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Supplements: Introduction
Diet supplements, as name suggests, are useful only when your diet is not complete and does not provide enough nutrients, vitamins and minerals. This is important to remember, because supplement companies claim that we need lots of nutritional support, and in large quantities. This, of course make you buy more. For instance, every bodybuilding magazine, book and guru claims you need hundreds of grams of protein per day. But the truth is that your body can use only 46-63g of protein a day (which you can easily get from food), and everything above is being converted by the body to glycogen (a blood sugar) and stored as body fat. Ever wondered why your abs remain covered despite hardcore training and diet? Some claims were created by supplement makers to make you spend money, not make you fit.
Supplement market grew and became huge industry in the last decades. Actually, this market is so big that some drug companies felt threat and tried to enforce de-legalisation of supplements. Sport supplements industry's profits are huge, and count in millions. This tendency is growing, and there are more and more small gyms closing down and moving its business to supplement sell only, which gives an idea how profitable this business is. In large part, this is due to the belief in “magical pill”, and many indeed believe that you can grow muscle and loose fat overnight. Posters and billboards, online banners, adverts in magazines – all are packed with images of men and women on steroids – advertising sport supplements. Colourful labels and brand names became guide for many men and women interested in better, fitter bodies. But not many know, or want to know what actually is in these supplements, which invited companies to produce many “special formulas” or “revolutionary products”, packed with mere amino-acids or vitamins and labelled as “anabolic”, super strength wonderful products.
Supplement market is flooded with not working products, fake claims and can make beginner lose a lot of money and time counted in years, before he learns what really works and what is just designed to make money. Labels, product names and claims are misleading, and customers are being manipulated. What is worse, law allows pro-hormones to be sold as supplements. Most pro-hormones are sold on supplements sites, like any other normal supplement. But entire problem is, that pro-hormones are not less dangerous than regular steroids. In fact, these substances can be more hepatotoxic (damaging to the liver), than injectable steroids. Recent research found, that many popular supplement brands in UK, USA and other western countries add pro-hormones to their products without even listing them on the labels (for instance Universal Animal Pack). These products really work, but the price you may pay for it is something you should think about.
Another thing you should beware of, are so-called designer steroids. These are pharmaceutical formulas created in laboratories and sold as supplements. Sometimes they get banned, and then companies change their structure and bring them back to the market claiming they are totally save, improved. But in fact these substances convert to the same chemicals in the body and still possess danger to health. Unfortunately, there is so many laboratories around the world working on new chemical structures of steroids, that no anti-doping agency can test them effectively in so short time. In many cases, companies selling them earn huge money before product gets banned. The best way is to avoid all chemical and pharmaceutical supplements, and to buy pure, clean products without additives. All “gainers” and all-in-one products are potentially packed with additives. Stick to brands like MyProtein (www.myprotein.co.uk), where you can buy high quality pure products in bags and save money on packaging and colourful labelling. Stick to basics.
Most changes in the body take years to become visible. Most natural bodybuilders, long before anabolic steroids entered the scene, knew that gaining up to ten pounds of lean muscle a year, is both natural and healthy. Patience then. There is no magic pill, there are only life-long changes followed by life-long benefits.
Supplements: Introduction by Jack Vineyard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 UK: Scotland License. ______________________________________________________________________
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