Thank you for your learned response.

Hope I don’t frustrate you by being dense, but I gather that nettle actually increases aromatization to estrogen, but to what degree?  Perhaps it is ideal for me, to mitigate over-suppression by my intake of 3000 mg. chrysin daily.

I practice time restricted feeding (15 hour fast), rather than true fasting.  I exercise daily, whether with weights (usually) or cross-country skiing.  10,000 IU of D3 on most days (sometimes only 5000, I lean towards more is better).  3,500 mg. glucosamine daily.  Olive, avocado or coconut are my only dietary vegetable oils.  No supplementary calcium intake, just lots of leafy greens.  Use 1200 mg. tongkat ali and consume abundant goat yogurt made from lactobacillus reuteri 6475 and 17938 for testosterone boosting effects.  75 mg. DHEA and 100 mg. pregenenolone daily.

Goals are for high free testosterone, low DHT, physiologically optimal estrogen for male.  Good suggestion to test for T and E.

Objective is to maintain a 20 year old’s youthful physique.  Seem to desire the beauty of a female bodybuilder’s look more so than typically male.  Do settle for the appearance a male ballet dancer (which I have been).  Talking the wife into returning to ballet classes with me.  Apart from an arthritic knee-cap, I’m ready.  Maybe stem-cell therapy could fix that too.  At 63, I am not ready to give up my youth.

Thanks for shedding light on the role ketones can play in breast growth. My problem with being on a ketogenic diet was that I wasn’t getting the daily calories for even a sedentary lifestyle (college student with no part time job). I had to switch to low carb/Mediterranean diet to make up for it. I enjoyed being skinny on keto, but my boobs suffered and lost size since I wasn’t eating enough. It also probably didn’t help that I was fasting on a 16/4 which was basically OMAD (one meal a day). Because of carbs, even only consuming whole grain, my stomach sticks out now; really frustrating. And my boobs haven’t changed for the better either. They’re still the same. Kinda lost on what to do with my situation. Should I go back to keto but no fasting and eat 3 meals a day?

My experience with keto diet is that you have to get your daily calories from fats.  Fats don't produce insulin response, and therefore do not contribute to visceral fat storage.  Carbs, on the other hand, will spike insulin every time.  My observation and experience is that insulin triggers abdominal/visceral fat storage.  I've shrunk my waist to under 28 inches on a 6 ft. frame by optimizing caloric intake, whilst curtailing insulin response.

If my 25 year experience with all this is of value, I can say that for weight loss purposes, many meals per day, with about 4 hours in between meals, is best.  Any time I have eaten only one or two meals per day, I gain weight.  For the renewal purposes of fasting induced autophagy, intermittent true fasting would be best.  Time restricted feeding is a compromise for me, until I get around to doing a true fast.

Thank you for your learned response.
Hope I don’t frustrate you by being dense,

You're welcome. No worries, feel free to ask questions...anytime , I don't mind.

but I gather that nettle actually increases aromatization to estrogen, but to what degree? Perhaps it is ideal for me, to mitigate over-suppression by my intake of 3000 mg. chrysin daily.

Or, drop the nettle and decrease the chrysin?. Take a look at Boron, it ideally promotes free T and beneficial for Estrogen too, in my opinion it does the same thing chrysin and nettle does (together)...but also works as an anti-inflammatory, protects against heavy-metal toxicity, improves the brains cognitive performance and other helpful technical stuff lol. Chrysin is understood to have poor bioavailability, so one would have to take a significant amount to achieve desired biological effects.

In other words, I think one could walk the tightrope of expressing both E and T (but with more Free T expression) with boron, but not too feminizing. I get you're trying to be the best version of yourself, which btw I totally respect. At one point in time I felt the same way (@ your goal), but then estrogen did it's dance to my synapses and here I am...boom," in Transition " lol.

Boron
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712861/

I get you're trying to be the best version of yourself, which btw I totally respect. At one point in time I felt the same way (@ your goal), but then estrogen did it's dance to my synapses and here I am...boom," in Transition " lol.

Would you be willing to elaborate upon this?  Was it readily noticeable?  Was it gradual or did it hit you all at once?

Thanks!

Thanks!  I had not realized this aspect of boron's importance.  Nonetheless, I have supplemented with a minimum of 3 mg. boron/day for the last 20 years.  2 decades of aggressive supplementation have hopefully yielded some benefits.  Nice to know this is one of them.

Great thread, recently starting taking Boron worried about heavy metals, and I do the liver detox every other month. So I added MSM and Boron. I think is ever other day for the standard low does Boron fine?

And how much and at what time to take MSM?

thanks!

I saw these threaf on the web, jumped back did a search and found this thread, thanks again Lotus.

https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24268550
and
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1566640/

Thanks for shedding light on the role ketones can play in breast growth. My problem with being on a ketogenic diet was that I wasn’t getting the daily calories for even a sedentary lifestyle (college student with no part time job). I had to switch to low carb/Mediterranean diet to make up for it. I enjoyed being skinny on keto, but my boobs suffered and lost size since I wasn’t eating enough. It also probably didn’t help that I was fasting on a 16/4 which was basically OMAD (one meal a day). Because of carbs, even only consuming whole grain, my stomach sticks out now; really frustrating. And my boobs haven’t changed for the better either. They’re still the same. Kinda lost on what to do with my situation. Should I go back to keto but no fasting and eat 3 meals a day?

Apologies for the late response. Perhaps you might have a gut flora imbalance?. Think about adding a probiotic like Bifidobacterium or Lactobacillus. Bloating could be a could be a sign you're not getting enough fiber, (soaked organic fenugreek seeds are high in fiber). As an added benefit Fenugreek has "diosgenin" which improves glucose metabolism and reduces inflammation. In my experience being on keto, I try to keep carbs @ 10-20 grams (no grains). As I've reported in other posts, ketones are involved in initiating the cAMP/CREB/PKA pathway, which is a pro-growth path. The question I would ask you is do you use ketone test strips to check ketone levrks.

Further more, in this study (below) serum estradiol levels increased 120% in the treatment group over the course of the study, from 131.22 pmol/L at baseline to 288.46 pmol/L at 90 days.
https://www.naturalmedicinejournal.com/journal/2017-04/fenugreek-standardized-extract-menopausal-symptoms


Diosgenin--a Growth Stimulator of Mammary Gland of Ovariectomized Mouse.
Abstract

Estrogenic action of diosgenin on the mammary epithelium of ovariectomized (OVX) mouse has been reported. Diosgenin when administered (sc) at the dose levels of 20 and 40 mg/kg body weight for a period of 15 days stimulated the growth of mammary epithelium. This was indicated by the increase in DNA content, increase in number of ducts and appearance of terminal endbuds. There was a significant increase in the mammary development scores in the presence of diosgenin. Concomitant treatment of estrogen and diosgenin showed augmentation of estrogenic effect of diosgenin especially at the higher dose level (40 mg/kg body wt). Diosgenin showed a lack of progesterogenic action as was apparent from the absence of alveolar development even in the presence of exogenous estrogen.

Wild Yam has diosgenin too.

I will respond asap to others asking question, again... apologies.

I get you're trying to be the best version of yourself, which btw I totally respect. At one point in time I felt the same way (@ your goal), but then estrogen did it's dance to my synapses and here I am...boom," in Transition " lol.

Would you be willing to elaborate upon this?  Was it readily noticeable?  Was it gradual or did it hit you all at once?

Thanks!

Hi Trouble, early on (pursuing NBE @star date 2012) I had no intentions of hopping the fence (towards transition)...but fate had other plans, as they say.

At first Lotus followed the pied piper at a distance, but on hearing the tune just had to dance!