Eat like a man to look like a man. For years now, the so-called experts have told you to avoid the foods you love. That you're supposed to ditch the weight room and jog your way to maximum fitness. And that testosterone—the hormone that makes you a man—is actually a problem for you, rather than the solution to your problems. In the meantime, American men have kept getting fatter and more frustrated. Which is why we've looked into all this, and from what we've learned, we can tell you—the know-it-alls are know-nothings. The Testosterone Advantage Plan is about realizing your full potential as a man, and will: -show you how nature intended you to eat. -explain how the male body differs in its nutritional needs from the female body—especially when it comes to the proteins, carbohydrates, and fats that are not bad for you. -give you a superior workout regimen to help you attain the muscular physique you've always wanted. -explain how you can boost your testosterone and energy levels naturally, without supplements or quick-fix fads. -help you tick off the long list of benefits you'll likely reap in terms of energy and enthusiasm, power and potency, confidence and charisma. This much you know: What you've done in the past hasn't worked. Why not try it our way? You have everything to —and nothing to lose except your gut. Susan M. Kleiner, R.D., Ph.D. author of Power Eating The more we learn about hormonal control of the body, the more we understand that there's almost nothing physiologically the same between men and women. The Testosterone Advantage Plan, written just for men, promotes scientifically based approaches to fat loss and muscle gain. Lou Schuler is a National Magazine Award-winning journalist, a certified strength and conditioning specialist, a contributing editor to Men's Health magazine, and the author of many popular books about fitness and nutrition, including five in the New Rules of Lifting series with coauthor Alwyn Cosgrove. He recently published his first novel, Saints Alive. Chapter 1: Our Burgers, Ourselves Are you a man who's interested in looking his best? Being his best? Staying physically and physiologically at the top of his game? We feel for you. We really do. That's because you've been overlooked. And you've been misled. For 20 years, the fitness and weight-loss industries have had little to offer you. For 20 years, you've been overfed but undernourished. Overworked but underexercised. Overanalyzed but still misunderstood. Along the way, well-meaning people -- often with impressive credentials -- have tried to help you. They began by steering you away from the foods you enjoy. When you didn't take an immediate liking to the foods they wanted you to eat instead, other friendly folks in the packaged-food business stepped up with better-tasting versions. When the more palatable food made you fat, yet another group of sincere individuals chimed in to show you a type of exercise that helped you lose some of the fat -- but also caused your body to lose a lot of its muscle and your joints to cry out in protest. At the end of it all, not only are you still out of shape but now you have weak, arthritic knees. Why? Because all those wonderful diets and fitness programs you were given don't work. Not for you. Not for most men. You're going to be exposed to a lot of eyebrow-raising notions in this book. We'll tell you that the Food Guide Pyramid doesn't work for us men. A low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet doesn't work for us. (Except, maybe, for the marathoners among us. For the rest of the male population, a low-calorie diet consisting mostly of carbs is a metabolic and physiological disaster waiting to happen.) Most forms of aerobic exercise don't work for us. For that matter, even weight lifting, as you were traditionally taught it -- "Grab X number of pounds, lift 10 times, do three sets, repeat" -- doesn't work. Not the way it's supposed to. On what do we base such bold assertions? For starters, decades after the American Heart Association and other leading voices began singing the praises of "low fat" and "exercise," the average guy is more out of shape than his 1960s predecessor. Between 1960 and 1994, the percentage of obese men leaped from 10.4 to 19.9 percent of the total U.S. male population, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Sounds pretty bad? Some estimates are worse. Indeed, the latest government statistics tell us that more than half of all Americans are now overweight. Frankly, we're angry about all this. We're angry with the nutrition establishment, which bullied us into eating less fat, less protein, and much, much more carbohydrate. This much-ballyhooed dietary template has made us fatter than ever before, slowing our metabolisms and screwing with our hormones -- specifically, our testosterone. We're angry with the food industry, which has co-opted the low-fat paradigm and drained whatever virtue it may have contain