Step 3: Select Your PRIMARY Supplements
Once you’ve determined what your MAIN fitness goal is, you can start to pick out the PRIMARY products that will make up the foundation of your supplement program. You see, the sad reality is that most supplements, no matter how flashy the ad, will only bring you about 2% added gain toward your objectives.
But there ARE some “heavyweight champions” that have been tested and proven to bring you dramatic results and form the core of any personal supplement program design. What is key to point out however is that many of these supplements are helpful only because they make up for deficiencies in our diet. Over-processed foods, pesticides, heat treatment, and other advancements” of civilization have stripped away many of the nutrients that our bodies were used to getting WITHOUT supplements.
Trending diet patterns toward fast “convenient” meals and away from whole grains, organic fruits and vegetables, seeds, nuts, and lean meats have put many athletes in a position of requiring extra output from their body through intense training but an insufficient nutrient intake to allow the body to accomplish what it is you want it to accomplish.
For that reason, you’ll find that many of these primary supplements are simply gap-fillers between an ideal diet and your current one. It will be up to YOU to decide the quality of your current diet program and which supplements you can use to plug up any of your own gaps.
Here are some of your best options for your PRIMARY SUPPLEMENTS:
Multi-Vitamins/Mineral Complex.
The true foundation of a dietary supplement program is the mighty multivitamin/mineral supplement.
No matter how good you think your current diet is, because of the degradation of nutritional quality of our food, it’s virtually impossible to get all the quality nutrients you need solely from your daily meals. This is especially true for athletes or those training to build muscle or lose body fat.
While some texts for advanced athletes will tell you that since each person has a very specific vitamin/mineral requirement that should be analyzed and individually created, this high-cost option is neither cost-effective nor practical for the average person training their body.
Enter the MULTIVITAMIN/MINERAL!
Multi’s provide you with broad-spectrum coverage, complementing a healthy diet to ensure that all your essential nutritional requirements are met. Think of them as the “nuts and bolts” that hold all of your body’s machinery together.
If you were driving a car whose engine were missing a few bolts and others were rusting out, it’s only a matter of time before your engine blows a gasket. A daily multiple is even more important for the many people (you know who you are!) who know they have nutritional gaps in their diets.
(Think “dieters who are starving themselves to lose weight...office workers with their deep fried lunches eaten much too fast while hiding in their cubical...and college students living on coffee, pizza, and microwave nachos!)
In fact, a lack of vitamins and minerals seem to be the norm for us these days, not the exception. For example, intakes of iron, folic acid, and calcium are consistently found to be lower than the recommended levels in the diets of women.
Men need more zinc to keep testosterone levels maintained yet we typically excrete more than we take in on a daily basis. And this is just the beginning!
Now when choosing a multivitamin/mineral for your personal supplement program, you must consider your lifestyle. The “take-one-pill-and-forget” type of multivitamin works for people who don’t have the privilege of having a team of personal scientists and nutritionists guiding them every step of the way, are too busy to take several pills each day, and for those who have trouble remembering to take pills throughout the day.
However, I’ve found that multiple, smaller doses of a multi throughout the day are better absorbed and is an easy habit to develop with just a minimum amount of structure for even the busiest of lifestyles.
For example, do you know those “pill boxes” that little old ladies use to keep track of their daily medications? You know...the ones with a compartment for each day of the week?
Well, granny has the right idea and even for busy executives and college students, loading up each compartment with the day’s multi (and other supplements) allows you to easily stash it away in a briefcase or lunch bag and take it to work or school for the day.
Bring it home at night for resupply and your ready for the next day! Now the key to shopping for a good multivitamin/mineral complex is to take the time to thoroughly read all label information and not just the price tag.
While reading labels, your first priority is to find a multivitamin supplying at LEAST 100% and 300% of the RDA (Recommended Dietary) for most of the essential vitamins and minerals. However, for training athletes and those of us who are more “active” those levels may not meet your needs if your workouts are particularly intense. Look for multi formulas specifically designed for athletes as these are most likely a better profile for your specific needs.
Once you’ve located some possible options, start reading the labels. Stack each multi side-by-side to compare the amount of various nutrients to see which one offers the most comprehensive lineup of nutrients.
Look at how many nutrients are offered, percentages of RDA, and whether it’s a giant “one-horse-pill” dose, or a multiple dosage packet for each day’s consumption (usually the better option in my opinion).
No matter which supplements you choose, save yourself some money and store them away from light and heat since both can degrade the nutrients in multivitamins, reducing their effectiveness and leaving you with substandard results without even realizing it. And, finally, you should take any and all multivitamin/mineral supplements with a meal.
Many people report feeling nauseous when taking a multivitamins on an empty stomach. But when food is present, your body is primed to absorb nutrients, and nausea is less likely to happen.
You should also avoid drinking soda, coffee, or tea with your vitamins, as they can interfere with absorption. Any products containing caffeine act as diuretics, flushing your system of fluids and interfering with the uptake of vitamins and minerals.
Antioxidants
Our body’s cells are under attack! Unstable molecules, known as “free radicals”, are continuously bombarding our cells looking for a way to degrade function. These molecules are unavoidable in our body as they’re produced as a result of air pollution, cigarette smoke, environmental toxins and even due to the food we eat. And free radicals are nothing to be ignored as they are believed to be an underlying cause of numerous health conditions, including cancer and heart disease, and contribute to the signs of premature aging.
But for the athlete, they’re ALSO the bitter sworn enemy to any bodybuilding or fat loss program as they impair the cellular function you need to build muscle and burn fat. While your body has some defenses against free radicals, supplemental antioxidant nutrients will help deactivate them and limit their ability to do damage to your body.
Vitamins C and E, two of the body’s primary antioxidants, can safely be taken in supplemental amounts well in excess of the RDA to optimize your protection of your body. Some other examples of antioxidants you should consider adding to your nutrition plan are:
· Alpha-Lipoic Acid
· Carotenoids
· Coenzyme Q10
· Selenium
· Zinc
· Green Tea
· And even red wine!
Protein
Protein is one of the three big macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) constituting about a fifth of our total weight or roughly half of our dry mass. After water (and sometimes, depending on the body, fat) it is the most plentiful substance that makes up our bodies.
Proteins are an essential part of all living organisms and participate in every process within cells. They take on many roles, such as acting as enzymes that catalyze biochemical reactions and comprising the structural or mechanical function for forming the “scaffolding” that maintains a cell’s shape.
Proteins are a primary component of muscle, bone, connective tissue, cartilage, collagen, elastin, and keratin and are vital to your body’s metabolism. Are you starting to see just how important protein is to your overall bodily functions and survival?
But since we can’t synthesize all the amino acids we need for survival, proteins MUST be obtained from the food you eat, whether plant or animal based, to provide our bodies with these essential building blocks. And because excess protein is not stored in the body, you have to eat enough of the right kind of protein on a continual basis for optimum performance.
Your body actually uses various combinations of specific amino acids to create new cells so this constant replenishment is necessary in order to ensure a steady supply of the important building blocks it needs to run smoothly.
The DRI (Dietary Reference Intake) currently suggests 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of total body weight. But let’s face it...athletes in training require more protein than that because strenuous exercise and heavy lifting actually tear muscle cells in an effort to force new growth.
Rest and recovery, with the proper nutritional support, allows your body to rebuild your muscles stronger and larger. However, contrary to the marketed claims of supplement manufacturers and misinformed bodybuilding “experts, only a small amount of extra protein is required for the growth and remodeling process since muscle actually grows quite slowly, even when stimulated correctly.
To make matters worse, continuous bouts of intense exercise that outpace the growth process wears heavily on your entire system. Scientists in sports medicine have found that, with intense strength and volume training, the harder the workouts and the more frequently they are performed, the more likely you are to “overtrain” and the more difficult it is for you to remain in a “positive nitrogen state”.
Maintaining a positive nitrogen balance (PNB) is essential for growth and recovery and to achieve it, you must consume more nitrogen (or protein) each day than what you lose via your metabolism.
Protein Supplement Sources
There are many sources of protein you should consider in your dietary and supplement program including meat, soy, egg, milk, casein, and whey proteins. Eating a variety of proteins is important in order to get a good spectrum of essential amino acids (those which cannot be synthesized by our bodies), which in turn produce non-essential amino acids (which we can synthesize, using the ingested essential amino acids as source material).
Making sure you get enough protein, which translates into enough essential amino acids, is the most important aspect of a properly functioning body, which in turn optimizes your recuperation from the stress of exercise and allows maximum muscle growth.
The “Biological Value” (BV) of a protein is the measure of just how easily it can be broken down into a form that can be used in protein synthesis in your cells and THIS is the best way to determine the “quality” of a protein for purposes of proper assimilation.
When the Biological Value system was introduced, eggs were given the highest BV rating of 100 because they were the most bioavailable natural protein available. Later, once whey was isolated from milk, it was shown to have an even higher BV.
Depending upon the process used to generate it, whey’s BV can yield percentages from 104 to 159 on the Biological Value scale. The following is a list of the various protein sources and their BV scores.
Whey protein isolate – WPI (Max BV – 159) Whey protein isolate (WPI), with a max BV of 159, has the second highest yield of protein currently available. (I’ll briefly mention the top source in a minute.)
A derivative of milk protein, WPI’s molecular structure makes it absorbable within as little as 10 minutes of ingestion. WPI is by far the best value for its cost. However, it should be noted that popular dietary advice recommends that due to it’s rapidly assimilated protein profile, WPI may degrade quicker in the body and not stick around long enough to provide you with a steady stream of amino acids for sustained muscle growth.
But that may not be the case as current research may hold a few surprises for us The “new protein on the block”, Hydrolyzed Whey Protein has an even HIGHER BV rating than Whey Isolate.
That would make HWP even more likely to quickly leave the body “protein-less” due to its VERY rapid uptake since basically it’s already pre-digested. However researchers testing this theory found that HWP not only provided the most bio-available source of protein of any of the choices...but ALSO maintained the highest amount of available amino acids up to 3 hours AFTER ingestion!
That’s SHOCKING news for the supplement world in my opinion and may suggest that Whey Isolate may not degrade as much as originally thought! Nevertheless, more research must be conducted and, in my opinion, Whey Isolate is STILL the best value for your supplement dollar.
If protein degradation is a concern for you and you’d like to slow down the digestion process, you should take WPI with milk instead of water as the casein in milk protein will slow down the digestion of the whey and give your body more time to absorb it.
But there are ALSO periods when WPI’s rapid absorption is a huge benefit to your fitness goals. During your post-workout recovery time, the cells of your body – having experienced considerable stress – are prepared to soak up whatever protein you can take in.