Hi Warriors! I’ve got a post and a half for you today. One of the most frequently asked questions I field as a trainer and teacher has to do with what supplement one should or shouldn’t take. These are super loaded questions and the answers are different for each of us. Today I want to share how I decide if a supplement is worth my money.
Background
In the quest to make money, supplement manufacturers are preying on the most basic of our insecurities. Ads and influencers on social media have certainly exacerbated this by trying to convince us that they have the missing piece. All of this leads to huge amounts of confusion. Throw in the vastly different goals that different individuals have and it is enough to make the head spin.
Before I dive into the more specifics, let me reiterate that you do not need supplements. Regardless of your training goal, supplements are meant to supplement. It is also important to recognize that most of what is being marketed to us via commercials, social media, or just walking into a GNC or Vitamin Shoppe are supplements.
Address Deficiencies in Your Diet
This actually segues to the first set of questions I like to get clients thinking about. What does your typical diet look like? Not an ideal day but over the course of a week or so. Do you tend to eat the same or very similar things? Are you getting a variety of different colored plants? Good quality protein? Enough complex carbohydrates to support exercise and proper recovery? Are you well hydrated? What is your typical pattern – read are the weekdays very locked down and the weekends a free for all or do you stay fairly steady allowing for fun meals equally throughout?
My point here is you need to address your typical diet FIRST. So close the ad, stop watching the influencer, and/or walk out of GNC. Again, regardless of goal, changes to your actual intake should be what comes first. If you aren’t hitting protein requirements from diet, then supplements will only take you so far. If you aren’t getting enough carbohydrate to sustain a workout, then training will be ineffective. If you aren’t in a consistent caloric deficit (and most of us aren’t honest about this one) then you won’t be losing weight.
Address diet changes first. If after a period of time (I usually recommend a minimum of 8-12 weeks) you still aren’t seeing progress, then you can think about supplements. And there is a codicil (my three dollar word for the day) to this, too. We have been conditioned to expect big amazing progress immediately. Be realistic; that is unlikely. Look for the smaller things that indicate you are moving in the right direction. Remember, progress comes from consistent and sustained effort.
OK, let’s say you have been consistent with dietary changes for two to three months and you still aren’t seeing much progress. I get it, it happens. Each of us has our own unique physiology and sometimes that means we need a bit of extra help. Or, a really common issue, life is busy and it is just tough to hit protein requirements consistently.
View With a Critical Eye
My first rule of thumb when looking at a supplement is to actually look at the material in front of me. Be that a Facebook ad, an Instagram influencer, or the display/salesperson in GNC. Go into these interactions remembering that these companies are trying to make money. Then take a good, critical look at what is being said. Super slick ads with little to no information are just that. And remember that if anything sounds too good to be true, it most definitely is. No supplement will net you crazy fast results nor cure everything that ails you. Run, don’t walk, away from that ish.
If the claims seem reasonable, then the next thing you want to ask is if this particular supplement actually fits with your goals. Consuming more high quality protein is admirable, but unless you are looking for a lot of hypertrophy (and are strength training to induce it) most of us are able to meet this requirement through diet changes. Thus stopping the process before looking at ads.
Safety
You have found something that fits with your goals and isn’t promising the moon. The next step is to make sure that what you’re looking at is safe. There are a couple of different ways you can do this. Any supplement category that is well established will have a myriad of options to choose from (i.e. you shouldn’t see just two on the shelves or be told that this particular one is special). There are a bajillion different protein powders because just like with exercise, the basics work. Well established supplements will also come with very specific dosing/usage instructions (i.e. caffeine and creatine).
In looking for supplements that are safe, you also want to look for a reputable brand. These will vary depending on the specific type of supplement you are looking at, but the easiest way to tell is to look for the USP or NSF seals. These are third party verifiers that determine if the ingredients listed are accurate, safe, and to the potency advertised. You can also check anti-doping websites. The World Anti-Doping Agency maintains huge databases that list safety concerns for just about every supplement known.
OK, you’ve found something reasonable for your goals and is safe. Next, it’s time to check out reviews. While I caution putting too much weight on these, they are helpful for flagging any side effects. Now, in the safety step, you should be noting any scary side effects (i.e. ephedrine and heart palpitations) and running from those. But sometimes users will note tummy upset, feelings of heaviness, allergic reactions, or other issues that you may not want to deal with.
Science
If the supplement in question has made it this far, then congratulations. Most don’t. But you aren’t done yet. Now it is time to really separate the wheat from the chaff. You want to look for the science. I have provided two different links above for the same product, Accelerade. And if you scroll and read a bit, you’ll notice that both pages provide a bunch of numbers with science sounding claims. “Increases endurance by 29% and decreases muscle damage by 83%.” When you see stuff like this, it’s time to go hunt down where the company is getting this information.
Here is the product page for Acclerade on Pacific Health, the manufacturer. If you scroll down a bit, after the spot where you can order the product, you’ll find a description box with tabs. Click on Science and Pacific Health provides the studies conducted on their product. They have the summaries (called abstracts) of the peer-reviewed journal articles.
This is what you want to see. Peer-reviewed journal articles. This is a fancy way of saying that someone (usually universities or research firms) studied a particular product, wrote up their findings, and then asked a bunch of other people in the field to double check their work before it was published.
If the product you are looking in to only lists the claims and the science is hard to find, you can copy and paste the supposed findings with the product name into Google Scholar. If there is a study where the numbers came from, it should be in the first 5 hits. Note, you need to use Google Scholar, which restricts searches to journal articles. You may also need to modify search criteria. You’ll notice here, that I changed the brand name of the product to the generic description, “carbohydrate protein beverage,” as many research trials are blind and the researchers themselves don’t know specifics (for the record, that’s usually a good thing as it reduces bias in the outcome). As soon as I made that simple change, the first hit is the study that suggested those details.
If you can’t find hard science, assume that the manufacturer made it up. And then congratulate yourself for being smart enough not to fall for their very expensive snake oil scheme. If you have hard science to support the claims and everything else checks out, then you have found a supplement worthy of your hard earned money.
I know that it seems like a lot of steps, but I want to stress that as you are putting these things into your body, you should feel comfortable with what you are buying. And remember, that the most expensive option doesn’t mean it is the best. A basic $15 tub of whey protein powder will do just as much for protein supplementation as the fancy $60 GNC version.
Disclaimer: I am not necessarily recommending Acclerade and I have no affiliation with Pacific Health Labs. This post is not sponsored in any way and no money was exchanged. Much of the initial research on this product was done by colleagues while I was in grad school. As I saw it first hand, I know that this data is accurate, which is the only reason I chose to highlight Accelerade.
What tip did you find most helpful? Let us know in the comments and until next time, be well friends!
