QUESTION: "My husband is overweight and has little desire for sex. I’ve read in magazines about sexual fitness, and I’m wondering if you could just explain it to me, and whether this is something that my husband could benefit from."

ANSWER: When you’re sick and laid up in bed, very often the first thing to go is the appetite. Sometimes that takes the form of not eating at all, while other times it translates into scarfing down whatever the hell happens to be lying around without regard to taste or nutritional value.
It stands to reason that hunger for sex functions along similar principles. If your guy isn’t sexually healthy, he is more likely to skip “meals” altogether or mechanically address his baseline needs in the least exertive, most efficient means possible.

In his book on male sexual health, The Hardness Factor, Dr. Steven Lamm cites a British study in which men who reported having three or more orgasms per week experienced a 50 percent reduction in heart attacks and strokes compared to those who had sex less frequently. Lamm’s book was inspired by the correlations he made in his own practice between the diminished erectile quality of his male patients and conditions such as obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension, depression, sleep disorders, diabetes, and heart disease,

“On the surface, it looks as though the principal message of this study is that having sex reduces the incidence of heart attack and stroke and lets you live longer. In fact, just the opposite is true: being healthy allows you to have as much sex as you want.”

So, Is Your Guy Sexually Fit?

Does he exercise? Regular aerobic workouts keep the blood flowing and the arteries producing nitric oxide. Nitric Oxide is the life-blood (literally) of the male erection and is essential to sexual arousal. To that end, you’d be amazed how many guys tell me that they often feel their horniest post-exercise. Not only is overall vascularity heightened during aerobic exercise, but feel-good endorphins (natural opiates) that contribute to relaxation and sexual arousal are also released.

Exercise also plays a major role in generating positive self-esteem, perhaps the most powerful sexual enhancer. Women aren’t the only ones to suffer from diminished desire due to insecurity about fitness and physical appearance. You wouldn’t believe how many men suffer from poor body-image. And as women know all too well, low self-esteem dampens sexual desire. This often leads men to focus all of their sexual attention on arousal-based erection/orgasm (as a means of blotting out their feelings of undesirability), which, in turns, lead to less satisfying, less frequent sex for both partners.

Is he eating well? A poor diet is a major contributor to heart disease, high cholesterol, arterial plaque, and high blood pressure among other conditions, all of which inhibit blood flow to the penis and negatively impact erectile quality and desire. So what’s the “desire-diet” key? Eat for the heart, and you’re eating for desire. Now I’m not about to prescribe a precise food regimen (there are enough diet choices on the bookshelf without adding another to the mix), but I will tell you that I was personally inspired and transformed by Dr. Joel Furhman’s book Eat to Live, which I recommend whole-heartedly. The key to his diet is the idea of nutrient density. In short, when the ratio of nutrients to calories in a food is high, as is the case with most vegetables, fat burns off and health is maximized. Hence, the more nutrient-dense foods you consume, the more you will be satisfied with less calories, and the less you will crave more high-calorie foods. As a result of practicing the Eat to Live approach, I no longer just love to eat; I eat to love too!

Is he stressed out? Not only does stress mar sexual performance, but the medications commonly used to treat it, such as anti-anxiety drugs, tend to depress the libido and inhibit desire. But with or without pharmaceutical aids or band-aids, men, like women, feel less sexual when they’re emotionally distressed.