“Can Cardio Workout Get Rid Of Your Man Boobs or Gynecomastia?”

A lot of people once they have discovered they have man boobs, start to do workout hoping that they can be reduced if not eliminated. However, there are a few types of man boobs that one must know. Gynecomastia or man boobs due to excessive of glandular tissue can never be reduced by any exercises. At this moment, the only way to get rid of man boobs is through surgery. However, if your man boobs are due to excessive of fat (also known as pseudo-gynecomastia), then workout may be one of the solutions. Get your doctor to check the type of your man boobs or else you can self-examine by using the method illustrated in this blog.

If you are thinking of any exercises that can just get rid of chest fat alone, you are wrong as you cannot perform spot fat reducing. When you perform fat loss workout, it is meant for the whole body. In order for the body to start burn off your fat, your body metabolism need to burn off all the carbohydrate stored in your body (glycogen) first. Once it is exhausted, then your body metabolism will start to look for fat stored in your body for burning.

So which types of cardio should you do? It is depends on individual physical, health and fitness levels. If you are sedentary type, new in fitness or extremely overweight, you might want to start with moderately-paced walking from 30 minutes till an hour. As you progress, you want to increase to your pace and speed so that you can increase your body metabolism level. If you want to exercise indoor, you can try walking on treadmill machine. However, you have to take note, walking burns little calorie or fat unless you walk with extremely fast paces. Therefore, you need to progress to more intensity cardio training like running, sprinting and interval training if you seriously want to burn off your fat.

“Aerobic exercise such as walking, jogging or cycling is the only type of physical
activity that directly burns body fat. For fat to be burned, oxygen must be present and
this occurs only through aerobic exercise.”
- Cliff Sheets, Certified Clinical Nutritionist and author of “Lean Bodies”

Interval training is an advanced level of cardio training which has higher level of fat burning potential. It alternates between low pace of exercise and high pace of exercise and is repeated over a period of time. You can use it for your walking, running, cycling or any other type of cardio exercises.

High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) takes one more level higher such as you will perform high intensity exercise until you feel you lose your breath during your high pace exercise, then you will lower to your low pace exercise just to catch up your breath. Research showed high intensity exercise increases usage of free-fatty acids after exercise to re-synthesize glycogen. This explain why HIIT is so powerful in burning fat and it is by far the second most powerful fat burning exercise program. Do you want to know the most powerful and efficient fat burning program? You can download a FREE report of another special HIIT program by signing up at the above opt-in box.

Cardio training is best to be performed in the morning (before your breakfast of course) because in the morning your carbohydrate (ie. glucose) level is low after hours of fasting. It is faster for your body metabolism to burn off all your carbohydrate and move on to burn your fat layer. You will feel more energetic throughout the day as the high metabolism stays elevated during a period of time.

In order to get rid of your chest fat, you need to combine cardio training with weight training. As Chris Aceto, author of “Everything You Need to Know About Fat Loss” said the fastest way to lose fat is with hard, heavy, to-failure weight training with 6 to 12
reps and don’t rely on aerobics exclusively. We shall cover this in the next post.

Disclaimer: See your physician before starting any exercise. You must have a complete physical examination if you are sedentary, if you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes, if you are overweight, or if you are over 30 years old.

“How to Detect Gynecomastia or Man Boobs?”

If you feel that you have enlarged breasts and worry of them, you may want to perform this simple test.

A genuine gynecomastia has the rubbery tissue extends out symmetrically from the nipple, provided the tissue is larger than 0.5mm in diameter. However, pseudogynecomastia consists of fat tissue which can be tested with thumb and forefinger without any resistance. If there is a mass located further from the nipple and have other symptoms like skin dimpling, nipple retraction or discharge, then it may be a sign of breast cancer.

Doctor will perform more thorough examinations, ie.
• Sign of liver, thyriod or kidney diseases
• Sign of hypogonadism (underdeveloped sex organs)
• Sign of feminization
• Size of testicles and any presence of nodules
• Blood test on various hormone level, ie testosterone, estrogen; serum
• Mammogram

The doctor will also query you on the following items
• Family history of gynecomastia
• Age and duration of gynecomastia
• Abusive use of drug or alcohol or steriod
• Side-effects from current prescription medications, over-the-counter medications

“Can soy product cause your gynecomastia or man boobs?”

There was a special case of gynecomastia or man boobs problem reported in one of the clinical courses. A man was consulted by a doctor in the endocrinology clinic in the assessment of the bilateral gynecomastia of 6 months. He also complained on the erectile dysfunction and the decline of libido. Based on initial test reported no change in the size of the testicles, not criminal trauma of the testicles, sexually transmitted diseases, no headaches, blurred vision, and no change in muscle mass or strength. Laboratory of the initial evaluation showed estrogen and estradiol concentration must be 4 times more than the upper limit of the range of reference. According to the results of the testicles ultrasound, computed tomography of the chest, abdomen and pelvis imaging and positron emission tomography were normal. As a result of the normal outcome of the review of imaging, the patient was again questioned, and he described a daily dose of 3 quarts of soya milk. Following the decision of drinking soy milk, and his boobs tenderness resolved and his estradiol concentration slowly returned to normal.  

An unusual case of gynecomastia associated with soy product consumption.

However, this was a very special case as there is no other research so far able to prove that dietary soy can cause gynecomastia. Below is a research done on the effect of isoflavonoids derived from soy protein on adult male macaques and there was no sign of gynecomastia.

Dietary soy protein containing isoflavonoids does not adversely affect the reproductive tract

Even soy protein formula (SPF) is considered safe for children from any gynecomastia effect, no doubt there is phyto-estrogen in it.

Soy protein formulas in children: no hormonal effects in long-term feeding.

“Big Warning for using Flaxseed for Gynecomastia treatment”

There are some people claims that taking flaxseed can help to reduce gynecomastia or man boobs. However, research shows there are some mixed result on the effectiveness of using flaxseed.
Flaxseeds contain high levels of lignans and omega-3 fatty acids. Although a lot of claims that flaxseed can help to treat breast cancer but in actual fact, it may not as it has the estrogen receptor antagonist properties. As for why it is not suitable for gynecomastia, it is because lignans has phytoestrogen (plant estrogen) and may process estrogen mimicker properties. Therefore, instead of reduce the occurrence of gynecomastia, it may increase the size of them.

In addition, there are other side effects and warnings of using flaxseed.
1. Allergies for some people who are allergic to flaxseed
2. May increase the risk of prostate cancer
3. Reduce the absorption of other medicines, vitamins or supplements taken by mouth
4. Raw flaxseed contains cyanide
5. May cause mania or hypomania in people with bipolar disorder
6. May obstruct the intestines for people with history of narrowing intestines or esophagus
7. Increase blood sugar level for diabetes patients
8. Increase risk of bleeding

You can refer to these reliable links for more details of the risks
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/patient-flaxseed.html
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/flaxseed/

However, one good news is flaxseed oil does not contain lignans, which means no estrogen mimicker properties. It contains alpha-linolenic acid component which claim to lower lipid or cholesterol level. Therefore, it may be helpful for pseudo gynecomastia patient but it is best to check with your doctor before trying it.

“Gynecomastia is due to estrogen in our food and water?”

Is it true one of the causes of gynecomastia was due to present of estrogen (female hormone) in our food chain and water supply?

Let us talk about our drinking water supply causing gynecomastia first. It is quite common that we recycle our waste water from our home, particularly in the areas where the water is scare. Generally, the water from the treatment plant is safe for consumption but there are some chemical compounds that they do not treat such as estrogen or estrogen mimickers. This estrogen hormone comes from female who take contraceptive pill while estrogen mimickers could be nonylphenols, come from paints, rubber, cosmetics and plastics. Research shows 80 percent of the rivers in US in 30 states contain these hormones. This hormone estrogen is then been picked up by fish in the sea or river which causes fish to change its sex as reported by researchers in Colorado.  Read this interesting article and watch the video too.
Make fish become female?

In another scenario, for three years, Canadian scientists have put birth-control pills into a remote Ontario lake to measure this impact. The results: All male fish in the lake - from tiny tadpoles to large trout - were “feminized,” meaning they had egg proteins growing abnormally in their bodies.
http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/press/2003/2003-0627-KR-estrogenizedfish.htm

Men who consume the water may develop man boobs or gynecomastia later. As Alan Kingdon, M.D., a cosmetic surgeon and medical director of the Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in London said “I’m sure that estrogen in the food cycle must be a factor.”

As for food, quite common we hear about the usage of hormone to boost the production of cattle. This hormone is then passed to humans when they consume the meat and may cause man boobs.

In a January 31, 2008 article, “Toward A Cleaner, More Effective Method For Destroying Hormone-like Pollutants In Wastewater” from the American Chemical Society, researchers have tested a new catalyst called Fe-TAML or Fe-B*. In the presence of hydrogen peroxide, the catalyst quickly and effectively destroyed various forms of estrogens typically found in post-treatment wastewater, removing 95 percent of the chemicals—including Ethinylestradiol—in 15 minutes. Hopefully, this method can be implemented and help to reduce the occurrence of gynecomastia

“Exercises for getting rid of man boobs”

First, we need to identify the causes of man boobs. If the cause of it is due to fat deposits (commonly known as pseudo-gynecomastia), then taking specific exercises to reduce the chest fat may be beneficial. Otherwise, if it is due to excess of glandular tissue, then the only way to get rid of man boobs is through surgery. Therefore, it is advisable to check with your doctor or physician to find out the cause of it before embark into these exercises.

The recommended exercise for pseudo-gynecomastia is chest exercise using bench press, pec deck, Swiss ball fly and chess weight. Pec deck is a weight machine where you sit and press your arms together. Swiss ball exercise is where you lay your back on the ball, grab hold of dumbbells and move your arms acts as you are flying.

Below is a series of exercises which are beneficial for man boobs
1. Wide-arm Press Up
Basically, it is normal press up exercise but extend out your arm to twice of your shoulder width and with your fingers pointing forwards.

2. Dumbbell Chest Press
You need to lie down on a flat bench and with your hands holding dumbbells. First, you need to hold the dumbbells above your chest, arms straight up from the shoulders and the knuckles facing toward your feet. Next, you need to lower down the dumbbells till your chest level. Subsequently, press the dumbbells up again.
You can repeat the exercise by having the palms facing each others and toward his body.
There are other variations for this exercise, ie. incline or decline bench presses. It also can be performed on weight stack equipment.

3. Bent-over row
Bend forward at the waist with elbows out to sides and hands dangling below, holding weights. Row the weights up to just below nipple-height. This exercise is for targeting the rhomboid muscles

4. Bent-over fly
Repeat Bent-over row exercise but with arms stay straight as you smoothly raise and lower them out to the sides.

5. Cable Crossovers
Stand in front of a pulley station. Hold the two handles horizontally at your side. Slowly, pull forward until your hands cross, then release slowly. Again, aim for three sets of eight, and increase at each session.

You can get more exercises, specifically to sculpture your chest from this chest exercise ebook. This book shows you how to work on the chest exercises which can be done at home or in the gym. You can get the book by clicking the link below,

However, if you are looking forward to lose more fat and fast, have a chiseled chest what most women love to see, then I recommend you to look into this training manual. In this manual, the author requires you to do 3 workouts per week and each session is not more than 50 minutes to achieve your goals.

“Lavender and Tea Tree Oils contribute to pre-pubertal gynecomastia”

There are researches show usage of lavender and tea tree oils can cause gynecomastia or man boobs problem to young boys. A 4 years boy was brought to a doctor attention on increased of breast size about 2.5cm. The patient’s mother reported that she frequently applied lavender oil to his skin. The gynecomastia problem resolved 4 months after the mother stopped applying lavender oil to his son.

Another case, a 10 years boy used hair gel and shampoo daily which contained lavender oil and tea tree. He complained on having tender breast buds, measuring 3.5 cm width and length. After 9 months of discontinuation of the product, the gynecomastia resolved.

These two types of oils have anti-androgenic properties as it inhibits the production of male hormone. This causes more female hormone than male hormone in the body which subsequently causing gynecomastia. In addition, young boys have more delicate skin which increases the absorption of these essential oils into their body.

Therefore, all parents should take note when applying balm, ointment or any lotions to young boys. They should ensure there is no ingredient with lavender oils or tea tree oils in the products. Highlight this to their kids also, to prevent them from using the products.

“Causes of gynecomastia or man boobs”

Gynecomastia or man boobs is quite common happen to boys during puberty and some adults. Why it happens to some people and not all boys or adults? There are many possible causes of gynecomastia, which you can refer to a long list of causes below (which may sound technical jargons to some of us). However, the common cause is imbalance of androgen hormone (male hormone) against estrogen hormone (female hormone).  You may question why male has female hormone. Every normal male produces very small amount of female hormone but larger quantity of male hormone. Due to the larger volume of male hormone, the body suppresses any female characters/features in any normal male. However, the body produces lower quantity of male hormone than female hormone, man boobs or gynecomastia start to occur.

There are also many possible causes of imbalance of hormone (which causes gynecomastia), such aging and obesity. Body fat can cause conversion of some male hormone to female hormone (in scientific term : aromatization of androstenedione to estrone and testosterone to estradiol).  Body fat tends to increase for old people unless they perform regular exercises. Any drug which suppresses the production of male hormone is also one of the causes, example drug for prostate cancer.

The abuse use of drugs, ie. marijuana, and excessive intake of alcohol can cause man boobs problem. The problem will disappear the moment they stop the intake of the drugs.

Doctors and researchers have been studying of using drugs to stop this conversion of hormones. They have used testolactone to reduce the size of breast but not completely disappear.

It is advisable to check with your doctors or physicians to find out the cause of gynecomastia and type of treatment suitable to you if you suspect that you are having man boobs problem.

List of all the causes of gynecomastia or man boobs

1. Physiological
• Neonatal
• Pubertal
• Aging

2. Pathological
• Idiopathic
• Drug induced
• Increased serum estrogen
• Decreased testosterone synthesis
• Androgen resistance due to androgen receptor defects
• Other

3. Hormones
• Androgens
• Anabolic steroids
• Chorionic gonadotropin
• Estrogens
• Growth hormone

4. Antiandrogens/inhibitors of androgen synthesis
• Cyproterone acetate
• Flutamide
• Finasteride

5. Antibiotics
• Ethionamide
• Isoniazid
• Ketoconazole
• Metronidazole

6. Anti-ulcer drugs
• Cimetidine
• Ranitidine
• Omeprazole

7. Cancer chemotherapeutic drugs
• Alkylating agents
• Methotrexate
• Vinca alkaloids
• Combination chemotherapy

8. Cardiovascular drugs
• Amiodarone
• Captopril
• Digitoxin
• Diltiazem
• Enalapril
• Methyldopa
• Nifedipine
• Reserpine
• Spironolactone
• Verapamil

9. Psychoactive drugs
• Diazepam
• Haloperidol
• Phenothiazines
• Tricyclic antidepressants

10. Drugs of abuse
• Alcohol
• Amphetamines
• Heroin
• Marijuana (phytoestrogens)
• Methadone

11. Other
• Auranofin
• Diethylpropion
• Domperidone
• Etretinate
• Metoclopramide
• Phenytoin
• Penicillamine
• Sulindac
• Theophylline

“Can Turmeric help to get rid of man boobs problem?”

According to Wikipedia, turmeric is a plant of ginger family, which originated from tropical South Asia. Normally, it is grounded and used for as a spice in curries. However, lately, there is some research shows that there is an active ingredient called curcuminoids or commonly referred to as curcumin, in turmeric which has plenty of health benefits. It is well known for its antitumor, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. As for gynecomastia treatment, it is said to be able to balance up the hormone level (estrogen against androgen hormone) and burning off the chest fat.

Currently, it is commonly used by prostate cancer patients who are under medication, as the prostate cancer medicine can cause gynecomastia. For best result, it is advisable to get fresh grated turmeric root from supermarket, preferably 20 grams per day so that you can be sure on the freshness and the active ingredient is still intact. However, if you find it is difficult to obtain or to consume such a big quantity, you can always buy the turmeric in powder or capsule form from any health supplement stores or from internet. You should try it out for several months and measure on the result.

You may ask is there any side effects of using it for treating gynecomastia. Well, before you start trying it, it is advisable to consult it with your doctor or physician. Currently, research shows that it is not suitable for those who have gallstones, ulcer, liver or bile obstruction, pregnant or breastfeeding mother. Large quantity of turmeric or curcumin can cause bleeding or bruises or ulcers.

You can refer to the following websites for some positive results for man boobs problem, after taking turmeric or curcumin.

http://www.phoenix5.org/Basics/treatsides/gyneTurmeric.html

“What is Man Boobs?”

Man boobs, also known as gynecomastia or gynaecomastia is breast enlargement in males due to the development of abnormally big mammary glands. It begins with a small lump beneath the nipple, which can be tender for some cases. Usually the enlargement is bilateral but can also be bilateral for some cases. There are cases which are due to fat deposition only which is termed as pseudogynecomastia. This man boobs problem can happen to any babies, teenagers or adult males.

In babies, gynecomastia problem is caused by hormone estrogen passed from the mothers during pregnancy, which normally will disappear within one month time. 

In teenagers, almost two-thirds of them will experience gynecomastia during their puberty and the good thing is it will also disappear on its own later in life without any treatment. However, some of them may be due to obesity.

In adult, most of the man boobs problems are due imbalance of sex hormones (more female hormone estrogen or lack of male hormone testosterone) and obesity.  There are other possible causes ie. certain prescription of drugs, liver or lung cancer, cancer of adrenal glands, cancer of testicles, steroid, alcohol and marijuana.

Generally, man boobs is not harmful but for some cases, it is a symptom for other serious illnesses. Therefore, it is wise to seek advice from doctor or physician.