Ok, first let’s clear something up here…
If you think buying yourself a shake or popping a few pills will suddenly make you huge, think again.
No supplement will help you if you are not training and eating the right diet; they will only give you very expensive urine. All aspects of your program must be in place for you to get the maximum benefit from sports nutrition supplements. From my experience, supplements enhance your program by:
1. Add an Element of Convenience – Using food supplements like Meal Replacement Powders and Whey Protein help eliminate the common “not enough time” problem by giving you a quick and efficient way to get your nutrients necessary each day.
2. Increase strength and decrease recovery time: Using vitamin and amino acid supplements helps minimize the negative side effects of weight training and speeds up your recovery.
The benefit of convenience
There are many ‘old school’ trainers and bodybuilders who profess the futility of supplements. They are constantly preaching that they don’t work and that you don’t need them. Well, to tell you the truth, they have a point. Remember that not long ago there were no supplements. Bodybuilders built massive physiques without meal replacement powders, creatine, or prohormones.
There was no such thing as exercise “machines”. They used multi-joint compound free-weight exercises that not only increased their muscle size, but also made them incredibly strong. So if you look at it that way, it can be done and you don’t need any supplements. However, the decision to use or not supplements must involve consideration of other factors that may come into play when it comes to diet today. The first of which is time.
Many people today simply do not have time to live, eat and breathe food. Very few people like to cook, and even fewer do it on a regular basis. When was the last time you ate six meals that you cooked yourself? Many of those who are against dietary supplements continue to preach that you should get all the nutrients you need from your diet. ‘Eat a balanced diet and you will get all the nutrition you need.’ Well, 100 years ago that may have been true, but today this kind of advice is questionable.
The fact is that most people’s idea of a good meal is restaurant or (even worse) fast food. Asking someone to eat specific amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrates seems like an impossible request when you consider that most people can’t even get the minimum requirements for good fats or fiber. Experts will continue to chant “eat a balanced diet” while Americans feast on nutrient-free fast food and sugar. Our bodies not only have to deal with the increasing external stress of everyday life, but they also have to combat exercise that damages tissue and depletes nutrients.
If I didn’t have the option of supplementing my diet with whey protein, I probably wouldn’t have gained as much weight as I have. Now, I’m not saying that whey protein is the reason I gained weight, but it helped a lot.
I’m usually very busy and simply don’t have the time or desire to eat six planned whole food meals a day. Supplements like meal replacement powders and whey protein fill this gap for me.
I typically eat three meals of real food and three meals of protein supplements, which makes up the required six meals per day. When I’m away from home or can’t get a proper meal, my MRP is always there when I need it. It gives me a measurable amount of protein so I can keep track of my nutrient intake. In my opinion, this is much better than just grabbing something and then trying to guess how much protein, fat, or carbs you just ate. Getting all the required foods and nutrient amounts is crucial to your success.
My massive diet requires a very high daily intake of protein – more than 300g per day. Just to give you an example of how much that is, here are some examples of what 300g of protein equals:
Tuna: 50 ounces of canned tuna (the average can is 6 to 8 ounces), which has 1,750 calories and 25 g of fat
Chicken: 38 oz chx breast (equivalent to about seven 6 oz breasts), which is 1,313 calories and 38 g saturated fat
Beef: 43 oz of lean ground beef (about 2.7 pounds of meat), which has 3,214 calories and 215 g of saturated fat
Eggs: 50 large whole eggs equals 3,750 calories and 250 g of saturated fat
Egg whites: 100 egg whites equals 1600 calories and almost no fat
Pure whey protein: 15 scoops of EAS Precision Protein equals 1,500 calories 7.5g saturated fat
It is quite possible to get this amount by eating only whole foods, but it will take work. Plus, as you can see from the numbers above, getting all your protein from regular foods will also bring in a lot of unnecessary stuff, like extra saturated fat. Yes, our goal for mass gain is to eat a lot of calories (including fat), but the main fat intake should be unsaturated fats that are liquid at room temperature, such as olive oil, flaxseed oil, sunflower and safflower oil. Whey protein supplements will help give you the extra protein without the fat.
Greater strength and less recovery
In addition to a whey protein supplement, I recommend everyone take a multivitamin, lots of vitamin C, and glutamine. Creatine can also be added if you are over 18 years of age.
Multivitamin
Weight training increases the body’s need for many minerals such as magnesium and selenium. The multivitamin ensures that you are not deficient in any important essential vitamin or mineral. Deficiency symptoms include muscle weakness and suppression of the immune system, muscle cramps, and fatigue.
I always take a multivitamin without iron, because adult men don’t need extra iron. We get enough of our food. Men and postmenopausal women should never take iron supplements unless they have iron deficiency anemia, which is only diagnosed by blood tests. The body has no way of removing excess iron except through blood loss. Menstruating women are protected from iron overload, obviously. Iron is also an oxidizing agent that can damage the heart and arteries, and is a major risk factor in arteriosclerosis.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C is essential for preventing free radical damage, which is accelerated after the heavy trauma of weight training. It is also essential in helping to repair connective tissue, which helps decrease the amount of time you are sore. I train very heavy and extremely hard. When I train my legs, they usually hurt for about 5-6 days afterward.
If I don’t supplement my diet with vitamin C, I would normally be sore for almost 10 days! So, it really helps me recover and get back to training. I usually take around 3000mg in divided doses. That would equal a few oranges!
glutamine
Glutamine is an amino acid that is produced by our bodies, but most of the time our bodies demand so much that they cannot create enough of it. I supplement my diet with glutamine to increase my glutathione levels. Glutathione is a powerful antioxidant that helps combat the stress of exercise trauma and prevents muscle protein breakdown.
I especially think it helps prevent my body from breaking down my new muscle while I sleep, so I never go to bed without taking it. I take around 15g per day (in divided doses), which would be impossible to get naturally.
Creatine Monohydrate
The purpose of creatine is to supply energy to our muscle. It’s also found in red meat, but you’d have to eat a huge amount of meat to get the same benefits as taking pure creatine powder. Everyone knows about creatine, so I won’t go into that here, but I want to say that the main benefit of taking creatine is that it will increase your strength.
This will allow you to lift heavier weights, which will stimulate more muscle growth. Many people make a big deal about the muscle-volumizing effects of creatine, because if you stop taking it, you lose that extra fluid that creatine brings to your cells. So what! You will certainly NOT lose the extra muscle that creatine helped you gain.
I can honestly say that I could not have built the body that I have today without the convenience and enhancements that supplements provide. I just don’t have the time or desire to do it any other way. This is a choice you must decide for yourself. You’ll be spending your money on these products, so make sure you know their place in your program.
Don’t get sucked into the product hype. The supplements will help, but they will NOT do the work for you.
