Daily Supplements

[jlee1]

I just recently started taking a couple of supplements to aid my lifestyle. I take 3mg of melatonin at night to help me sleep and a basic multivitamin in the morning for a balanced diet. I am also thinking about Omega 3 and 5-HTP. Does anyone have experience with these products? What do you guys take for your well-being?

 

[classy]

Dear God, lol, I take at least 50 different tablets a day

 

[TallBill]

I make my own pre-workout with BCAA's, EAA's, creatine, caffeine, and fast digesting carbs.

Post workout and once or twice a day a shake with ON Gold Standard Whey which has Glutamine in it.

Other than that i'll take flax oil or fish oil and sometimes Valerian root or melatonin to assist with sleep.


I've taken a lot of supps before and might again, but keeping things basic and focusing on lifting, eating real food, and sleeping is the best.

 

[Malfeas]

I eat an apple before I work out, I eat pickled beets after I work out. I do however take ZMA and glycine before bed, sleep like a dead baby. Oh and a multi in the morning.

 

[taq8ojh]

The older I get the less nonsense stuff I take.

If your diet is good, you do not need to take one damn extra thing. The only thing I woulf still partially believe to work is creatine, but most everything else is really power of placebo, for ordinary humans at least. A bodybuilder on juice who works out extremely hard six days a week might actually benefit from all the other stuff (like, BCAA and glutamine for example), but good diet is still above everything else.

It's especially obvious when you see all those skinny guys who weight maybe 70kg, maybe 60 in extreme cases, who buy all this overpriced shit, and when you speak with them for a while it turns out they hardly eat at all, and when they do, it's the lowest quality junk - or they simply have absolutely zero idea how diet should look like and how much of what is one supposed eat.

I don't even buy any stupid protein powder anymore.
And yeah, coffee is good universal booster.

 

[colonelciller]

health supplements are mainly based in pseudoscience... which is to say that their "supposed benefits" are pulled from the nether regions of marketeers in the advertising departments of billion dollar health supplement corporations.

buying into that nonsense is being tricked by a business.
some things are rooted in science however (vitamin D for one).
knowing how to tell the difference is simple (PubMed).

the placebo effect does work wonders for the uninformed however... maybe it is better to stay ignorant and just study marketing pamphlets on the off chance that the placebo effect will help out...
/enjoy

 

[classy]

A good diet is always the foundation, but supplementation is essential. Not for the guy who does light exercise, but those who workout 3-5 times a week rather seriously should never skip supplementation. Experimentation is needed, not everyone benefits from the same supplements. Example, I don't benefit much at all from creatine, probably do to the fact I am a major meat eater. I also have to supplement majorly with vitamin D. Without it my vitamin d levels are very low. I get blood tests run twice a year checking everything including test levels.

 

[RFE]

With respect to vitamins, I take a vitamin C supplement. While there's always the quality of the mfg to keep in mind, vitamin C is supposed to have several benefits.
http://www.mensfitness.com/nutrition/supplements/supplement-guide-vitamin-c
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/nutrition/vitamin-c

 

[taq8ojh]

Keep in mind that body only needs so much, and you just piss the rest out no matter what. To benefit from higher (not necessarily high, but just higher) doses, you'd have to take it intravenously, and that's probably not something 99% people would do.

 

[pauldun170]

Only supplement I take nowadays (outside of Whey isolate + almond milk) is magnesium.

 

[Juddog]

Keep in mind that body only needs so much, and you just piss the rest out no matter what. To benefit from higher (not necessarily high, but just higher) doses, you'd have to take it intravenously, and that's probably not something 99% people would do.

Your post only really pertains to water-soluble vitamins and minerals and doesn't cover macro nutrients etc..

 

[taq8ojh]

What is a macro nutrient?

 

[Java Cafe]

What is a macro nutrient?

Short answer: protein, fats, and carbs. Long answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macronutrients .