One of the questions I'm most frequently asked, both from members on the gym floor and in my DMs, is which supplements someone "should" take. Before I get into that, let me just state that I'm not a doctor nor am I a registered dietician. Please also note that this post contains some affiliate links.
My hope is that after reading this post, folks will come away with a few things:
An understanding of the proper role of supplements in your health and fitness
Resources to learn more about the ingredients in supplements on the market so you know what you're putting in your body
Links to supplements that I personally recommend and stand behind
The short answer I always give people who ask me which supplements they're "supposed" to take is simple: You don't need to take any supplements.
I know, it's probably not what you wanted to hear, but the unsexy truth is that if your nutrition and a healthy, active lifestyle is reasonably dialed in, you likely don't need any supplements whatsoever.
The body will get nearly everything it needs from most sensible approaches toward nutrition. This is normally true regardless of whether you're vegan, a meat eater, paleo, pescatarian, and so forth. By eating to fuel your body and being aware of what your caloric and macronutrient needs are, based up on your lifestyle and exercise routine, you may be doing fine as it is. Which bring me to the first big suggestion: Track what you eat.
I use the MyFitnessPal app to log what I eat. I've been doing this long enough to where I don't track what I eat every single day anymore, but I usually track what I eat for about one week our of every month. This helps me ensure that I'm still staying on track when left to my own devices. By tracking what you eat and tracking your workouts, you'll pretty quickly see if there are any gaps in your nutrition that you may want to consider plugging up with supplements.
For example: Let's say that based on my body metrics and my training style, my protein goal for each day is 248 grams. And let's say it's in the late evening after dinner, and I'm still about 50g short of my protein goal. Well, a scoop of protein powder in a shaker of water will do the trick to get me damn close to my goal. This is a good example of how supplements can - as the name implies - supplement your nutrition.
Shortly after I started working out years back, I got swept up in the social media blitz of supplement marketing and I tried so many supplements, many of which wrecked my digestion and energy levels. There's A LOT of products on the market that make blatantly false claims because they know the average person isn't willing to do a little bit of homework to research what they're about to buy and consume. I highly recommend researching ingredient claims with Examine.com whose sole focus is to review new scientific studies and distill it down for the average person, to educate themselves.
Many companies also use "proprietary formulas," which is just a marketing term that loosely translates to, "We're using a lot of fillers and ingredients that do absolutely nothing, but telling you it's magic and will make all of your dreams come true. Now pay us $59.99 for this container of mystery powder."
When I do buy supplements, I pretty much only buy them through Legion Athletics because of a few different reasons:
1) Not many supplement companies tell you, front and center on their home page, "You don’t need supplements to build muscle, lose fat, and get healthy. But the right ones can help."
They're not in business to push supplements on anybody, but they have a goal of providing some of the best and highest quality products you can find if you feel that you want or need some.
2) Every ingredient in every product of theirs is backed by published scientific research that demonstrates clear benefits, and why only clinically effective doses are used. When new research emerges, the folks at Legion are not afraid to revisit their formulations.
When they change their ingredients, they email anyone who has purchased that product to explain what they changed and why they made the changes. They even go so far as to cite the research studies that prompted the changes.
3) Their products taste great and mix well. Anyone who's taken a cheap protein powder and choked down a shaker full of what feels like liquid chalk knows what I'm talking about!
I know I sound like a fanboy but these are just a few of the reasons why the only supplement company I've chosen to refer people to is Legion. So, which supplements do I recommend?
Multivitamin
Most of us don't eat enough fruits and veggies to adequately provide enough essential vitamins and minerals. Legion's multivitamin is offered in unique formulations for men and another for women.
For those on a budget, a simple one-a-day multivitamin from Costco or your local grocery store usually does a good job of plugging the gaps as well.
For those who want a more fine-tuned vitamin approach, companies like Care/Of let you specify what you want in your daily vitamin packs, based upon your lifestyle and health concerns.
Fish Oil
According to one of my favorite resources for peer-reviewed health and fitness research, Examine, "Fish oil is a source of omega-3 fatty acids. It reduces triglycerides, but does not seem to affect the rate of cardiovascular events. It seems to notably reduce the symptoms of depression and improve some painful, inflammatory conditions."
Your mileage may vary with fish oil. For me, I take it daily and when I fall out of my routine of taking a fish oil capsule every day, I can feel stiffness in my joints, especially my knees, hips (childhood medical issue), and one of my shoulders (injury from lifting like a moron before I was a trainer). The reported benefits of omega-3 fatty acids are numerous enough that even when I don't feel a marked improvement, I still feel comfortable knowing it's doing it's thing inside my body.
I've tied a number of brands and the only two that don't make me burp up fish oil taste, is the big bottle from Costco and the Triton, the fish oil sold by Legion Athletics.
Protein Powder
The beneficial uses of a high quality protein powder are pretty much indisputable by this point. Nobody wants to choke down sip after sip of chalky, grainy powder that won't completely dissolve. I've tried many different brands and I can say with 100% honesty that my favorite is the Whey+ Whey Isolate Protein Powder from Legion Athletics. They even have a plant based protein powder for those who want to avoid animal byproducts.
It mixes well into both milk and water with minimal effort and the flavors taste great. I'm a sucker for their Dutch Chocolate flavor because it also helps with my after-dinner sweet tooth. I mix up a scoop of that with 10oz of milk and it tastes like a chocolate milkshake.
So there we have it! Those are my supplement recommendations for the average person.
As an added bonus for reading this far, if you use my referral code - DEGUIA - on your order, new customers can save 20% off their order and returning customers can earn double the reward points!
As always, if you have any questions, reach out and let me know! I'd love to help!
Cheers,
Daniel