There have been several threads recently concerning supplements with a wide range of options voiced and I was hoping we could have a tread going were we can have an open and respectful dialog about their use and how, if you do take them, they fit into your overall nutrition program.

I personally don't consider protein to be a supplement even if you use a whey protein powder or protein bar as I would consider this to be a food and the cost I include in with our grocery budget, but I am curious if others think of protein as a supplement or food?

Also it is difficult to lump all supplements under one heading as there is a wide range of supplements that can be had depending on your goals. Most people feel differently about Vitamin C than about Anabolic Steroids.
What about fish oil or joint support? How about a green tea supplement? How about a pro hormone? I know there are a lot of strong feelings about supplements and am interested in why people feel so strongly about them and where you draw the line as far as what is acceptable and what isn't.
What about BCAA (Branch Chain Amino Acids)? Since BCAA's are found in protein are they a food or a supplement?

I personally would rate supplements in the follow order of controversy

1. Protein, I will also include BCAA and EAA in here.
2. Green food (vegetarian), such as wheat grass and yelp.
3. Multi, Fish Oil, Green tea, Garlic, etc. Food replacement.
4. Melatonin, ZMA, mineral supplements and stacks.
5. Muscle Builders, Creatine, Nitric Oxide, Glutamine.
6. Fat Loss, Hydroxycut, Lipo 6, Meltdown, ECA stack.
7. Pro hormones, Human Growth Hormone (HGH).
8. Anabolic Steroids.

Feel free to add to this list or to reorder it.

So I will start and let you know what I take and why, but first I want to say that I am not recommending this for anyone else but rather sharing so that we can discuss supplements honestly.
I don't expect the supplements I take to do the work for me, I don't blame my supplements if I don't reach my goal and I don't expect my supplements to bring miracles into my life but I do expect them to help with my transformation.
I do expect them to help, to provide a benefit in relation to the money spent. I don't expect to take most of them forever and plan on discontinuing use once they have either served their purpose or I have reached the goal the supplements were intended to help me reach. Others I think I will be on always (Multi, Fish oil etc).

So I am currently taking;

A Sports Multivitamin (to make sure I cover the basic needs of the body)
High Dose Fish Oil (6gms a day) I don't eat any fish, so this helps me get Omega 3's and high dose to assist with weight loss.
Green Tea Extract, Help with weightloss, general health
CLA, Help with weight loss, holding onto muscle while in a calorie deficit (anabolic).
Glucosamine & MSM, Joint support while lifting heavy.
BCAA (Xtend & IntraBolic), helps stay anabolic and to avoid a catabolic state when doing cardio and lifting (it is yummy so helps me drink 1 1/2-2 gallons of water a day)
CoQ10 I am just trying this, don't think I will buy any more. I like to try something new every couple of months.
Garlic, (same as CoQ10 above)
Caffeine & Ephedrine (Bronkaid), Weight Loss aid
Creatine (Green Magnitude), Maximize lifting gains and it taste very, very yummy.
Nitric Oxide (White Flood), This does give me a boost in the gym when lifting and helps get me pumped (see below for disclaimer).

The next thing on my list is a green food supplement and I will replace the CoQ10 and Garlic supplement with a green food supplement.

Now I know many people will say that what ever response I get from these supplements is just a placebo effect and they may be right but I can tell you since I started taking these I fell 1000% better everyday (It did take a while to kick in, maybe 3 weeks or so), I do get really pumped up after taking the Creatine and NO before the gym and lift heavier every time I lift. So I say maybe it is a placebo effect but I don't care because I still feel the effect.

How many of you supplement and what supplements do you take, why, and did they work for you?

If you think supplements totally suck, tell us why.

Have you ever had an adverse reaction to supplement?

Do you think that the nutritional quality of food is declining to the point of needing to supplement to replace the lost nutrition?

Hi Russ and Jeff,

Just listened to your latest show and wanted to say once again great show but wanted to question you about your conclusion about the placebo weight loss trial.

First off did the trial come with any hard numbers about length of trial, weight loss averages etc?

Also I draw the complete opposite conclusion to the study because they lost weight.

So the people were taking what they believe to be a diet pill and they eat less and exercise more resulting in weight loss. This doesn't negate the diet pill but rather shows that any diet pill can assist in a positive weight loss DUE to the placebo effect.

So this is how my warped mind sees it.

Either a diet pill works due to it's ingredients or it doesn't. If it does work great, you are getting a hand in losing the weight. If it doesn't, it doesn't matter because once you are taking it and believe it can help you if you diet and exercise, you are more likely to stick with your diet and exercise plan.

This to me seems like a win/win.

If you are talking about budget advice then I couldn't agree with you more but just on the weight loss issue then this study shows that it is beneficial to take a weight loss supplement.

My example; I take weight loss supplements, these supplements have caffeine in them, I like caffeine in the morning, I kept the supplements by the treadmill, I wake up, stagger to the treadmill, pop the supplements, get on the treadmill, and burn 500 kcal first thing in the morning, get off the treadmill and feel wide awake, ready for the day.

I might be more likely to hit the snooze button if I didn't have such a positive experience on the treadmill every morning, I have to use the treadmill to justify taking the diet supplements.
So for me diet supplements=weight loss even if it is a placebo effect the bottom line is I loss weight.

Again, thanks for the great show but I just wanted to say this study can be taken in different ways.

Cheers!

You have an interesting point about how placebos might help people in the long run, but I think there is only one ethical way that placebos should be used.

A doctor in Canada can prescribe a placebo to a patient that they will get from a pharmacy. It will be inexpensive and will most likely have a positive effect for the patient. Under the care of a M.D., this can be part of a treatment.

A private company creating products that clearly have no therapeutic effect or make exaggerated claims about what it can do is extremely unethical for society as a whole for several reasons. The worst situation, which happens thousands of times per year in the US, is when someone dies because they took non proven "alternative" medicines instead of seeking professional science based medical help from a doctor. If I believed that my weight loss was caused by taking a homeopathic weight loss remedy, I will then try other homeopathic remedies for pain as cancer spreads through-out my body. This isn't a hypothetical situation.

Another point is that is it ethical for a person to continue to spend money for years and years on a "fake" or useless product. Many people will continue to take these products after just to keep the weight off.

These are just some points off of the top of my head. I'll have to give this some more thought.

If I look at my own situation:
There are thousands of people around the world who are losing weight because of my down-to-earth advice. Any person who follows my advice will become healthier because they will truly understand how to change their lifestyle for the long-term.

I could use my celebrity as a fitness expert and say that I have discovered a product that will help people lose 10 lbs per month and start selling a placebo fake product. I could make a lot of money and it would help out some people as they continued to take my product. Some people would not have results and keep buying it and start taking higher and higher doses just in-case it worked. Others would lose some weight, stop taking my product, put the weight back on, and then start buying my product again. Others who are at high risk of serious diseases or death related to their obesity, may continue to try my product without results and then die from their obesity. How responsible would I be then? If I had continued to give them reasonable advice that always works, they would have lost weight and possibly survived?

If you are using some supplements to get that extra few percentage benefit after doing the other 95% of eating right and exercising, there isn't a problem. Most people do the opposite though.

Of your list of supplements above, the only one that I take while going through a cycle of heavy lifting is creatine. It is the only one that I have found that has the science behind it. It does help in the last few reps in a set. I realize that it is only a food product, but I simply can't eat the amount of meat that it would take to get 5 grams of creatine out of it in a day. I take the pure creatine powder and don't waste my money on all of the "creatine" infused supplements. The rest of your list of supplements that are simply based on foods, I would rather get them from eating a balanced diet of real food. Things like fish oil caplets have calories and give you no enjoyment or satiety for eating them.

Hydroxycut has now been pulled because of liver injuries and one death tied to it...

Multivitamins are a pet peeve of mine - unless you have a measurable lack of one vitamin or another all long term studies have shown that taking vitamins as a supplement does not help and can even hurt, in the case of specific vitamins such as vitamin A. Personally, it seems like a money making scam to me, maybe not originally but considering the data today.
And btw why are you taking CoQ10?

Yeah i've heard everyone say take CoQ10, but man that stuff is SOOOO expensive, i can't believe that something so small could make as much of a difference for such a high price.

I take the Animal Pak, and have been cycling their Cuts product for a few cycles now.
Overall i've been impressed, but i think this is my last cycle for a while, i want to bulk up a bit, see if i can fill in some of this loose skin

Like Jeff said, the only supplement with repeated scientific proof of it helping is creatine. There's plenty of articles about proper cycling, and am definitely going to go back on it during a bulk period. I don't think i'm going to go with a NO booster though. Cause before it was just a pre-workout drink. Now there's a while-workout NO booster, and a post workout NO booster, where does it end? Maybe for someone looking to really bulk up these would help, but that's not my goal. I can say, i've tried a few NO boosters during my last bulk up period, and they definitely give you a jolt, but all of my extra money would be going to supplements, so i think i'll just stick with good old inexpensive creatine and caffeine

Hi All, Thanks for your replies.

Jeff, I agree with most of what you wrote except I do think that

If I believed that my weight loss was caused by taking a homeopathic weight loss remedy, I will then try other homeopathic remedies for pain as cancer spreads through-out my body.

is a very weak argument as that is more about the intellect of the person seeking remedy and a big jump from taking green tea or fish oil to cures for cancer.

I think that most of the problems I think I have with your stance on supplements is what we define as supplements. You see, I can't understand why you would want to turn people away from green tea, fish oil, multi vitamins, etc which is the message I get from you. I understand you are more likely directing your comments at the likes of Muscle Tech etc crap but what about Milk Thistle for liver support while losing weight? an NO booster during your work out, a muscle gainer or a serious multivitamin.

Where do we draw the line? You say you take Creatine when lifting heavy because of the studies that support it as effective but if I get pumped up after taking an NO and life heavy then isn't that more powerful than a study as I can FEEL it's effect (no placebo effect)?

I agree that most supplements are over hyped crap but some are useful depending on your goals and like every product you buy you need to be an educated consumer before you lay down your money or like most industries there will be someone trying to take advantage of you.

I really think that it would be better to educate people on supplements that just make a blanket statement that all supplements are worthless.

Yes as stated most of my personal supplements are things I can get from food but I think like most people I don't always eat as well as I should and the supplements help make sure I get what I need. I don't eat fish, that is a personal preference, I never really have as such a fish oil supplement can help balance my omega-3s and 6s, so for me a fish oil supplement does help me, but if you eat 6 serving of fish a week then it might not help as much. I would rather drink tea than take supplements but hate the taste of tea so taking the caps is the best way for me to get this beneficial product.

What do you think?


Fable Fairy- I agree if you are a couch potato and eat a very good and varied diet that hits the RDA of everything you need then multivitamins may not be necessary but if you are really putting your body through some big changes and working hard then the RDA properly will not be enough to fuel the changes.
Personally for me, I noticed a MASSIVE change when I started to take a multi after not taking one for several years, my god, my energy levels went up and even my mood improved dramatically. Maybe it isn't for everyone but for me a good multi will be the first thing on my list, every time.

Hey Matt, I got a great deal on the Q10 at Costco so thought I would try it due to the hype I had heard on it. I really don't think it had done much for me and will not be buying it again but I might be getting everything I need from other supplements that the Q10 doesn't make a noticeable difference. I really want to try the animal paks but still have 200 tables of AST sports multi to go through first. I could then drop a couple of my other sups as they are included in the animal paks.

Good to see you have had some success on Animal Cuts although I haven't tried it yet. I tried several other fat burners but after taking an EC (-A) stack I don't think I will go back to another store brought product (for both price and effectiveness).

Have you tried White Flood yet (you can get free samples of it from bodybuilding.com, that is what got me on to it) mixed with green mag (creatine) yummy! I get really pumped up on this combination. That said you can't go wrong with CC (no not Canadian Club

Before my workout I take the creatine and NO, during I drink Xtend (mainly for the taste but it is also good to drink while doing cardio) and a Protein (mass gainer) after the workout. That covers all the bases I think

Cheers all!

Oh, and to completely blow my stance on supplements out of the water, here is a great article on the supplement industry from Sports Illustrated.


http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1155395/1/index.htm

Enjoy.

I agree with you that education is the most important thing to get across with supplements and that is the goal when talking about them on the show. There are thousands of different supplement products on the market (most of which are crap)so blanket statements are the only way to deal with them most of the time.

Some of the ones that do show a benefit, only show a very small benefit. Products for weight loss that use stimulants are only a temporary and minor help. Even things like caffeine are adapted to quite quickly and are only a short-term help.

The main reason that I don't encourage the use of supplements is because they are still only the "5% portion" even if they do show some benefit. The problem with most people is that they focus too much on the supplements because they are the easiest part of fitness and weight loss. People who are using supplements rarely only spend 5% financially on them compared to other things like spending money on a gym membership or a cookbook.

If someone has the other 95% of their healthy lifestyle down, then if they want that extra little boost they should go that extra mile. I don't have my own fitness and nutrition down better than 90%. Personally, to get my program up another 5%, I would rather stop eating a chocolate bar once a week than start taking daily supplements to try and compensate for eating that chocolate bar.

I have one general guide for myself on supplements: if they worked that well, they'd be banned in professional sports.

An awful lot of the ones that do work are

Keeping that in mind, I just eat a little better, train a little harder, and spend the potential supplement money on other things (nicer bike, better power meter, etc)

Thanks for your reply Jeff,

To add weight to your earlier comment about taking supplements leading to alternative medicine for cancer care here is a great article from MSNBC.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31088185

Keep up the great work, I eagerly anticipate your next podcast!