Supplements and the such

Good evening folks!

I'll start off by saying that today is my off day for working out, and a great one at that.

Here's the diet for today:

Breakfast 1: 50g of protein through shakes, which we'll talk about today
Breakfast 2: A large bowl of Trix (we'll chat about this too.)
Lunch 1: Homemade venison stew
Lunch 2: Coffee. Ha.
Dinner: More pizza.  I know, I'm ashamed.

I told you yesterday we were going to talk about supplements.  Reading through Muscle and Body from GNC, you pick up a little bit.  I haven't tried them all, and I haven't done "independent studies."  But from what I've gathered, if I exercise and have a great diet, by using these supplements, I can be cock diesel in 90 days!  Cough.  Right.

Here are the supplements I use, and why I use them.  I also must say this, SUPPLEMENTS ARE NEVER BETTER THAN ACTUAL FOOD!  This is important.  Having 50g of protein shake is not better than say, 50g of protein from fresh salmon.  Real food > Nutrition Supplements.

2 gummy multivitamins in the morning.  That's right, I take gummy vitamins.  Want to know why?  Because they taste good and they're easy to take.  One-a-day vitamins have between 80-133% of my daily recommended vitamin intake.  That's just to supplement anything else I don't get during the day.  And cmon, gummys are awesome.

When I get to work, I take 2 green tea/caffeine pills.  Now, you'll probably look at me and wonder why I take these things.  The main reason?  160mg of caffeine, and 40,000 thermal units of capsaicin.  Add in some EGCG for good measure (not sure what it does besides an antioxidant, but whatever) and you have a pretty decent supplement.  Caffeine is a known mood booster, wakes you up in the morning, and also apparently aids in thermogenics! (Burning of fat.)  Capsaicin also aids as an appetite suppressant.  My buddies and I when cooking used to put habanero peppers in our foods to help keep us full.  Surprisingly it worked.  Does it work in pill form?  I don't know, but it hasn't hurt me yet.

You can also just drink coffee if you want to attempt the same effects.  I take the pills because it's similar to chugging 2 cups of coffee.

I also take 2 more either after lunch on break days, or 30 minutes before I work out in the afternoon.  The caffeine aids in my lift.  Helps me push out that extra rep.  Simply because my heart feels like it's about to explode.

Let's talk about some protein.  I don't know the difference between whey, casein, etc. proteins.  I do know whey protein has a higher BV (biological value) than any other food.  From what I've gathered, the BV of a food is basically how well that type of protein absorbs into the body.  Dave told me once that it doesn't really matter what the BV is unless you have to watch your protein intake very carefully- I believe him.  But for a fun fact, whey protein has the highest absorption rate.

I've used about 7 different protein powders throughout my days.  I've settled on 2 that I think taste the best, are light on the stomach, and just make me feel decent overall.  Optimum Nutrition's Rich Milk Chocolate and GNC's Amplified Wheybolic 60 are the two.  There are some that are lighter, and easier on the stomach (there are some that pride themselves on being light enough for cancer patients (isopure)) but I chose these two.  They both pack a wallop in a serving, (30 and 20 grams per scoop, respectively,) and taste fantastic.

They're also relatively inexpensive.  You can usually get a gold card BOGO of the GNC, and vitacost.com has some great deals on the ON protein.  When you see me taking a protein shake, its either one or both of these products.

I also take some yohimbe at night.  I don't really know if it helps, but studies show it helps with male sexual health, and aids in some fat burning.  I take it just because it's cool looking.  Dave, you think you could comment on this?

That's it for now.  As I said earlier, some people pride themselves on key ingredients in XYZ supplements.  I'm broke. I can't afford super expensive things.  Everything I've said here, minus the vitamins, you can get in Costco sized containers that would feed a small army!  Nothing super special, just some simple things to aid in your nutrition.

Dave always told me that "you can't look for motivation or results in a bar, or a shake, you have to look for them within."  This really stuck with me.  These things won't give you results if used simply by themselves.  In fact, too much protein gives you the worst smelling bowel movements ever.  (I've lived with body builders in two different states and times in my life,) and won't really do well.  They're there to simply AID you in the process.  1/10th of the equation.  I try and eat my 180g of protein a day, but I find it difficult to do so.  I can only eat so much!

Also, if you're looking for a bar, try the 2:1 bars that you can find in GNC or random spots on the internet.  The caramel almond ones are my favorite.

Tomorrow we're doing lower body.  Just a heads up, we'll be doing squats (front or back, I haven't decided yet,) as well as some reverse lunges.  I'll be doing sitting and standing calf raises, and probably working abs again.

Keep motivated, and talk to you later!

-Justin