The first time I got my testosterone levels tested was in 2012.
They came back normal. Even healthy.
I wasn’t pleased.
Because back then, I wasn’t feeling particularly normal or healthy.
I was 32 at the time, but I had less interest in sex than when I was 9 years old.
I wasn’t sleeping very well, and most days I was as tired as a used towel.
And though I did my squats and deadlifts and even hip thrusters, I wasn’t getting much stronger or more muscular.
So regardless of the reassuring lab results, I kept worrying about my testosterone levels. And I kept getting them tested, until predictably, I got one result that said — LOW.
“I knew it!” I said triumphantly.
And I set off on a multi-year crusade to get my already-normal testosterone levels back to normal.
So I loaded up on the grass-fed butter and vitamin A…
I made sure to avoid handling receipts, because, you know, CHEMICALS…
And I constantly scoured the Internet for supplements from the mountains of Peru or the jungles of Cambodia that had some bro science claims about improving your manliness.
Unfortunately, nothing changed.
My testosterone levels stayed mainly normal (“Lies!”) and I didn’t feel much progress in practical terms (“I don’t understand, you want to come over to my place tonight? To watch a movie? Why?”)
There was no saving me. I slowly resigned myself to a life of undiagnosed low testosterone levels.
And then, while browsing a science magazine at lunch, I came across an intriguing medical study:
“YOGURT INCREASES TESTICULAR WEIGHT”
It turns out some scientists, at MIT no less, fed a bunch of undersexed male mice a yogurt made with a specific strain of probiotics.
Result?
Shinier mouse fur.
Lower mouse inflammation.
Heavier mouse testicles (yes, they killed the mice and cut off their testicles and put the testicles on a mice-testicle-sized scale).
And finally: more mouse testosterone!
Now, I bring all this up for two reasons.
First, because, while a caricature, it is all true. The probiotic strain in question is called Lactobacillus reuteri ATCC 6475. A bit of googling will quickly lead you to the MIT study, as well as to a recipe for making your own L. reuteri yogurt (which tastes delicious, and, you know, works, at least in my experience).
But the other reason has to do with copywriting.
Because this post uses the same basic skeleton as an advertorial I wrote recently.
It’s a good skeleton for introducing a new product, particularly one that’s got some science behind it.
If you look over this post, you can probably glean this skeleton easily with your X-ray vision.
But if you cannot, then you will want to read my upcoming book on advertorials, where I will go over this particularly skeleton in detail, along with other go-to skeletons I’ve used for advertorials.
You can sign up here to get notified when I finish and release this book: