There is this feminist notion that masculinity is a basket of “good” and “bad” characteristics that men can pick and choose from. The pleasant qualities are things like provision of food, provision of funds, providing a home, duty, honor and procreation. The “bad” or distasteful characteristics are things like intense strength, lust, violence and furious indignation.
The project of radical feminism has been to convince men, and women alike, that men must rid themselves of all the distasteful qualities and characteristics of their nature. If they don’t, they threaten, the “toxic male” will no longer find acceptance in the feminized world in which we now live. The term for this is emasculation.
And yet, you cannot cherry-pick the parts of masculinity that you are happy with. Just as an engineer cannot keep the abutments and dispense with the footings of a wall, bridge or building, the man is the totality of strength and weakness built in perfect tension and relationship to each other. The man is much like a high tension bridge. You cannot have the strengths without the foundation spanning the weak points.
In every textbook or class on biology, the male and female of a species are dramatically different and can never be expected to act, interact or look similarly. But, ask any woman and the majority will tell you that men are looked at from the female mind as a hairy, misbehaving woman.
When a man seeks to rid himself of the “nasty parts,” pointed out and perceived as “bad” by the female, the bridge collapses. You cannot bridge an ocean without tension, without a mass of steel suspended in configurations of terrifying force and power, that steel welded together with white hot heat and molten flux.
The solution is not to rid yourself or conform. It is to admit, acknowledge and own every aspect of your gender, no matter how ugly, volatile or untidy it may appear to the opposite sex.
Man is messy. He always has been. Try to bury that fact and your gender will bury you.
Denying the mess is a recipe for repression, misery, malaise, fatigue and heart disease.
Make no mistake, when you go off script and embrace the mess, you will feel, and appear, dangerous.
Feminism will treat your masculinity like a loaded gun because unapologetic fully-embraced masculinity IS a loaded gun. You are dangerous. That’s what it means to be a man.
Uncocking the hammer does nothing but emasculate you, and render you a useless tool, a dull blade, to your family and the world at large.
The lie is that you can get rid of the “nasty bits” and retain your masculine power. In truth, you have two choices.
Be dangerous, yet well disciplined
Scale yourself down to a cap gun . . . shooting blanks.
Be warned, the second choice sounds great, and actually is initially pleasant to the females in your life, but it leads to depression and the modern male malaise.
Chose wisely.
If you’re reading this, trying make a choice barraged by voices on all sides . . . If your reaching has reached its limit . . . If all the tendons of your soul are straining to hold it together, feeling like their about to snap . . . You’re not alone, my friend.
I can’t fix it for you, same as you can’t fix it for me. However, I can at least assure you that you’re no stranger to me . . . That your fears are my fears, your longings are identical to my own.
I see you not as some washed-up, broken down grizzly bear, but as one of our finest. An honorable, noble, disciplined dangerous man yet in the fight, nose split, teeth broken . . . Spitting dust and blood for the hundredth time . . . Swaying in his boots, but still standing.
Something is broken. Something shifted over the last 100 years causing a dramatic change to the average man. As a young boy, the only reason I ever heard about Audie Murphy, one of the most decorated war heroes of our time, is that he is a distant relative. My father told me stories about him. Audie Murphy was an icon of male history, a true hero.
But something happened to our culture. Men with the character of Audie Murphy disappeared, and the average male metamorphasized over a generation. The men of today often lack the basic skills of daily living. They are increasingly immature, anxious, and depressed. They increasingly experience fatigue and malaise and are often bereft of motivation.
I’ve been practicing medicine for over 20 years. Each year, more and more men show up in my office feeling depressed, anxious, lethargic, and fatigued. With the backdrop of a pandemic disease like COVID-19, these men are more frequently suicidal than ever before. And, the majority of them respond poorly to medication and counseling. Why is there an increasing manifestation of malignant male malaise and depression?
It’s not their lousy childhood, crappy job, lack of desire, or failure to grow up that cause’s these symptoms. It’s not a lack of serotonin, dopamine or norepinephrine. And, it’s not even low testosterone levels. Although these are signs, symptoms and secondary effects of the primary problem. The problem is lack of honor. Honor has been lost by both men and women. But, this lack of honor has a uniquely deleterious effect upon the man. Honor can be learned by women, however, it is not part of their true nature. Honor is an instinctual subconscious characteristic found in the men of our species.
The feminization and emasculation of men, the emancipation and objectification of women, and the sexual liberation both sexes in our society has played a huge role in suppressing and repressing the need for honor. Though many claim we are “better off,” changes to our view of the sexes has removed our desire to hold and retain honor, especially among the younger generations of men.
What changed in the picture above? Honor is gone.
Honor is Directly Tied to Manhood
Across every culture, and across all of known time, honor and manhood are instinctively tied together. Honor has been and always will be central to a man’s masculine identity. Men would go to great lengths to win honor and to prevent the loss of their honor.
In all of classical literature, honor is the central theme because it is central in the life of a man. It is part of his subconscious identity. The poems of Homer, the plays of Shakespeare, the writings of the Stoics, the chivalry of the knights and the gallantry of the Victorian Gentleman are all based upon the “fields of honor” where men defend their manhood.
I find it enlightening that penned upon the greatest document of governance ever written, the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers “mutually pledged to each other [their] lives, [their] fortunes and [their] sacred honor.”
Honor is foundational. It resonates throughout Christian doctrine as well. It is part of the Ten Commandments, “Honor thy father and thy mother…” (Exodus 20:12). Men have been commanded to “give honor to their wives.” (1 Peter 3:7) And, even God himself told the ancient prophets Isaiah and Moses that the fall of Lucifer was because he sought God’s honor, which is His power. (Isaiah 14:12-14; Moses 4:1)
What is Honor?
We throw the word “honor” around a great deal. But, if you actually ask the question, “What is Honor?” most people scratch their head and struggle to answer. If you press a person long enough, you’ll probably get an answer like, “being true to a set of personal ideals,” “doing the right thing when no one is looking,” or “being a person of integrity.”
Honor is instinctual in men. Men define their character around honor, duty and obligation. This is an inborn trait of the male protector and provider. A man will do something for his mother out of duty and obligation. Not because she nagged or pressured him, but because taking care of her is part of his definition of himself as a man. He may hate it or despise the activity, and he may complain about it, but not doing it is not even an option. Not because he is afraid of upsetting his mother. It’s because honor, duty and obligation define who he is on an instinctual level.
The Medieval period added “integrity” to its code of chivalry to temper “reflexive” honor (we will discuss this later). In our society, honor has been watered down and emasculated to the point that it is now defined almost identically to integrity. However, honor does not equal integrity. They are two different characteristics.
Even Mr. Webster himself watered down the definition of honor when he defined it as “adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct.” That closely resembles his definition of integrity, “the quality of being honest (doing what is right) and having strong moral principles (following a conventional standard of conduct).” These two definitions are almost identical. Yet, honor is not integrity. Webster’s definition above is not what Homer, or Shakespeare wrote about. And, that definition is NOT what our Founding Fathers pledged upon the Declaration of Independence.
Horizontal honor implies mutual respect of two equal men. But this isn’t the watered-down feminized version of respect that pervades our culture today. This is not the I’m a human being and you’re a human being and we should respect each other because of “social equality” type of respect. No, this is honor that is contingent upon an unyielding adherence to a standard maintained within a group.
Horizontal Honor hinges upon three essential elements. The first is a code of honor. This is a standard that must be reached by any member of the group to receive respect within the group. There are rules that outline achievements of the standard and rules that delineate how that honor is lost. Any definition of honor that cannot be lost, is not actually honor.
An honor group is the second element. This is a group of individuals who understand the honor code and have committed to live by it. Anyone and everyone within the group understands the code and lives by it. The members of group must therefore be equals and hold respect for others in the group, being both their equal and living and maintaining the standard of the honor code. Honor is then rendered based on the judgment of others in the group, and therefore the opinion of those members must matter to you. This respect is rendered in a two-way street.
These honor groups must be exclusive. If anyone and everyone can be a part of the group, regardless of their adherence to the code, then honor becomes absolutely meaningless. Egalitarianism (equality of social, political and economic status) and honor cannot coexist. Social justice destroys honor and the honor code.
Lastly, the honor group must be a tight-knit, intimate group. In a society of people that is governed by respect, a member’s knowledge of every other member and face-to-face interaction is essential. Honor cannot exist in a society where anonymity dominates. The rise of social media, and the increased anonymity that comes with it, chips away at the maintenance of honor.
Honor is all or nothing. You either have it, or you don’t. A person who fails to live up to the group’s code loses his honor. He loses his right to the respect the other members of the group provide. This creates shame. The recognition that one failed to live up to the code is shameful. For honor to exist, a healthy feeling of shame compels one to check one’s behavior. When one cares not for the respect of others in the group, honor loses its power to compel living according to the standard.
You either have the respect of your peers within this group or you don’t. Bringing dishonor upon yourself by failing to meet the minimum standards of the group (or showing disdain or indifference for those standards) results in exclusion or excommunication from the group, including the accompanying shame. Failure to conform results in your membership card being revoked.
The last semblances of honor can be heard among men in our culture today when they talk about taking away each other’s “man cards.” Men actually understand this at an instinctual level. Horizontal honor is essentially the need to actually hold the man card. It is recognition that you are a man among other men. Losing one’s man card is an echo of the punishment for violating the original code of men – the honor code.
Vertical Honor
Vertical Honor isn’t about mutual respect between two men of equal stature. It is about giving praise and esteem to those “who are superior, whether by virtual of their abilities, their rank, their services to the community, their sex, their kinship, their office, or anything else.” (Honor, Frank Henderson Stewart, p.59).
Vertical honor is hierarchical and competitive. Vertical honor goes to the man who not only lives the code, but excels at the code. Vertical honor cannot exist without horizontal honor. First, you must hold the man card. Excelling at protecting or providing then defines the vertical honor.
The feminization of our society, along with an insistence of social justice for all, makes horizontal honor in-existent, and vertical honor thereby becomes despicable, loathsome and to some, even “toxic.”
There is this feminist notion that masculinity is a basket of “good” and “bad” characteristics that men can pick and choose from. The pleasant qualities are things like provision of food, provision of funds, providing a home, duty, honor and procreation. The “bad” or distasteful characteristics are things like intense strength, lust, violence and furious indignation.
When a man instinctively acts upon his role as provider and protector, gender roles that are repressed in today’s culture, he naturally bases his actions around those things that bring honor. Being an honorable provider and protector requires the man to excel at those things that are perceived by the feminist as “messy,” “bad” or “toxic.” Honor is an action word and can only be demonstrated through action. When that man begins to be true to horizontal and vertical honor, today’s society sees him a “toxic male.”
Men thrive on admiration of their honor, especially vertical honor. It literally recharges a man’s batteries. These are the trophies, awards, points and accolades that come from distinguishing yourself as a provider or protector. It’s why men are drawn to messy tests of their strength, power, and manhood against other men. It’s what drives a man to run a marathon, become a prize fighter, learn martial arts, to be a hunter, build a home, design cities, write revolutionary computer code, complete medical school and residency, and on, and on, and on.
Honor as Defined by Our Forefathers
Honor as our Forefathers understood it was two-fold: respect from the group (horizontal) and praise from the group (vertical). Implicit in this definition of honor is that it depends upon the opinion of others. You may have a sense of honor, but that just does not cut it. Others must first recognize your honor before it can actually exist.
I can hear some of you say, “Wait a minute, Doc, honor is universal to men and women. What about the honor of women?”
Yes. You are correct. However, honor differs between the genders. Though codes of honor have varied across time and cultures, in its most primitive instinctual forms, honor was usually related to chastity for women and courage for men.
During the periods of history when governments did not exist, professional military’s were few and far between, and there was no one to enforce the “rule of law,” the moral force that governed the tribe and maintained survival was “honor.” Men were expected to act as the tribe’s protectors, a role in which strength, courage and vitality were essential. If the man was not physically strong, then he was expected to contribute through mastery of a skill (shaman, medicine man, scout, black-smith, weapons maker, shepherd, etc.) that provided benefit to the tribe. Honor is the driving force that motivated men to fulfill these expectations.
Demonstration of courage and mastery provided horizontal honor as men. That honor provided privileges of being a full member of the tribe. As they excelled at the code, the were granted even greater status and more privilege within the tribe (vertical honor). However, cowardice, laziness, and weakness were shamed as unmanly causing loss of access to privilege within the tribe.
Defending Your Honor
Defending your honor or reputation was a matter of life or death for many of our ancestors and forefathers. It is literally instinctual in the male. Even into the late 19th century, one could not get a good job as a lawyer or politician without maintaining one’s honor. Thus, to maintain privileges, men were highly motivated and tremendously vigilant about maintaining their honor.
Insult to one’s reputation or honor, or the honor (chastity) of a female member of your family, required immediate remedy. If you were hit, you hit back. Saving face was supreme. Retaliation was necessary to prove you still had the courage that made one worthy of honorable status. The chasity of a female member of your household could be remedied by the courageous act of the protector. Dueling was a common and acceptable means of defending that honor.
Defending honor can lead to what anthropologists call reflexive honor. This was inspiring and, also, problematic. When taken to the extreme, reflexive honor becomes an “irrational pissing contest” between men, clans or even communities. This could destroy a community. So, as societies became more civilized, they attempted to temper the male instinct to retaliate when honor has been maligned. This tempering is what brought about the honor code of chivalry with the Medieval knights and the gentleman’s code of the Victorian era.
A Man’s Honor vs The Group’s Honor
Concern for one’s honor is both selfish and selfless. On one hand, men want to be respected as men, respected in the tribe and desire the privileges of membership (horizontal honor). Membership in the tribe entitled the person to gain vertical honor and status through worthy deeds. One’s reputation for strength and honor also kept other members of the tribe from picking on them or casting them out.
A man’s honor benefited the tribe as a whole. Each individual’s reputation for courage and strength added to the group’s courage and strength. The more formidable a tribe’s reputation, the less likely other tribes would try to bother them. This is why men who do not care about the tribe’s honor are shamed by the group. Disloyalty of an individual puts the whole group at risk.
20th Century Honor is Depressing
In the 20th Century, urbanization and anonymity dissolved the intimate face-to-face relationships that honor requires. People have grown uncomfortable with violence and shame. Individuals feelings and desire have been elevated above the common good of the tribe or society. People began forming their own personal honor codes and refused judgement of those codes by anyone but themselves. This transformed honor into a concept synonymous with personal integrity.
Yet, the instinctual male defines his character around honor, and true honor has been whitewashed into personal integrity, the man experiences depression. Honor is the moral imperative of men. Obedience is the moral imperative of boys.
As a child, you did the right thing out of obedience to authority and out of fear of punishment from that authority. As we mature, we begin to recognize that our behavior affects others and the needs of groups to which we belong.
Honor is a moral imperative. As we age, we begin to operate and act out of honor instead of out of obedience to authority. Men begin to recognize that they have a role to play in helping the group to survive or thrive. Men recognize that their individual actions add to the strength or weakness of a group.
Honor in a Man Begets Love
The mindset of honor is different. When men function from a mindset of rules and laws, they do the bare minimum they can without being punished. Or they push the law to see how far it bends. When men function from the mindset of honor, they seek to pull their own weight, and then add further to strengthen the group.
Honor moves a man’s motivations to act from the base, childlike fear of authority, to a higher, nobler respect that becomes love. The love of family, love of church, and love of country are all borne of honor. A man will NEVER let those he loves (or himself) down by slacking off. Love, from the perspective of a man, is born of his honor and strengthens his honor.
If a man leaves his church, or is disinterested in and organization, it is likely because he’s lost the sense of mutual respect in the horizontal honor of that group or congregation. He has lost faith in that congregation’s ability to provide the innate horizontal honor he seeks.
Not only is honor a more mature moral imperative than obedience, it is often a much more powerful motivator. Social pressure, the very thing that drives honor, is more powerful than rules and laws in getting people to do things. Studies show that people are more likely to change their behavior when they think their respected peers are watching them. The key driver is respect of peers considered to be equal in group or standing. We are still social animals at heart – we still feel motivated by shame, loneliness and/or desertion.
Lack of Honor Breeds Ineptitude
Without honor mediocrity, corruption and incompetence rule. Honor is based in reputation and when people stop caring about their reputation, shame disappears. When there is no shame, people devolve into creatures with little inertia that do the very least they can without getting into trouble, getting fined or getting fired. This breeds a culture of mediocrity, corruption, and blatant incompetence. You can see this in any business or customer service network today. People no longer have any fear of their history following them and have no incentive to perform with excellence. Instead, we have a culture of employees with mind blowing ineptitude.
This lack of honor has resulted in a society that now relies upon obedience to rules, regulations and restrictions to govern behavior. The minutia of rules in your office, town, city, community, and state seem innumerable is because they are. We must now be policed by external authority to constantly check behavior in the absence of honor.
Honor Creates Meaning
The reason people tend to like old movies and books better than the modern variety is honor. It’s not nostalgia, or talent or lack of topics. The drama of old literature captures our attention because the characters had to operate in a culture of honor.
Honor provides structure to navigate and push up against. The struggle of moving up through a group by following a code, avoiding shame and earning honor.
The reason reality shows have become popular is that these shows create temporary groups of people experimenting with unique situations forcing the creation of and adherence to the groups temporary honor codes. Otherwise life is mundane and boring.
Without honor life feels like a great charade with our own self-constructed realities that lack comparison, competition and esteem of others. Life seems empty and insubstantial. Evil runs unchecked. Good goes unrewarded. True merit goes un-honored and everyone gets a participation trophy that holds absolutely no meaning. Everyone gets a piece of the egalitarian pie that does not nourish or satiate our hunger.
Arlington Cemetery – horse drawn casket for fallen soldier
Every Man Needs a Platoon
We are all part of large groups that provide us identity and belonging. You might be associated with a political party, a company, a church, a company, a town, a state or a nation. Yet these groups are usually too large to provide the intimacy necessary for honor to thrive. In these groups, no one really cares if you are living honorably or not. We must give up the notion that honor can be revived at the macroscopic level.
Initially, I thought each of us needed a community or congregation. That may work, but I realized the average size of a military company is 150 people. This is also “Dunbar’s number.” It is the maximum number of people in which stable social relationships can occur at any given time. It is the maximal number in a group in which honor and shame can govern effectively before rules and regulations are required to govern behavior. Interestingly, this is also the number of people to which ancient villages would grow before they would break off to form separate settlements.
Withing each military company, there are 3-5 platoons consisting of 16-44 men. Platoons are the smallest “self-contained” unit in the army. Each one has a medic, radio operator, headquarters element, and forward observer. A platoon of men usually sleeps together, eats together, fights together and, under severe conditions, dies together.
I have always been fascinated by comments made to me by soldiers when asked about their allegiance to one another. This was reinforced by journalist Sebastian Junger in his book, War. Soldiers admit they would risk their lives “without hesitation for anyone in the platoon or company.” This sense of identity, loyalty, and brotherhood drops off in groups larger than the platoon or the company.
Junger states, “For some reason there is a profound and mysterious gratification to the reciprocal agreement to protect another person with your life, and combat is virtually the only situation in which that happens regularly.”
Only a small percentage of those in the military are directly involved in regular firefights. The rest serve in support roles. Though support roles experience an honor culture in degrees lower than combat soldiers, it is of a more profound degree than civilians. Other than combat soldiers, police officers and firefighters are the only others who experience a similar degree of honor. They may not have their lives directly threatened every day, but they constantly work under the risk that they could, and they know that their comrades are willing to risk their own lives to protect them.
Where Do You Find A Platoon?
Not all of us can be a soldier, police officer or firefighter, even if they if they wanted to be. Yet, every man can, and should be part of a small, tight-knit honor group. This may be a sports team, men’s group at church, fraternity, professional group, etc.
If you can’t find one, start your own. It doesn’t have to be formal and you don’t need a lot of people. 2-3 people are enough to start.
For your physical survival and your psychological health, you need to be part of a group. Men want meaning in their lives, meaning that comes from being a part of something larger than themselves. But, if you are like me, until I understood the importance of honor groups, we are often unwilling to trade some of our individualism to get it.
Studies done decades ago showed that men who belonged to a group that was close-knit showed less fear when jumping from an airplane than groups of men who shared only weak ties. The studies demonstrated that men could also withstand greater pain from electric shocks when they were part of a highly-bound group, as opposed to one with loose associations. The military found that tightly-knit units suffer less cases of mental breakdown, depression and PTSD than units where morale and bonding is low. The reason for these findings is that men in a tightly-bonded group both know that the man on either side of him has his back. The fear of dishonoring their brothers drives them to overcome their own fears and move forward and not let others down. One of the men Junger interviewed said, “As a soldier, the thing you were most scared of was failing your brothers when they needed you, and compared to that, dying was easy. Dying was over with. Cowardice lingered forever.”
Men of Today Must Have Honor to Survive
Men around us in society break down and cave to depression and stress, just fighting their individual battles. I see it every day. They lack the strength to deal with life’s difficulties because they don’t have honor pushing them forward. They don’t have honor because they lack a platoon.
The core of honor, then, is this – to act in such a way that does not let the man on your right and the man on your left down when they need you most.
Conclusion
People talk about wanting honor. They desire the end, but do not want the means. Honor, then, will only live on in small units and platoons of men willing to accept and carry the burden and responsibility that must accompany it.
James Davidson Hunter put it this way, “We say we want a renewal of character in our day but we don’t really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates, and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character but without unyielding conviction; we want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame; we want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend; we want good without having to name evil; we want decency without the authority to insist upon it; we want moral community without any limitations to personal freedom. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.”
Are you one of those men of honor? Or, will you settle for the pain and depression of living true to only a part of yourself?
When you were a boy, much like me, you likely dreamed of the day you would be a king. You dreamed of the day you would marry a beautiful maiden, have children, own lands . . . You dreamed of the day you would be loved, feared, and venerated.
You saw the way of the king, and you knew in your belly that this was your call:
To build the kingdom that you dreamed about
To live a life of benevolent power
To be admired, respected and beloved.
But somewhere along the way, the dream was corrupted. For we saw that kings can be craven.
We saw that some kings can be cruel.
And when the queens of the land bristled in unison . . . men, seeking to appease them, broke their scepters over their knees. And, men, the world over, resolved not to be king, but to be a second queen. They resorted to work in cheerful cooperation as a second wife, without the danger or the terror that lives within the man, that husband king.
Thus, the path of misery for man, and wife alike, was paved. . . the emasculated king, living his life as a second queen. Yet, man was never meant to take a wife and father children only to relinquish his God given dominion to become the “second queen.”
You and I, we come to marriage and family for kingship:
To provide safety and shelter for your queen and her cubs
To ravish the queen and see the animal heat in her eyes
To live in glory and honor
And when called upon, to willingly go heart-in-mouth into the fray
You may not have servants or lands or chests of gold. But, if you have a wife, if you have children, if you have an audience to serve . . . you have everything required for true, abiding kingship.
For a king is king not by the command he claims for himself or the fealty others pay him. He is king by pressing and wielding his dangerous power to the noble service of others in the creation of value and honor.
Kingship is the exercise of dangerous magic nobly. It is an exercise in unconditional love applied. Through force of will and force of imagination, you make your visions manifest.
Kingdoms are not won, they are not granted, they are not inherited . . . Kingdoms are CREATED.
Do not wait for your wife to become the queen. Do not wait, grumbling, for her to adulate or serve you. The principle buried by the softened souls of this civilization, by generations of absentee fathers, by generations of fatherless homes, by generations of men without their scepters is this . . .
It is the KING that makes the queen, not the other way around.
You stare foggy and angry at the hole in your drywall, at the un-replaced light bulbs, at the broken fence in the yard . . . at the mind-numbing banality all around you. Yet you want to feel alive again . . . deeply, lastingly, the way you dreamed as a young boy that you would feel when you became king.
That feeling doesn’t come from a manicured yard, a check in the mail, or even from some bestowed title from an Ivy League tower. It comes from indwelling and OWNING the role you’ve already won. You “have” a family, but it will not glow until your breathe everything you have into it . . . until you animate it with all your might and mind and heart and lungs.
Why are you waiting for some outside appointment? Rise up. Stand up. Throw out the box of cereal. Give the macaroni to the neighbor. Eat the bacon, fire up the smoker. Take on that task that’s been gnawing at you for months.
Create your kingship NOW. Do it TODAY: one kiss, one meal, one light bulb, one filled hole-in-the-drywall, one meal, one poem-in-the-lunchbox at a time. Stop sitting there braiding each other’s hair.
BE THE DAMN KING because the queen is already taken. Whether or not she returns that love does not matter. It is the act of loving her that actually fires you, it is not the reciprocation. Any love or adoration she returns is immaterial. The essential magic has already happened inside you. The fire has already been lit.
“Why would I kiss that mouth?” you say. “Why would I gaze into those cold, bitter eyes? How could I treat as queen this woman who sneers and scorns so unbearably?”
And that, there, is the double-bind that has been holding your very kingship, holding your marriage captive. This love, this respect, this adoration you long for her to give to you . . .
It is not hers to give, but for YOU TO CREATE within her.
You see, it is the KING that molds the maiden into the queen, into her best and highest self. Not with silence or criticism or ultimatums, but with acts of imagination and love. No matter how deep your disillusionment, it is the only way. You must create the queen.
Yes, you heard me correctly. It is National Cheesecake Day today. Today you must eat cheesecake – or you could be considered un-American.
“I can’t eat cheese cake, I’m doing a ketogenic diet!” you exclaim.
“Yes. So am I.”
Eating cheesecake is actually good for you, (low-carb cheesecake that is) and it’s also good for your family. This is the perfect day for ketogenic cheesecake . . . like my wife Tiffini’s Low-Carb Key Lime & Blueberry Cheesecake and as my gift to you for #NationalCheesecakeDay, you can get the recipe by filling in that pop up box!
And, “NO – I know what you’re thinking,” you can never have too much heavy whipped cream.
So, why am I so excited about National Cheesecake Day? I love low-carb cheesecake for a number of reasons.
Testosterone & Cheesecake
National Cheesecake Day makes me think of testosterone.
I know. Leave it to a man to start with testosterone, but in the big picture, a man really isn’t a man without testosterone, right? I mean, it was during the 5th week of embryonic development that my Y chromosome began signaling the differentiation of male fetal growth in-utero. And like every male, that same hormone, testosterone, continues to differentiate me from the human female counterpart throughout life. (And, boy am I grateful for that.)
The reason testosterone comes to mind is that I see a large number of men with low testosterone. Low testosterone has become a significant issue. 20-30% of the men in my practice suffer from some degree of suppression in testosterone when they first present in my office. In fact, you can’t watch late night TV without being asked if your testosterone is too low (“Do you have Low ‘T’?”).
We know that the primary nutrient shown to affect testosterone to the greatest extent is fat. Studies reveal that diets low in fat and high in carbohydrates are associated with lower testosterone compared to diets high in fat (1, 2). That begs the question, has 50 years of our low-fat high-carb diets made us less manly? I am convinced, but I’ll let you be the judge when you look at the pictures below . . .
When did this become acceptable?
Testosterone is essential in providing energy, muscle mass & growth and actually keeping the waistline down. Adequate testosterone is one of the key components allowing the man to fill the fatherhood rolls of protector and provider.
Female Brain Has A Testosterone Meter
Interestingly, the female brain is actually subconsciously wired to see the male physique and identify pheromones indicating your testosterone is higher or lower. Most women won’t admit it, because they probably don’t even recognize it, but studies show that men who lack muscle, have lower testosterone and have a beer belly are actually less attractive to the female sex. Men who produce more testosterone produce androstadienone in their sweat at a greater concentration which can be detected by the female improving her mood, focus and sexual response (9). If your diet isn’t helping you stimulate testosterone production, you’re less inclined to perform well in areas requiring its presence and you may be seen as less attractive by the women in the room.
That means that, bacon and eggs you craved this morning improve your manliness and actually give you more sex appeal. And, I’m sorry to say, the bagel and orange juice you had this morning are feminizing, they’re turning you into a woman, especially if you are like 85% of other men who over produce insulin because of insulin resistance.
When insulin is high and being over produced, it suppresses Luteinizing Hormone (LH) and Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH), lowering testosterone production. The high insulin and high fructose of the bagel and orange juice stimulate increased uptake of fat into the fat cells and decreases adiponectin production. This causes increase in Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) which further decreases available testosterone. High insulin and low adiponectin puts your “man card” through the wash.
Cheesecake and Men’s Muscles
Men need muscles for all sorts of important things. It’s often Dad who carries the child on his shoulders, or lifts you above his head. It takes muscles for that.
We talked about the importance of testosterone in muscle development. That that’s not all. Many men can provide for their families specifically because of their ability to use that muscle. I’m not saying women can’t use muscle, too. In fact, muscle is essential for the female body to be healthy. What I’m saying that there are a number of jobs that make our country function that require men who are fit. Jobs like policemen, firefighters, special-ops military teams, construction workers, life-guards & delivery drivers require the strength and power men bring to these fields. These jobs require muscle, and specifically “manly” muscle from healthy testosterone.
In addition, we know that ketones, the primary fuel in a ketogenic diet, inhibit muscle breakdown by decreasing leucine oxidation and preserving muscle mass (3). Being in ketosis increases testosterone and increases the presence of leucine preserving and allowing for bigger stronger muscles. So, yes, visiting the donut shop actually does make you less manly by allowing the more rapid degradation of your muscles.
“Wasn’t it my muscles that first got your attention when we met and got this whole father thing started in the first place, honey?” I asked my wife in the kitchen.
“What?! No . . .” she responded.
“Oh, . . . never mind.”
Energy & Cheesecake
Whether you have great muscles or not, you need energy for the muscles you have to fill your role as a man. Work requires energy. As fat is increasingly used as your primary fuel, instead of sugar, the liver converts it into ketone bodies, or ketones. The liver itself, doesn’t use the ketones, so they are taken up by the muscles and brain for fuel. Increased energy, mental clarity and suppression of inflammation are the key findings that are noticed while using fat as your primary fuel. What man couldn’t us a little more of that?
Health of Family Influenced By Father’s Health
In fact, several studies report that the man in the home has the biggest impact on the overall fitness and on the overall weight of his children. It was found that the father’s, not the mother’s, total and percentage body fat was the best predictor of whether or not the couple’s daughters gained weight as they got older (4). All the more reason to keep your waistline under control, Dad. And, all the more reason to have low-carb cheesecake today.
Another fascinating study showed fathers’ (again, not the mothers’) body mass index is directly related to a child’s activity level (5).
Cheesecake Helps Rough-Housing
Energy and muscle is essential for “rough-housing” and there is science to prove that “rough-housing” makes your kids awesome! Psychologist Anthony Pellegrini found that the amount of rough-housing children engage in predicts their achievement in first grade better than their kindergarten test scores do (10). What is it about rough and tumble play that makes kids smarter? Well, a couple things.
Rough-housing makes your kids more resilient. Strengthening resilience is a key in developing children’s intelligence. Resilient kids tend to see failure more as a challenge to overcome rather than an event that defines them. Intellectual resilience that comes from energetic fathers helps ensure your children bounce back from bad grades and gives them the grit to keep trying until they’ve mastered a topic.
Intelligence From Cheesecake?
Neuroscientists studying animal and human brains have found that bouts of rough-and-tumble play increase the brain’s level of a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF helps increase neuron growth in the parts of the brain responsible for memory, logic, social intelligence and higher learning–skills necessary for academic success. We, also, now know that the brain that uses fat, or ketones, as its primary fuel recovers from injury and makes BDNF more effectively (6,7).
So, remember, that rib-eye with steak butter your kids gave you for dinner and the low-carb cheesecake you had for dinner is actually making you and them smarter and more resilient. You could even say that a diet high in fat and low in carbohydrate gives your family more grit.
Overall Happiness from Cheesecake?
The Harvard Grant Study completed in 1934, the longest longitudinal study ever done on the lives of men, found that a man’s father influenced his life in multiple ways exclusive to his relationship with his mother. Loving fathers imparted to their sons:
Enhanced capacity to play
Greater enjoyment of vacations
Increased likelihood of being able to use humor as a healthy coping mechanism
Better adjustment to, and contentment with, life after retirement
Less anxiety and fewer physical and mental symptoms under stress in young adulthood
It should be noted that “it was not the men with poor mothering but the ones with poor fathering who were significantly more likely to have poor marriages over their lifetimes.” Men who lacked a positive relationship with their fathers were also “much more likely to call themselves pessimists and to report having trouble letting others get close” (8).
You, as a testosterone producing man and father, matter. And, being in ketosis makes you an even better father! Seriously.
When all is said and done, a man’s relationship with his father very significantly predicted his overall life satisfaction at age 75 — “a variable not even suggestively associated with the maternal relationship” (8).
So, to circle back, the low-carb key-lime cheese cake just made me more manly. Thanks, Honey! Happy National Cheesecake Day!
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and sweetener. Stir in butter until well combined. Press firmly into bottom and up the sides of a pie pan or spring-form pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes (watch closely so that the crust does not over-brown)
In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sour cream, lime juice with pulp and zest together until smooth. Beat in the sweetener until well combined. In a small bowl, whisk together 2 tbsp of heavy cream and the gelatin. Stir into the cream cheese until well combined.
In another bowl, beat whipping cream until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.
Spread the filling over the cooled prepared crust.
Refrigerate for a few hours until set and ready to serve with blueberries sprinkled on top.
References:
Hamalainen, E., H. Aldercreutz, P. Puska, and P. Pietinen. Diet and serum sex hormones in healthy men. J. Steroid Biochem. 20:459-464, 1984.
Reed, M.J., R.W. Cheng, M. Simmonds, W. Richmond, and V.H.T. James. Dietary Lipids: an additional regulator of plasma levels of sex hormone binding globulin. J. Clin. Endocrin. Metab. 64:1083-1085, 1987.
Nair KS, Welle SL, Halliday D, Cambell RG. Effect ofβ-hydroxybutyrate on whole-body leucine kinetics and fractional mixed skeletal muscle protein synthesis in humans. J Clin Invest. 1988;82:198–
Figueroa-Colon R, Arani RB, Goran MI, Weinsier RL. Paternal body fat is a longitudinal predictor of changes in body fat in premenarcheal girls. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Mar;71(3):829-34.
Finn, Kevin et al. Factors associated with physical activity in preschool children.J of Ped., Vol 140, Issue 1, 81-85
Vizuete AF1, de Souza DF, Guerra MC, Batassini C, Dutra MF, Bernardi C, Costa AP, Gonçalves CA. Brain changes in BDNF and S100B induced by ketogenic diets in Wistar rats. Life Sci. 2013 May 20;92(17-19):923-8.
Masino SA, Rho JM. Mechanisms of Ketogenic Diet Action. Jasper’s Basic Mechanisms of the Epilepsies [Internet]. 4th edition. Bethesda (MD): National Center for Biotechnology Information (US); 2012.
Valliant GE. Triumphs of Excellence: The Men of the Harvard Grant Study. 1934
Verhaeghe J, Gheysen R, Enzlin P. Pheromones and their effect on women’s mood and sexuality. Facts Views Vis Obgyn. 2013; 5(3): 189-195.
DeBenedet A, Cohen LJ. The Art of Roughhousing. 2010. Quirk Books.
Why should you consider using a ketogenic lifestyle? There are many reasons. This is part 8 of a 25 part series and this one focuses on how ketosis improves testosterone in men and estrogen in women.
“I’ve tried your low-carb diet, Dr. Nally, and it didn’t work.”
“Hmm . . . really?” If you’re mumbling this to yourself, or you’ve said it to me in my office, then lets have a little talk. You’ve probably been subjected to the common ketosis killers.
I’ve heard this statement before. It’s not a new statement, but it’s a statement that tells me we need to address a number of items. If you’ve failed a low carbohydrate diet, I’d suspect you are pretty severely insulin resistant or hyperinsulinemic. You probably never really reached true ketosis. I’d want to have you checked out by your doctor to rule out underlying disease like hypothyroidism, diabetes, other hormone imbalance, etc.
Nutritional Ketosis is Most Effective as a Lifestyle Change
Next, switching to a low-carbohydrate lifestyle is literally a “lifestyle change.” It requires that you understand a few basic ketosis principles. And, it takes the average person 3-6 months to really wrap their head around what this lifestyle means . . . and, some people, up to a year before they are really comfortable with how to eat and function in any situation.
I assume, if you are reading this article, that you’ve already read about ketosis and understand the science behind it. If not, please start your reading with my article The Principle Based Ketogenic Lifestyle – Part I and Ketogenic Principles – Part II. If this is the case, then please proceed forward, “full steam ahead!”
There are usually a few areas that are inadvertently inhibiting your body transformation, so let’s get a little personal.
Nutritional Ketosis is a Very Low Carbohydrate Diet
First, this is a low carbohydrate diet. For weight loss, I usually ask people to lower their carbohydrate intake to less than 2o grams per day. How do you do that? (A copy of my diet is accessible through my membership site HERE.) You’ve got to begin by restricting all carbohydrates to less than 20 grams per day. Any more than 20 to 30 grams per day will cause an insulin release from the pancreas and stimulate fat storage of both carbohydrate and fat for the next 10-12 hours, commonly killing ketosis. Keep a dietary journal to record your progress, your cravings, your successes and failures. I’m going to want to see it and review it with you if you see me.
No, I don’t believe in “Net Carbs.” Net Carbs are a sales gimmick to get you to buy “artificial food” that keeps you coming back for “artificial food” and halts your weight loss (you’ll see why shortly). You’re going to lose the most weight and feel your best when you eat real food. I do allow for the subtraction of real fiber, specifically non-cooked, non-blended, non-juiced leafy greens (If you cook, blend or juice a leafy green, it activates more carbohydrate availability). Leafy greens are real fiber. You can subtract them. In fact, I recommend eating 1-3 cups of leafy greens per day to help bowel function & provide necessary folic acid, but, everything else is “carbage.” Avoid it.
Yes, cottage cheese and yogurt contain carbohydrates. Be very cautious with them.
Alcohol also halts your weight loss. It’s not the sugar in the alcohol I’m worried about, the distilling process changes the sugar to alcohol, however, alcohol stimulates an insulin response after the alcohol is metabolized in the liver with a SIMILAR RESPONSE to regular sugar.
To Effectively Maintain Nutritional Ketosis, You MUST get adequate Protein
Second, this is a low carbohydrate, moderate protein, high fat lifestyle. N0 . . . it is NOT a high protein diet! However, so many of my patients don’t eat enough protein that they feel like it is a “high protein diet.”
Protein is essential for the building and maintaining of muscle, connective tissue and a number of other enzymatic reactions in your body. However, in patients who are morbidly obese [people with a body mass index (BMI) over 50], excess protein intake can cause fat to be stored by producing an excessive insulin response. In these patients we initially moderate protein. Excess sugars and a number of proteins, in the presence of a high insulin response, are converted to triglyceride (the soft squishy stuff inside the fat cells that make them plump) and stocked away inside your adipose tissue. Excessive protein, especially the amino acids argenine, leucine and tryptophan are common ketosis killers, not because they are converted to sugar, but because they stimulate and insulin response all by themselves.
If you don’t fall into the morbidly obese category (BMI over 50). Then, I encourage you to use the protein levels below.
Initially, I ask my patients to focus on lowering their carbohydrate intake and I don’t really worry about protein. (It is often hard enough to figure out what the difference between a carbohydrate and a protein in the first month or two if you’ve never had any nutrition background.) Most people begin losing weight just by lowering carbohydrates over the first few months. Once you figure out how to lower your carbohydrates, if your weight loss is not moving and your pants are not getting looser, then you’re probably eating too much protein.
How much protein do you need? It’s pretty easy to calculate and is based on your height and gender. Your basic protein needs to maintain muscle, skin and hair growth are as follows:
70 grams or higher for women per day
120 grams or higher for men per day.
However, these levels are WAY TOO LOW for weight loss and maintaining good health. Because we now know that protein acts as a hormone in a number of ways, in my office I recommend women get 80-90 grams of protein per day, and men should get > 150 grams of protein per day.
This also goes for protein powders and protein shakes. Many of these have 25-40 grams of protein in them per serving, so be careful with their use.
Nutritional Ketosis is a High Fat Diet
Third, this is a high fat lifestyle. Yes, I want you to INCREASE your fat intake. I’m going to repeat that, again, just for clarity, . . . . INCREASE your fat intake. Increase it to around 50% of your total calories, . . . 70% of your total calories if you can do it. Not enough fat is a common ketosis killer.
“What?! Won’t that cause heart disease and stroke and make my cholesterol worse?!!!”
I know, take a big deep breath . . . (you may even need to breath into a paper bag for a minute if you begin hyperventilating).
No, it will not raise your cholesterol, cause heart disease, or cause a stroke. If you have lowered your carbohydrate intake to less than 20 grams per day, then there is NO hormonal signal for you to make more bad cholesterol, worsen heart disease, or cause a stroke. In fact, there is great data showing that increasing your fat and lowering your carbohydrates reverses the blockage in the arteries. I see this reversal every single day in my clinic through the application of ketogenic diets.
If we remove carbohydrate as your primary fuel, you must replace it with something else.That something else should be fat. Protein must be moderated, as it will also be stored as fat if you eat too much. So, if the carbohydrates are kept low, fat intake can be increased and the body will pick the fat it wants and essentially throw the rest out without raising cholesterol, causing weight gain or causing heart disease. This is why we want you to use good natural animal fats like butter, hard cheese, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, etc. Look for fats highest in omega-3 fatty acids as these decrease inflammation and improved weight loss. Look for meats highest in fat like red meat (55% fat) and pork (45% fat). Take the food pyramid and flip it over.
Check Your Sweeteners At the Door
The fourth common ketosis killer and culprit in halting your weight loss is artificial sweeteners. There are quite a few of them. Most of them WILL cause an insulin response (exactly what we don’t want for weight loss) with minimal to no rise in blood sugar. Raising blood sugar doesn’t matter, if the insulin is being stimulated . . . “you’re gonna gain weight for the next 10-12 hours.” I wrote an article for you to print off and hang on your fridge, upload it to your iPhone or carry it with you in your purse to the grocery store. (If you’re a man and you’re carrying a purse, please don’t tell me about it.) You can find the article here: The Skinny About Sweeteners. The short list of those sweeteners that are OK to use and cook with, and do not increase insulin response, can be found here in my Amazon Store.
Don’t Even Start with Coffee Creamers
Fifth on my list is coffee creamer. Coffee creamer contains corn syrup solids (another very special name for . . . SUGAR!!) and/or maltodextrin (SUGAR’s married name!). If you must put something in your coffee, then use real heavy cream (pure tasty fat) or real butter. It will taste much better (I’m told – I don’t drink coffee personally) and you won’t get an insulin spike 2-3 hours later and begin craving more coffee and donuts.
Yes, “Half & Half” is half fat and half sugar. . . avoid it too!!
Ketosis Killing Medications
The sixth culprit in halting weight loss is medications. Please talk to your doctor before making ANY changes in your medications as suddently stopping them can be hazardous to your health. Those highest on my list for stopping your weight loss are Glyburide (glipizide), insulin, & steroids like prednisone. A more complete list of medications that will halt your weight loss can be found on my on my ketogenic diet plan. If you are on any prescription medications, please talk to your doctor or to a physician board certified in obesity medicine treatment about how to adjust or wean these medications in a way that is safe and appropriate for your individual needs.
Estrogen
The seventh common culprit in halting weight loss is a lack of estrogen in menopausal or post-menopausal women. About 20% of women that I see in my practice who are over 55 years old, need some degree of estrogen replacement before they are able to lose weight. Estrogen plays a very large role in regulation of the metabolism and when deficient, causes weight retention or weight gain. Talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of estrogen for you individually in this situation.
For many years, we’ve thought that caffeine was great for weight loss. However, we are finding, clinically, that too much caffeine can also cause a stress response by raising cortisol, releasing glycogen, thereby stimulating an insulin response and bringing your weight loss to a screeching halt. How much caffeine? . . . The jury is still out . . . and remains to be determined. But, I am currently under going an n=1 experiment on myself (as many of you know, I loved Diet Dr. Pepper. But I had to give it up). I’ll keep you posted . . .
Look closely at these eight issues. Correcting them usually solves most plateaus with weight loss and improves blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol control dramatically.
Have you noticed that there are a large number of advertisements in the media about checking your testosterone or “Low T” Syndrome? It seems like this is the new advertising trend on the radio and late night TV.
Suddenly, everyone’s testosterone is low and men are complaining about their libido, . . . or are they?
Benefits of Testosterone Optimization. (Image Credit: ArtOfManliness.com)
If you practice medicine long enough, you’ll see a trend that seems to have arisen as our waistlines have expanded. About half of the men in my office with insulin resistance, pre-diabetes or diabetes have low testosterone levels. But this shouldn’t be a surprise. Type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance are all driven by an over production in insulin in response to a carbohydrate load in the meal. Patients with these conditions produce between two to ten times the normal insulin in response to a starchy meal. A number of studies both in animal and human models demonstrate that insulin has a direct correlation on testosterone suppression in the blood. This has been demonstrated in both men and women. In fact, glucose intake has been shown to suppress testosterone and LH in healthy men by suppressing the gonadal hormone axis and more predominant testosterone suppression is seen in patient with insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome.
In fact, to put it simply, insulin increases the conversion (aromitization) of testosterone to estrogen in men (it does the opposite in women). Interestingly, Leptin resistance has a similar effect. I tend to see the worst lowering of testosterone in men with both insulin and leptin resistance.
How to you improve your testosterone? Supplemental testosterone has been shown to help, but it comes with some risks, including prostate enlargement and stimulating growth of prostate cancer. The most natural way to improve your testosterone is to change your diet.
A low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet turns down the insulin production and allows the testosterone to be available for use by the body. A ketogenic diet has the effect of reducing leptin resistance as well through weight loss. A simple dietary change of this type is frequently seen in my office to increase testosterone by 100-150 points.
KetoOS – Drinkable Exogenous Ketones
What is a ketogenic diet? It is a diet that restricts carbohydrates to less than 50 grams per day, thereby causing the body to use ketones as the primary fuel source. So, for breakfast tomorrow morning, hold the oatmeal (1/2 cup of Quaker Instant Oatmeal is 31 grams of carbohydrates) and have the bacon and eggs. And, rather than have the cheesecake for desert this evening, have an extra slice of steak butter on your rib-eye and hold the potato.
That something else should be fat. Protein must be moderated, as it will also be stored as fat if you eat too much. So, if the carbohydrates are kept low, fat intake can be increased and the body will pick the fat it wants and essentially throw the rest out without raising cholesterol, causing weight gain or causing heart disease. This is why we want you to use good natural animal fats like butter, hard cheese, olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, etc. Look for fats highest in omega-3 fatty acids as these decrease inflammation and improved weight loss. Look for meats highest in fat like red meat (55% fat) and pork (45% fat). Take the food pyramid and flip it over.
20% of women that I see in my practice who are over 55 years old, need some degree of estrogen replacement before they are able to lose weight. Estrogen plays a very large role in regulation of the metabolism and when deficient, causes weight retention or weight gain. Talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of estrogen for you individually in this situation.
