Body in a bottle

The Big Supplement Rant


A little background on myself, I worked at vitamin shoppe / vitamin world for 4 years. I have seen thousands of dollars go into these drawers only to later in life realize that its mostly a waste. Supplement companies make huge promises of body transformations in a short time making everyone intrigued to see if this new supplement works. I am going to shed some light on these products to hopefully help you make better choices.

Essentials 


I only hold a few supplement as essentials. These have stood the test of time and have been proven through many studies to works. Here is my list.

Multi vitamin- get all the nutrients you don't eat. Any reputable brand will do.
Protein- builds muscle, burns fat, replaces a meal or snack.
ZMA- For males this is essential for keeping healthy testosterone levels and great sleep. Its only zinc and magnesium so it is natural.
Creatine- proven to build strength and size and has not been proven to be unsafe although many have tried to prove it to be unsafe.
Green Tea- for weight loss this ingredient is proven to work and is natural.
Beta Alanine- great for pre-workout shown to improve strength and endurance
Caffeine- energy and fat loss, I love caffeine
Fish Oil- Tons of benefits

This is about all you really need. The reason is because these are supposed to "supplement" your diet and exercise. Not replace.

Stay Away List


You should stay away from anything that costs more than 50 bucks as a rule. The reason is the cost to benefits ratio. This holds especially true with weight loss supplements. Look at 5 different bottles of weight loss supplements and you will notice the same few ingredients listed under proprietary blend, caffeine, yohimbe, synephrine,  and green tea. Yohimbe really just gives you the "stimulant" feeling. Synephrine is like ephedrine's not nearly as good cousin chemically. Now read further into their studies, it will say subjects lost on average X lbs using the KEY INGREDIENTS found in this product. Not using this product. What happens is that you can short the amount of ingredient in a proprietary blend because companies are not required to list the exact amount of their ingredients under this blend. So economically it would make sense for a supplement company to put more ingredient in the first couple of batches of a new product to get great reviews, only to slowly take out these costly ingredients over time to make more overhead. This is why I like to stay away from products that have "proprietary blends."

Example Supplement Regimen 


Weight Gain- Multi Vitamin, Protein powder, creatine, beta alanine, ZMA, fish oil, and caffeine
Weight loss- Multi Vitamin, Protein powder, fish oil, Green tea, and Caffeine
General Health- Multi Vitamin, Protein, Fish Oil

If you choose to go Caffeine Free that is your choice.

What to Expect
Not too much is the answer. A supplement has never "made" a body. Hard work makes that. The supplement is there to just help you along. The more you rely on a supplement the more disappointed you will be. That does not mean they are worthless, it just means be smart and do not rely on them to make your body.