Supplements and Vitamins

[TradLife406]

I really don't care for the hype and marketing of supplements. When I was fat I thought snorting lines of MTN Ops would make me Cam Hanes.

Well I needed a dietitian to teach me how to eat.

Now that I've got that figured out I'll take just a multivitamin and creatine. I don't pay huge money for it. Bull Supplements seems to be the best bang for your buck. I can buy two pound bag of Creatine for 50 bucks. Same stuff that's in the small tubs I was paying 25-30 for. Same with multivitamins. Buy almost a years supply for cheap.

You can't out supplement a bad diet or not understanding how to eat to achieve a given goal be it weight loss gain or maintenance or a reverse.

 

[Bama67]

Another big problem is that, although it has gotten better lately, medical professionals often don't know shit about nutrition. Tons still think the food pyramid was fine (6-11 servings of breads and cereals LOL)

Even my Mothers cardiologist tells her that beef and eggs are bad, and grains/bread/sugars are fine. When her Little Debbie and Soft drink habit earned her a double bypass in the first place.

 

[KenLee]

Another big problem is that, although it has gotten better lately, medical professionals often don't know shit about nutrition. Tons still think the food pyramid was fine (6-11 servings of breads and cereals LOL)

Even my Mothers cardiologist tells her that beef and eggs are bad, and grains/bread/sugars are fine. When her Little Debbie and Soft drink habit earned her a double bypass in the first place.

Don't be up in here bad mouthing Lil Debbie. She's sacred to 90% of hunters.

 

[19hunt92]

Ive been down this for a while now. There are 3 levels my family has started doing
1st:
Eat healthy, by that, what we do is meat, eggs and we eat greens out of the garden only when in season. Meat is 90% harvested and processed by us. Eggs are our own chikens. We can and freeze vegetables from the garden at their freshest to try and keep items longer as well as a root cellar that keeps potatoes and canned goods...plus wine but that is a cheat day item to us. Cut out all oils except for olive oil.
We stay active, i work out at least 3 days a week but do property management, so hard telling what that counts as.

2nd:
Suppliment with vitamins/minerals. I take a B12 vitamin, ADK vitamin, Quercetin, tumeric, a lutein vitamin for eye sight, and magnesium. We are going to take a methylation deficiencies test to optimize these vitamins as well. None of these are synthesized by cyanocobalamin

3rd:
Long term improvement is we are cutting out all tap water (easy for us on a cistern system). Removing all plastic packaging where we can. Not heating up items in plastic. Potatoes lose the negative effects on starch when you cook, let cool down and then re-heat again. Improving the garden/greenhouse to have fresh vegetables as close to year around as we can. Starting to raise more animals for food (pigs) and control what they eat.

This can get exhausting to be self reliant...

 

[wstribling]

You should be eating a balanced diet where you are getting most of your nutrients from food etc.
Creatine and Protein are probably the only supps you "need"- other than that you should focus on food intake and clean eating first and foremost.
Have you gotten your blood work done? If not start there- it'll give you an insight into what your body is really needing if anything.

 

[westonhoma]

You should be eating a balanced diet where you are getting most of your nutrients from food etc.
Creatine and Protein are probably the only supps you "need"- other than that you should focus on food intake and clean eating first and foremost.
Have you gotten your blood work done? If not start there- it'll give you an insight into what your body is really needing if anything.

Great tip. I went and got bloodwork done like a month or so ago. I feel like it should become more of the norm. Especially for people trying to make a change and take their nutrition more serious. I can see myself just getting that done annually.

 

[Poser]

It only costs me about $25 to get my bloodwork performed so I've been getting mine checked every 4 months or so. I'm currently taking quite a few supplements and the bloodwork results have improved quite a bit. I had a knee injury back in November that resulted in a considerable inflammation spike that shot my numbers up in some concerning areas. I have had bloodwork twice since then that showed a correction and then a dramatic improvement. Several of these are to address inflammation specific to a knee injury and then to provide some building blocks for potential tissue regeneration (which is controversial: surgeon said no way, but some MDs think otherwise -worth a shot either way as there are other benefits. I will say my recovery exceeded all expectations by a country mile).

Currently taking:
Vitamin D
Zinc
2 types of magnesium
fish oil
turmeric
Glucosamine/Chondritin/MSM
B3/Niacin
Nitric Oxide
Boswelia Extract

Fadogia Agrestis + Tonkat Ali
Ashwaghanda
CBD

 

[RaggedHunter]

I have a recent supplement eye opening experience to share.

I am 32 years old, I have hypertension. I have had (or at least know about) said hypertension since I was in my early to mid 20's. My average blood pressures were 150's/160's over 95/105. Worst blood pressure I recorded was 165/110.

I'm a fairly healthy guy, I've been active and exercised fairly regular the majority of my life. Several years ago after a health fair at work where the above 165/110 reading was recorded, I decided to the Dr. about it. I was told that they weren't sure the root cause, they said it probably just runs in my family but that there was no known root for the cause because overall I'm a fairly healthy guy. They started me on blood pressure meds, they put me on metoprolol. I have been on this for about 3 years and it has kept my blood pressure around 125-130 over 87/90 range. Still not amazing, but much better than it was.

Recently like many others I have started listening to guys like Huberman etc. One guy I have come to really enjoy, is Gary Brecka. In one of his videos, he talks about people who have hypertension, but the Dr.s cant explain a reason for it, just blame it on genetics and put patient on blood pressure meds, which attack the heart, but the heart is doing nothing wrong. My takeaway was that the blood pressure meds are just a band aid to get the blood pressure to an acceptable range, but you haven't cured the root of the issue.

His recommendation was to try a supplement, an amino acid called TMG (Trimethyglycine). He offered an explanation for why this works that I wont go deep into, but I will put a link to the video you can watch for yourself if you are interested.

Either way, I was very skeptical. I figured what the hell, I'll order a bottle off amazon and give it a try. Worst thing that could happen is my blood pressure starts to climb back up and I get back on my prescription.

It has been just over a month now, I take 1,000mg (2 pills) of TMG a day. My blood pressures are the best they have ever been since I can recall, better than they were on my prescription. I have been averaging 118/120 over 75-82. These blood pressures have maintained for a little over a month now. I kind of expected them to start creeping back up, but so far they seem to be holding steady.

I certainly think there is a ton of snake oil type supplements on the market. But I am now a believer that if your body is deficient in certain things, that there is incredible benefit to figuring out and supplementing those particular deficiencies.

Here is a link to the video clip of him explaining the supplement & science for anyone who is interested. There is a longer clip out there somewhere but I couldn't find it. This gives you the idea though.