Jan 12
7
Supplement Overload
It’s that time of the year again. New Year’s Resolutions are the biggest time of the year for supplement companies and gyms to take advantage of everyone’s motivational levels being so high.
Many of you will rush out to the store and grab all kinds of vitamins, bottles and magic potions. Unfortunately, many of them will be a complete waste of money.
Remember acai berry? Remember how it was supposed to make everyone lean and skinny? Where is it now?
In this post I am going to do my best to give you a very short list of supplements that I currently take and believe are worth looking into for yourself.
1. FISH OIL
This is #1 for a reason. If there is only 1 supplement that the general public should take, it would be fish oil.
Why: Fish oil has dozens of awesome things going for it, including: Slows Biological Aging (Journal of American Medical Association), helps with weight loss, lubricates joints and reduces inflammation, and decreases risk of cardiac arrest to name just a few.
What to Look for: Make sure your bottle says ‘molecularly distilled’ and free of metals. If not, it could contain dangerous mercury and toxins and actually harm you.
Make sure the potency is at least 50%. Ex. Look at the back of the bottle and add the DHA with the EPA, and then divide this number by the total fat.
2. MULTIVITAMIN
Quite a few people already take a multivitamin; unfortunately many of them are pretty terrible.
Why: Multivitamins are a great insurance policy for getting your essential vitamins in throughout the day if your diet is not spot on.
What to Look for:
#1: If your multi is a ‘one a day’ you are wasting your money. It’s impossible to get everything you need in just 1 pill a day. Your body is in contstant need of vitamins and minerals and is best absorbed when taken throughout the day. These one a day brands are so popular because…they are cheap. That’s it. Would you buy a piece of crap car that breaks down all of the time? Of course not, so why do the same to your body?
#2: Check out the calcium. Many brands have calcium listed as elemental calcium, which is nothing more than ground up oyster shells. You can probably guess, but oyster shells are definitely not absorbed by the human body. When looking for calcium, make sure it ends with -ate, such as calcium citrate.
#3: Look at the Vitamin E. There are 8 types of Vitamin E. When looking at your bottle, make sure that it does NOT say dl-alpha tocapheral. The little “l” in dl shows that it is synthetic. Not only is it not absorbable, but it can also be harmful to you!
3. VITAMIN D
You will see this out in the news a lot this year!
Why: 90% of US citizens are Vitamin D deficient from lack of sunlight. D is necessary for optimal functioning of many tissues in the body. Deficiency of D is linked to a number of things; including osteoporosis, several types of cancer, high blood pressure, depression and several other diseases.
What to Look for: Don’t get tricked into spending a lot. Keep recommendations at 2,000 IU’s per day. Do not go above 10,000 IU’s.
So, there you have 3 of the daily supplements you should consider adding to your daily regimen.
I am always being asked what brands I recommend, so I put together a page of these 3 and a couple of other daily supplements I use. These are a high quality brand and meet all of the requirements above.
Check it out here… http://njfitnessbootcamp.com/supplements/
