The False Prophets Of Wellness

Muscle, fat loss, wisdom… Whatever you seek, there is now an entrepreneurial guru armed with hashtags who claims to have the answer. But is it gospel?

- Nate Green

I still remember when I stumbled upon the bodybuilding website Testosterone Nation. I was a skinny, 17-year-old kid with no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I devoured every article by every fitness expert on the site. They told me to train hard, eat big and try to make something of myself. So I did. That was 16 years ago. In that time, I gained 15kg of muscle, became a personal trainer, started a popular blog and scored a book deal to write a workout guide. I began to receive thousands of emails from men around the world seeking my advice.

One was from someone who wanted to know if having sex with his girlfriend would reduce his testosterone levels and compromise his ability to gain muscle. I told him no, it wouldn’t – I’d googled research that said as much. Even if it did, having sex was way better than having big biceps. I still stand by that.