, this is believed to occur as a result of the small amounts of estrogen produced from the original testosterone; estrogen is the "off switch", as it were.   Also, the growth spurt at puberty is ended by the closure of the epiphysial plates of the long bones due to the effects of estrogen; there is a lot of aromatase in bone, and in boys, their raging teenage testosterone levels ultimately trigger yet another estrogen-derived "off switch" to stop getting taller! These effects of testosterone-derived estrogens also explain why many anabolic steroids cause "***** tits" (gynecomastia) and are said to "shrink your balls" after chronic super-physiological doses. OK, why care about this? Obese men, especially super-morbidly-obese-men, tend to have lower testosterone levels and higher estrogen levels than men with normal BMIs.  That's because adipose tissue (fat) is yet another specialized organ that comes packed with aromatase; I have no idea why.  When you're SMO, you're also SOL, because that means that more androgens are converted to estrogens.  This not also has direct effects on libido and fat distribution (big hips, bigger moobs), but also tends to kick the estrogen-linked "off switch" in the hypothalamus which ultimately reduces the stimulus to the testes to produce testosterone in the first place, leading to further negative effects on libido. Weight loss (fat loss) tends to uncouple this feedback loop and move it back towards the normal: less estrogen, more androgen, higher libido. /Steve

  wow .. that makes sense  (I think)  ..  thanks Steve ..  !   btw, and the answer may be in there somewhere in your response, but something I've always wondereed about:  if testosterone is what makes everything errrr bigger  at puberty, than why would additional dosages of it (i.e. by injection or pills) not cause them to grow even bigger?  Seems that would be a true method of "enlargement", if that were the case.   Or is it that testosterone is only genetically programmed to make things grow to a certain size and then stop?    

> if testosterone is what makes everything errrr bigger  at puberty, > than why would additional dosages of it (i.e. by injection or pills) > not cause them to grow even bigger? Well, first the "uninteresting" answer about "bigger": somewhere in my previous post is the observation that too much testosterone too early and too long will make someone SHORTER height-wise, that is, than without it.  Actually, since that's ultimately controlled by estrogens, this holds true for ether sex: both androgens or estrogens will cause premature closure of the epiphyseal plates (or growth plates.)  "Precocious puberty" can occur in very, very young children, and is a medical emergency not only for obvious reasons, but because not treating this ASAP can lead to permanent short stature. As far as testosterone making secondary sex characteristics "bigger", I suspect that this is a "permissive" effect, but testosterone can't stimulate something to grow if the genes just aren't there to be expressed in the first place.  And once the horse has left the barn, I don't think that any amount of testosterone cream is going to have much of an effect, even though there's no "growth plate" (that I know of!) in an adult penis! /Steve

That's what I need: More stimulus to my testes! 

Yeah, me and lil' homie have been getting re-established over the past couple of months. I didn't realise how much I missed never getting to see him.

Mine went way up (no pun intended) the first few months after surgery, but then seemed to slowly go down again until it's not much more than it was pre-op.  The only thing I can attribute that to is probably post-op biological depression.  It seems to be somewhat back now that I'm on meds for the dep. (Cymbalta).  Potency is the  same situation ..  it seemed to increase at first, but is not much better now (although Cymbalta does have an E.D. and even an "******blocking" effect in some, which can be somewhat transient).  I guess I was hoping it would revert back to my 20s - days of morning wood and all - after the weight loss, which was just not the case.  Maybe the 9 years of diabetes and longer period of untreated sleep apnea and (still) high b.p. are to blame there, although I hope some of at least the diabetic and apnea damage can be reversed over time since both have now completely resolved.     Still, I'll continue to take the Cymbalta, as I prefer to be alive than not have Mr. Happy around, for now at least ...   &;-) 

Des, First- Welcome to The Men’s Board! and… What Paul-in-Dallas Said- 1.)ditto 2.)ditto 3.)ditto! This maybe where the “Honeymoon Phase” gets its name! Best Wishes- Dx