Did You Know That Eating Well Can Improve Your Sex Life?
What you eat doesn’t just change how you feel, it changes how your body works. And guess what? Eating well can improve your libido.
Your sex drive is correlated to how well your body functions. Not in the mood? Is it a Monday? Was it stressful at work? Think back: did you eat a fast food meal or drink lots of soda, for example? Here we are going to talk about the science behind what you eat and your sex drive. Feeling in the mood is important for enjoyment, fertility and for your lifelong health.
Let’s take a look at what to do and what not to do for a more pleasurable life.
Food and your sex-drive
In this time of COVID-19, stress, anxiety and isolation, you might notice your sex drive is a little lower. Go figure: the basis for good sex and pleasure is relaxation. We need to be relaxed to get there and it makes us relax, so it is a bit of CATCH-22 if you are not in the mood.
I frequently am asked natural ways to boost libido. Specifically, clients often wonder, “Does what I eat affect my libido?” The answer is—yes! Your diet effects your sex drive. Food and the supplements you take affect your libido. So does exercise, sleep, and your mental health (i.e. that stress level).
The Making of Hormones
What we never learned in sex-ed was about hormones, how hormones are made in the body and how they are influenced.
I have been asked, “How do fats affect hormones?” While the topic of hormones too much to cover here, you should know that hormones are made from cholesterol. Therefore, if you have very low cholesterol or body weight, you are going to be deficient in hormonal production. Therefore, eating healthy fat, such as organic/grass fed beef, butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and avocado, is necessary and eating enough food is important for your body to make hormones.
Sometimes, extreme athletes such as marathoners are known to have very low body-fat and female athletes can miss a period. This is a sign that your body is not ovulating and you do not have sufficient cholesterol to produce hormones. All hormones play a role in libido, but estrogen and testosterone are two notable ones that contribute.
Testing hormones
If you’re noticing low libido (and even if you’re not), I suggest getting a full hormonal panel for both you and your partner as a baseline. This includes, estrogen, testosterone, progesterone and DHEA. I prefer free testosterone as the marker. You can do this through your physician as a blood test or there are increasing numbers of saliva and urine tests available.
Testosterone
Testosterone is key for both men and women in terms of libido. Many people are familiar with the concept of “low T” and how it causes libido to nosedive. Testosterone can help men with sperm production and erectile function. For women, it appears to help increase sex drive, but the mechanism is less well understood.
The good news is that there are plenty of things both men and women can do with food and lifestyle to naturally increase testosterone. These foods are considered natural Viagra for men. ;)
The best natural testosterone boosters for low libido:
Honey
Garlic
Eggs
Almonds
Fatty fish like salmon or mackerel
Oysters
The mineral boron and libido
If you go upstream from testosterone, you’ll find you manufacture it naturally. Therefore, if you can support your own body’s manufacturing of testosterone then you can influence your body to make more.
On the supplement side, I love boron. The Boron is a trace mineral that’s important in the conversion of DHEA to testosterone. Boron is able to do many things in the body and it is one of my favorite go-to supplements. Studies show that adding 6 mg of Boron a day can improve testosterone in both men and women.
Boron-containing foods that support testosterone:
Raw honey
Plums
Prune juice
Avocado
Raisins
Peaches
Pears
Grape juice
Beans
Peanut butter
Including boron-containing, testosterone-boosting foods in your diet in addition to taking Boron as a supplement might give you the rev in your engine that you’ve been missing. This is functional medicine at work—trying to identify the root cause of your low testosterone. Eating these foods will not harm you if you have not had your testosterone tested.
Estrogen
While most women are likely to have sufficient estrogen in their body if they are within an average weight range, women who have less body-fat can be deficient.
Estrogen stores in body fat and if there are fewer fat cells, there is less estrogen. The surge you get before ovulation is estrogen rising in the body and you need sufficient estrogen to ovulate. I generally don’t recommend eating foods to support estrogen unless you have been found to have insufficient estrogen or are not cycling properly.
Phytoestrogens are a form of dietary estrogen that come from food. Phytoestrogens can enhance the natural hormone’s health benefits and decrease the symptoms associated with menopause.
Estrogen-building foods:
Tofu
Flax seeds
Sesame seeds
Soybeans
Hummus
Garlic
Dried fruit
Wholegrain bread
Fennel
Alfalfa sprout
Foods that in general increase libido
In addition to foods that support hormones, there is a group of foods that act through a variety of mechanisms to increase libido in general. Each has an added benefit. include the below foods as much as possible.
Food that increase libido:
Red wine—vasodilator, increases testosterone
Green tea—catechins, helps with blood flow, blood circulation
Fatty fish such as salmon/sardines—Omega-3’s, helps increase dopamine production and blood flow
Dark chocolate (70%)—flavonls, helps with blood flow, increases serotonin and dopamine, helps with mood
Pumpkin seeds—zinc, helps with fertility, egg and sperm quality
Oysters—zinc, helps with fertility, egg and sperm quality
Steak/beef—saturated fat supports hormone production
Watermelon—B5 and lycopene, vasodilator, works like natural Viagra
Pomegranate juice—increases testosterone in men and women
Avocado-—vitamin E, improves circulation and heart health
Why is sex good for you?
Getting your libido in top shape is good for your sex life. Why is sex good for you? Regular sex has a host of health and psychological benefits.
Regular sex is good for your immune sytem, stress level, blood pressure, sleep, heart health and even your bladder control. Sex can tone the pelvic floor for women and reduce risk of incontinence or leaking. Sex can serve as exercise, just a lot more fun than running on a cold winter morning. :) The benefits of increased blood flow, relaxation and stress reduction all in one place.
As humans, the physical and emotional connection is important for bonding. Yet, Americans are having less sex now than they were earlier and this is true for both married and unmarried couples. It’s unclear exactly why Americans are having less sex, but the study was cited before COVID-19.
The fact that work is now ubiquitous, and ever present in our homes and bedrooms during the pandemic, is not helpful. The inability to go out on a romantic date at a restaurant or a movie, or take a relaxing vacation, is taking a toll on our mental health and likely our sexual health, too.
All the more reason, to keep phones and computers out of the bedroom! The bedroom should only be used for sleep and sex .
Fertilty Struggles and sex
When you are intently focused on the end goal of having a baby, it’s easy to lose sight of the baby-making process.
Not being albe to get pregnant or having a miscarriage takes away the care-free feeling many envision when starting a family. If you are doing IVF, the hormones, the needles, the astronomical financial cost, the sterile clinics and the fear of the phone call to say whether you have made it to the next step or not, can send anyone’s stress sky high and squash any existing libido.
For those who have struggled, sex may seem like one other thing to worry about. The tension in your relationship during fertility struggles can be significant. Both partners feel the pressure—and sex can help strengthen the bond of the couple. Eating all the foods listed here can help with general health as well as libido.
The upside of good nutrition
You likely recognize all the foods mentioned here. They all have benefits beyond libido—heart health, good circulation and blood flow, and improving feel-good neurotransmitters. The benefit of eating really good food is the food loves you back in more ways than one. So try to incorporate these foods for better health, better sex, and just feeling better overall, too.
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Annina is a PhD, Registered Dietitian, Licensed Dietitian Nutritionist and Board Certified in Functional Medicine specializing in nutrition and functional medicine for fertility, pregnancy and new mom and baby. She has 7 years of practice experience and has co-authored several books on infant, child nutrition and obesity prevention.